Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Lovely Morning, Thank G-d! I Needed It

For those who are hoping for a real juicy reality show, sorry, I don't feel like exposing myself and family on what's driving me crazy at the moment.  No doubt I will at some point, but I need to let things simmer and settle and jell and wait for further develpments and surprises etc.

But now for what I did this morning.  My neighbor and I were up bright still dark and early and took the 6:30am bus to Jerusalem.  We went to the pre-Yom Kippur study day at Matan.

For me the best shiur was the first, by Dr. Yael Ziegler, who started off by reminding us of some basic chronology.  Ruth and Chana lived in pretty much the same time period.  These two women changed the world, changed Jewish History.

It's not that I agree with every single thing she said.  She didn't place enough importance of Eli the Priest's failure as a prerequisite for Chana's contribution.  If Eli had been of greater talents, leadership and understanding, Chana wouldn't have had to pray for a child to take over.  Yael mentioned that both Elkanah (Chana's husband) and Eli were in favor of status quo, and I think that's the basis for Elkana's obnoxious statement to Chana in which he says he's as "good as ten sons."  He didn't understand that it wasn't her maternal instinct, biological clock,  that she was worrying about.  She was worrying about the self-destruction of the Jewish People.

Sounds rather familiar...
Maybe this should also go on Shiloh Musings....

2 comments:

Risa Tzohar said...

Dr. Yael Ziegler is an amazing scholar and speaker!

Batya said...

Top notch and she looks so young.