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Goal: The chanichim will discuss the downfall of Yiftach, though debating the issue of whether or not he sacrificed his daughter (and why!) and the massacre of Bnei Efrayim. View Resource Details
Goals: The chanichim should understand Yehoshua’s strengths as a leader and how he differed from Moshe.The chanichim should understand the challenges Yehoshua faced leading the Jews during the transition period from life in the Midbar to life in Eretz Israel. View Resource Details
Goals: Teach the story of Gidon View Resource Details
Intro: In our last shiurim, we focused on Yehoshua. Now, we will move onto Shoftim, and compare it to Yehoshua. We will also outline the two themes in this Perek which will continue throughout Sefer Shoftim.Lack of leadership – manhigutFailure of Am Israel to kick out the other nations in Israel (hitnachalut- settling the land) – which leads to them worshipping avodah zara, as they are then influenced by those nations.Lack of unity among the shevatim - achdut. They act as separate nations and not as one cohesive unit.Goals:(1) The chanichim will see the failures and lack of leadership of the Shoftim generation by contrasting the first two perakim of Shoftim to parallels in Sefer Yehoshua.(2) The chanichim will realize the issues created due to Bnei Israel not taking initiative to finish conquering the land and kick out the avodah zara worshipping nations. View Resource Details
Goal: The chanichim should see the irony in the Am Israel going to war against Shevet Binyamin, and how in this civil war, they accomplish everything that they were not able to accomplish when attempting to conquer the land in the 1st perek. This ends the Sefer on an extremely depressing note, stressing again that Am Israel need strong moral leaders in order that anarchy and events like this civil war, do not happen again. View Resource Details
Goal: The chanichim should understand why Pilgesh B’Givah was such a horrible event – because it happened in a Jewish town by Jewish people, and how absence of leadership in Am Israel at this time allowed this to happen. View Resource Details
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. View Resource Details
Goal: Chanichim should see why Avimelech is such a terrible leader and what negative leadership traits we learn from him, and what happens when no one appropriate steps up to fill a leadership role. View Resource Details
Goals: Teach about the general pattern of Sefer Shoftim, and about the events of Ehud View Resource Details
Goal: The chanichim will discuss how Shimshon is an extremely strange Shofet, and how this was all on purpose; that Am Israel needed an undercover Shofet who could work undercover, living amongst the Pelishtim, to fight them single handedly on behalf on Am Israel. The chanichim will discuss why Shimshon needed to be a Nazir to offset the dangers of this mission and will discuss the story of his birth and the characters of his mother and father- Manoach and Eshet Manoach. View Resource Details
Goals: The chanichim should analyze the leadership skills of Devorah and Yael versus Barak. Devorah and Yael step up to the challenge and provide leadership from the side, when no leadership is coming from the men.The chanichim should start to see the instability of the Shoftim cycle – there is no one clear leader (Devorah, Barak or Yael?) and the disunity of the Shevatim (only the ones in danger come to fight). View Resource Details
Backround: Since there are many different ways to present and teach this Perek and so many different things to focus on, I included a lot, but you guys can choose which of these aspects you want to discuss in your shiur.Goals: Chanichim will understand the messages and the various themes in Shirat Devorah, why Devorah sings Shirah after this battle, and why we should sing Shirah in general. View Resource Details
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. View Resource Details
בפעולה זו נברר יחד עם החניכים את מאפייניו של המנהיג האידיאלי, ע"י הכרת דמותו של דוד המלך.מתוך כך נלמד להבחין בין סוגי המנהיגים השונים ונפנים את המידות החשובות למנהיג ולנו.דוד המלך הוא סמל למנהיגות ביהדות, הוא צומח מתוך העם ולמרות שהוא נרדף וחייו אינם קלים הוא לעולם לא מוותר, הוא שומר על אופיו ולא נכנע- גם כשיש לו הזדמנות לפגוע בשאול שרודף אחריו ולא נותן לו לחיות בנחת- הוא לא עושה זאת מכיוון ששאול הוא המלך. גם כשהוא חוטא- הוא חוזר בתשובה ומבקש מהקב"ה שימחל לו. לא סתם אנחנו מתפללים כל יום למשיח בן דוד, משיח מזרע דוד – הוא משיח בעל תכונותיו של דוד המלך. מהסיפור הזה אנחנו לומדים כיצד ראויה להיות דמותו של המנהיג שלנו ולפי מה לבחור אותו- לא לפי מראהו או עושרו, אלא לפי צרוף תכונות אילו. ואם דוד, שהיה רועה צאן, הצליח להגיע להיות מלך ישראל- כל אחד מאתנו יכול להיות מנהיג, הרי דוד מלך ישראל חי וקיים, איך הוא חי וקיים? בנו , בתכונות המנהיגות שבנו. View Resource Details
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. View Resource Details
Goals: 1. The chanichim will see that in conquering the land of Israel, Hashem will provide us with miracles and help, but only if we take initiative first. All the battles fought at the beginning of Yehoshua (at the beginning of conquering the land) were a combination of miracles and teva - natural battles. Hashem, through Yehoshua, is teaching Am Israel how to fight in a natural way.2. The chanichim will see Yehoshua’s role as a ruchani and religious leader, not just as a general in battle. In all the battles that he leads and in his speeches, Yehoshua always has the same message: G-d will only help us in battle if we keep His mitzvot and the Torah. View Resource Details
Goal: Chanichim will see how Yiftach (in the beginning of his leadership), unlike Avimelech, uses his drive for power and leadership to try and become a good shofet and the Moshiah who will help Bnei Israel. View Resource Details
Goal: Teach about the life of Shimshon: being a Nazir, his battles with the Pelishtim View Resource Details
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? View Resource Details
Goals:The chanichim will see the creative measures with which Gidon fights, and how he has progressed as a leader.The chanichim will discuss why Gidon refuses to accept the offer to become King, and how if he had accepted, he might have ended the Shoftim cycle for good. View Resource Details
Goal: Through the story of Gidon, the chanichim will discuss the issues of:When its acceptable for a leader to step down.Striking a balance as a leader between helping the community and taking time for yourself. View Resource Details
Aim: The chanichim should learn about the qualities a leader has and the challenges a leader must face, within the framework of the story of Joshua ben Nun to teach them about his life! View Resource Details
חידון התנ"ך על ספר שמואל א' ועשרה פרקים ראשונים של שמואל ב' View Resource Details
Goal: Teach the story of Barak and Devora View Resource Details
Goals:The chanichim should understand the different stages of the Shoftim cycle and how it differs from the system of Melucha-Galut.The chanichim should understand the general structure of Sefer Shoftim and how it is in a downhill spiral.Intro: In our last shiur we saw how Am Israel failed to fulfill their mission by Yehoshua and left a lot of the land unconquered. Then the Malach came to them in the beginning of Perek Bet to yell at them for not fulfilling their job, and not taking initiative to conquer the rest of the land.Now we move onto a 2nd problem which is a direct consequence of Bnei Israel not taking initiative to conquer the land. There are now many, many avodah zara worshipping members of the 7 nations hanging out around Jewish towns in Eretz Israel. They start influencing Bnei Israel to do Avodah Zara as well.(Feel free to get into a discussion here about peer pressure, when are we influenced by our environments and when not, how do you balance being in an environment where people around you have different values {public school, secular college, a rougher chevra} and maintaining your values and individuality…etc). View Resource Details
Goals: The chanichim will discuss what leadership characteristics we can see in Gidon, and why he was chosen to be the Shofet.The chanichim will discuss why Gidon refused at first to accept the leadership of being a shofet, and if this is an appropriate response. They will discuss the questions: How does one balance being humble with stepping up to be a leader? How does one go from doubting oneself as a leader to realizing their potential? View Resource Details
