Category Archives: Lech L’cha

Secondary Source: Reasons for Returning: Hannah Senesh – MS, HS

Leave a reply

Download the secondary sources here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Secondary Sources: Reasons for Returning: Hannah Senesh

Hannah Senesh (Szenes) 1921-1944

Hannah Senesh chose to run away from horror and then chose to go back there. Her story is completely different from that of Hagar, yet both leave and then choose to return from the reality they fled from. Hannah was not forced to go back, but did that of her own free will (was Hagar forced to return, or just strongly advised to?). Hagar received a promise for her child’s future from an angel of God, while Hannah found her death upon returning to Hungary – yet despite these differences, the comparison is worth exploring.
Leaving

Hannah Senesh, was born in Budapest. She demonstrated a literary talent from an early age, and she kept a diary from age 13 until shortly before her death. Although her family was assimilated, anti-Semitic sentiment in Budapest led her to involvement in Zionist activities, and she left Hungary for Eretz Yisrael in 1939.
Returning

Watching the war in Europe, in 1943 Senesh knew she had to do something. She decided that her knowledge of Europe could help save Jews. She joined the British Army and volunteered to be parachuted into Europe. After special training in Egypt she was one of thirty-three Israelis chosen to parachute behind enemy lines. The purpose of this operation was to help the Allied efforts in Europe and establish contact with resistance fighters in an attempt to aid Jewish communities. In March, 1944 Senesh was parachuted into Yugoslavia with the goal of making her way to her native Budapest. On June 7, 1944, Senesh crossed the border into Hungary. She was caught almost immediately by the Hungarian police. Throughout her ordeal she remained steadfast in her courage, and when she was executed by a firing squad on November 7, she refused the blindfold, staring squarely at her executors and her fate. In 1950, Senesh’s remains were brought to Israel and re-interred in the military cemetery on Mount Herzl.

lechlecha-returning-ss-image

Ya’akov’s bones were also brought back from Egypt with the Exodus, traveling with the Israelites and then finally buried in Canaan – what kind of journey is it to have your bones brought back for burial? Why might you want this?

Image source: wikimedia commons

Discussion Plan: Consequences and Responsibility – MS, HS

Leave a reply

Download the discussion plan here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Discussion Plan: Consequences and Responsibility

  1. If I give you permission to play ball outside the house and a ball goes through the window, who is responsible for the broken window?
  2. You loosen the wheel on the bike of someone intending to scare them, but they ended up getting hurt. Are you responsible for them being hurt?
  3. You help your friend with their homework. Are you responsible for their good grade?
  4. You introduce two people and they become friends. Are you responsible for their friendship?
  5. Your parents don’t give you permission to go to your friend’s sleepover party and your friend is angry with you. Are your parents responsible for the anger?
  6. You know your friend is shoplifting but don’t say anything to anyone. Later, she gets caught and gets into trouble. Are you at all responsible?
  7. Your sister stays out after curfew . Your parents ask your opinion on what to do, but you tell them to do whatever they want. They ground her for a whole month. Are you responsible for her harsh treatment?
  8. You tell your parents that your brother has started smoking. They ask you to try to get him to stop. Are your parents living up to their responsibility?
  9. You give a beggar a dollar. They buy a lottery ticket and win. Are you responsible for them now being wealthy?
  10. Your friends ask to borrow some money. You think they are going to buy cigarettes. They do. If they get sick, are you responsible for their health?

Leading Idea: Going from – Going to

Leave a reply

Download the leading idea description here: PDF pdf-icon

Leading Idea: Going from – Going to

When you decide to move, does it make a difference if your reason for making the move is tied to leaving behind the place you are currently in, or tied to the place you heading toward? Sometimes the place we are heading towards is also a place we once chose to leave (coming home after camp, leaving the home town where we grew up, then coming back there later in life). Sometimes that ‘return’ is from a place our ancestors left generations before (Jews going to live in Israel, second or third generation immigrants returning to their parents/grandparents’ country of birth). Is a return to place always motivated by the desire to be there or can there be other reasons to ‘return home’?
Susan Babbitt, writing on American slavery notes that the decision to leave often also involves a bold step of imagination. In going to this involves the capacity to imagine one’s life differently from how it is, and perhaps to imagine yourself capable of things you have not yet done. To have both to desire change and some imagined life that you are moving toward. In going from imagination also comes into play, as it may involve playing out the consequences of staying where we currently are. Of course both might be the matter of implusive action (without much forethought) – but is that the case here?
Hagar has left Avram’s house and she is ‘on the road to Shur’ – heading back toward her place of birth, Egypt. It looks like she is fleeing from one home and returning to another home. Yet she turns around and returns to the place of conflict – her home with Avram and Sarai (and that doesn’t seem to turn out too well for her!). These discussion plans explore going form and going to and the reasons we might have for making these journeys.

Discussion Plan: Running from, Running to – LPS

Leave a reply

Download the discussion plan here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Discussion Plan: Running from, Running to

  1. When you run away, do your problems run with you?
  2. Is it possible to run away without leaving home?
  3. Is hiding from someone a kind of ‘running away’?
  4. If people know where you are going, are you still running away?
  5. If you are running away from something, are you always running to something else?
  6. Are there times when running to something, is always running away from something else? Can you give an example?
  7. If you run to your mother when she comes home from work, are you running from anything?
  8. Can you think of some circumstances when running away would be a sensible thing to do? (if so, what might they be?)
  9. Can you think of some circumstances when running away would be a brave thing to do? (if so, when might that be?)
  10. Can you think of some circumstances when running away would be the wrong thing to do?

Intertextual Sources: Deciding when to leave – Reasons not to leave – MS, HS, A

Leave a reply

Download the intertextual sources here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Intertextual Source:  Deciding when to leave – Reasons not to leave

Look up these further references in the Torah: What do they tell us about reasons people have for leaving and reasons they have for staying? In what ways do they involve ‘going from’ and in what ways are they a matter of ‘going to’?

  1. Bereshit 12: 10 – Abram goes to Egypt
  2. Bereshit 27: 41-45 Ya’akov leaves the family home
  3. Bereshit 30:25 – 31:18 – Ya’akov decides to leave Laban.
  4. Ruth1:12-19 – Story of Ruth. Orpha decides to leave Naomi, but Ruth decides to stay with her.

Secondary Sources: Going from, Going to – MS, HS, A

Leave a reply

Download the secondary sources here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Secondary Sources: Going from — Going to

“Know from where you came, where you are going, and before whom you are destined to give a judgment and accounting.”
Mishna “Pirke Avot”, ch.3:1


American Slavery

Sethe is a central character in Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved. She is a slave who runs away to find freedom but is eventually caught and made to go back. This description of Sethe’s escape comes from Susan Babbitt in Impossible Dreams. It is a vivid account of the experience of leaving.

Sethe describes her escape from slavery, saying, “I did that. I had help, of course, lots of that, but still it was my doing it; me saying, Go on, and Now.” Nine months pregnant and alone, she struggles through the woods on swollen, blistered, bare feet. She does take conscious control of her life for that short, difficult time… “
Susan Babbitt in Impossible Dreams

Hagar in Art

Look at this picture –Having read the story of Hagar, is there anything in this interpretation that you find interesting?

lechlecha-ss-image

“Hagar Leaves the House of Abraham”
Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577-1640,
Flemish Baroque Painter


 
Image source: http://www.artbible.info/art/large/826.html

Discussion Plan: What is the Meaning of “Blessing”? – LPS

Leave a reply

Download the discussion plan here:  Word word-doc-icon  PDF  pdf-icon


Discussion Plan: What is the Meaning of “Blessing”?

  1. Can people give blessings, or only God? If people can give them, do you think there is a difference between a blessing given by God and a blessing given by a person? Explain.
  2. Can you ‘give a blessing’ without blessing someone /something?
  3. Is there a difference being blessed and being a blessing?
  4. Could you ‘be a blessing’ if you had no effect on those around you?
In Verse 3 God says:

 וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה

And all the families of the earth

shall find blessing through you.

What do you think this means?

Secondary Source: She’s Leaving Home – MS, HS, A

Leave a reply

Download the secondary sources here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Secondary Sources: She’s Leaving Home

Play “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles. Try analyzing it according to some or all of the following; (i) good reasons for leaving, (i) drawing lines, (iii) rhetorical questions, (iv) running from/running to

She’s Leaving Home Lyrics – The Beatles

Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.

She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.

She (What did we do that was wrong)
is having (We didn’t know it was wrong)
fun (Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, bye
She’s leaving home. Bye, bye

Lech L’cha (Bereshit 16: 1-13) בראשית טז א- יג

Leave a reply

Download the text here:  Word word-doc-icon  PDF  pdf-icon

Bereshit 16: 1-13

   בראשית טז א– יג
1. Sarai, Avram’s wife, had not borne [children] to him. She had an Egyptian maid, her name was Hagar.

א וְשָׂרַי אֵשֶׁת אַבְרָם לֹא יָלְדָה לוֹ וְלָהּ שִׁפְחָה מִצְרִית וּשְׁמָהּ הָגָר:
2. And Sarai said to Avram, “Behold now, God has held me back from bearing; please come in to my maid; perhaps I will be built up [with sons] from her.” And Abram hearkened to Sarai’s voice.

ב וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרַי אֶל אַבְרָם הִנֵּה נָא עֲצָרַנִי יְהֹוָה מִלֶּדֶת בֹּא נָא אֶל שִׁפְחָתִי אוּלַי אִבָּנֶה מִמֶּנָּה וַיִּשְׁמַע אַבְרָם לְקוֹל שָׂרָי:
3. Sarai, Avram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her maid, at the end of ten years of Avram’s living [dwelling] in the land of Canaan, and she gave her to her husband Avram for a wife.

ג וַתִּקַּח שָׂרַי אֵשֶׁת אַבְרָם אֶת הָגָר הַמִּצְרִית שִׁפְחָתָהּ מִקֵּץ עֶשֶׂר שָׁנִים לְשֶׁבֶת אַבְרָם בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן וַתִּתֵּן אֹתָהּ לְאַבְרָם אִישָׁהּ לוֹ לְאִשָּׁה:
4. And he came in to Hagar, and she became pregnant. But when she saw that she was pregnant, her mistress became less important [lowered in esteem] in her eyes.

ד וַיָּבֹא אֶל הָגָר וַתַּהַר וַתֵּרֶא כִּי הָרָתָה וַתֵּקַל גְּבִרְתָּהּ בְּעֵינֶיהָ:
5.  And Sarai said to Avram, “The wrong [injustice] done to me is upon you! I gave my maid into your bosom, but now she sees that she is pregnant, I have become unimportant [lowered in worth] in her eyes. May God judge [do justice] between me and you!”

ה וַתֹּאמֶר שָׂרַי אֶל אַבְרָם חֲמָסִי עָלֶיךָ אָנֹכִי נָתַתִּי שִׁפְחָתִי בְּחֵיקֶךָ וַתֵּרֶא כִּי הָרָתָה וָאֵקַל בְּעֵינֶיהָ יִשְׁפֹּט יְהֹוָה בֵּינִי וּבֵינֶיֹךָ:
6. And Avram said to Sarai, “Here – your maid is in your hand; do with her however it seems good in your eyes.” And Sarai afflicted her, and she fled from before her.

ו וַיֹּאמֶר אַבְרָם אֶל שָׂרַי הִנֵּה שִׁפְחָתֵךְ בְּיָדֵךְ עֲשִׂי לָהּ הַטּוֹב בְּעֵינָיִךְ וַתְּעַנֶּהָ שָׂרַי וַתִּבְרַח מִפָּנֶיהָ:
7. And an angel [messenger] of God found her by a spring of water in the desert, by the spring on the way to Shur.

ז וַיִּמְצָאָהּ מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה עַל עֵין הַמַּיִם בַּמִּדְבָּר עַל הָעַיִן בְּדֶרֶךְ שׁוּר:
8.  He said, “Hagar, Sarai’s maid, where are you coming from, and where are you going to?” And she said, “I am fleeing from Sarai my mistress.”

ח וַיֹּאמַר הָגָר שִׁפְחַת שָׂרַי אֵי מִזֶּה בָאת וְאָנָה תֵלֵכִי וַתֹּאמֶר מִפְּנֵי שָׂרַי גְּבִרְתִּי אָנֹכִי בֹּרַחַת:
9. And God’s angel [messenger] said to her, “Return to your mistress, and allow yourself to be afflicted under her hand.”

ט וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה שׁוּבִי אֶל גְּבִרְתֵּךְ וְהִתְעַנִּי תַּחַת יָדֶיהָ:
10. And Go’s angel [messenger] said to her, “I will greatly multiply your seed [children], and it will be too many to count.”

י וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה הַרְבָּה אַרְבֶּה אֶת זַרְעֵךְ וְלֹא יִסָּפֵר מֵרֹב:
11. And God’s angel; [messenger] said to her, “Behold, you are pregnant and and will bear a son, and name him Ishmael [God hears], for God has heard your affliction.

יא וַיֹּאמֶר לָהּ מַלְאַךְ יְהֹוָה הִנָּךְ הָרָה וְיֹלַדְתְּ בֵּן וְקָרָאת שְׁמוֹ יִשְׁמָעֵאל כִּי שָׁמַע יְהֹוָה אֶל עָנְיֵךְ:
12. And he will be a wild donkey of a man; his hand will be upon all, and everyone’s hand upon him, and yet in the presence of all his brothers he will dwell.”                              

יב וְהוּא יִהְיֶה פֶּרֶא אָדָם יָדוֹ בַכֹּל וְיַד כֹּל בּוֹ וְעַל פְּנֵי כָל אֶחָיו יִשְׁכֹּן:
13. And she called the name of God, the one who had spoken to her, “You are the God of seeing,” because she said: “Have I continued [gone on] seeing here after I have been seen?”

יג וַתִּקְרָא שֵׁם יְהֹוָה הַדֹּבֵר אֵלֶיהָ אַתָּה אֵל רֳאִי כִּי אָמְרָה הֲגַם הֲלֹם רָאִיתִי אַחֲרֵי רֹאִי:
14. Therefore the well was called Be’er Lachai Ro’i; [Well of the living-one who sees me], behold it is between Kadesh and Bered.

יד עַל כֵּן קָרָא לַבְּאֵר בְּאֵר לַחַי רֹאִי הִנֵּה בֵין קָדֵשׁ וּבֵין בָּרֶד:
15. Hagar bore a son to Avram, and Avram named his son, whom Hagar had borne, Ishmael.

טו וַתֵּלֶד הָגָר לְאַבְרָם בֵּן וַיִּקְרָא אַבְרָם שֶׁם בְּנוֹ אֲשֶׁר יָלְדָה הָגָר יִשְׁמָעֵאל:
LechLecha-S-image

Exercise: She’s Leaving Home – MS, HS, A

Leave a reply

Download the exercise here: Word word-doc-icon PDF pdf-icon

Exercise: She’s Leaving Home

Play “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles. Try analyzing it according to some or all of the following; (i) good reasons for leaving, (i) drawing lines, (iii) rhetorical questions, (iv) running from/running to

She’s Leaving Home Lyrics – The Beatles

Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.

She (We gave her most of our lives)
is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly
How could she do this to me.

She (We never thought of ourselves)
is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years. Bye, bye

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade.

She (What did we do that was wrong)
is having (We didn’t know it was wrong)
fun (Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. Bye, bye
She’s leaving home. Bye, bye

You can download the song with permissions from here: https://play.google.com/music/preview/Tah2fx2olu73ubixghz6sumd5xm?lyrics=1&utm_source=google&utm_medium=search&utm_campaign=lyrics&pcampaignid=kp-lyrics&u=0#