Neviim & Ktuvim

As we saw in the last shiur, even thought Yehoshua was supposed to wipe out all the 7 nations in the land, he didn’t, and as you can see in the map from Shiur #1, there is quite a lot of eretz hanisheret, of left over land that has not been conquered, left full of non Jews. In perek 2 here, the malach comes to bochim and rebukes Am Israel for this sin.

The goal of this shiur is to discuss with the chanichim the original command to wipe out the 7 nations originally. Is this ideal? Or is it genocide? Why would Hashem want us to wipe them out, why can’t we live with them?

Goals: Teach the story of Gidon

Goals: The chanichim should see Ehud Ben Gera’s strengths as a leader, in how he used creative measures to save Am Israel, and how he used his own weaknesses to his advantage in battle.

Goal: The chanichim should see from this story the anarchy and immoral behavior that took place during the time of the Shoftim, largely because there was no king or strong central leader in charge. They will also see the irony and the backwardness shown in this story by the people who should be leaders.

Goals: The chanichim will discuss that despite Shimshon’s true reason for living amongst the Pelishtim and starting up with him, he will become influenced by the end, and start giving into his ta’avot and his need for revenge. This will ultimately lead to his downfall.  The question in all of these stories is what are Shimshon’s intentions? Is he really 100% doing this as an undercover mission, or is he taking a lot of fringe benefits (women, power, strength, revenge)? Also the chanichim will discuss the difference between koach – physical strength – that Shimshon definitely has, and gevurah – spiritual strength, which it seems he lacks, and what we can learn from this about what the spiritual personality should be of a leader.