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Secondary Sources: Lying
Aaron, Lover and Pursuer of Peace
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Some Questions you might like to ask:
Leading Idea: Seeing and Naming God
Hagar’s journey is unique in that she both sees and names God. Both this act of seeing (she seeing God and God seeing her; naming God) are obscurely phrased in Hebrew and open to different understandings and translations. The significance of this is captured in the reading by Rabbi Michal Shekel. Firstly, the difference between hearing and seeing is an important one – both literally and the way we use these terms metaphorically (phrases like “I see what you mean” and the notion of insight). Secondly, we have the significance of seeing another’s face. You might like to explore together why the face has unique status in terms of our access to others.
There are further resources in this booklet for exploring these: see: “Face”, p.45 and on naming and naming God. Relevant exercises and discussion plans can be found in those sections.
PDF Secondary Sources: Lying
Aaron, Lover and Pursuer of Peace
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Some Questions you might like to ask:
PDF Secondary Sources: What’s in a name
Excerpts from: Rabbi Michal Shekel: The Women’s Torah Commentary, Elyse Goldstein (ed.), (Jewish Lights, NY), 2000, pp.57-62
Parshat Lech lecha contains within it two journeys, each of which encompasses a spiritual and physical aspect. The first is the well known story of Abram (Bereshit 12). The second is subtler but still powerful. It is the journey undertaken by Sarai’s handmaiden Hagar….
One can discover three occurrences in this parashah that mirror Abram’s experience. First, Hagar leaves home, her personal Lechi lach, “go forth” (fem.)… Second, God makes a brit, a covenant, with her, in which she is promised that she will have numerous offspring… Third, she is told her son’s name before his birth. But here the parallel ends; for, most significantly, Hagar gives God a name. Abram has never done this, nor has anyone else.
What courage! In these early chapters of the Torah, the act of naming is highly significant. It is both empowering and embracing….
Hagar names God el ro’i “God who sees me.” This is in response to God’s naming of her child Yishma’el, which means “God hears”. In naming God, Hagar affirms that God sees as well as hears. Here too is a parallel with Abraham. After the Akedah, the binding of Isaac, Abraham calls the mountain where he offers his son “Adonai sees”…
Leading Idea: Sarah’s Miracle?
The text tells us that when Sarah gave birth to Yitzak she was 95 years old. Even if Biblical years are calculated differently, the story tells us she was past childbearing years, and of a ripe old age. Is this, then, a Miracle? If so, what kind of miraculous event is this? Use the resources on Miracles in Parshat Shemot to explore this (and yes I know we need some sources from women here – just having trouble finding some so if you do…..
Note, that the sources are for primary and high school – so pick ones appropriate to your age class if you take up this topic.
Download the exercise here: Word PDF
Exercise: Seeing
What does the word “see” or “seeing” mean in each of these phrases?
Below are some possible ways of understanding the use of the word ‘see’. Can you match the meanings below with the phrases above?
(a) observe
(b) imagine
(c) consider the fact that
(d) understand
(e) accompany
(f) pay attention to
(g) recognize
(h) visualize
(i) _____________
Return to look at Bereshit 16:13 – the word ‘see’ is used 4 times – which senses of ‘see’ could be meant on each of these occasions? How do different meanings of ‘see’ change how we understand the passage?
PDF Discussion Plan: What counts as a miracle?
1. In the storm, a bolt of lightning came down and split the tree in half.
2. I fell off my bike speeding down the hill, but didn’t even get a scratch.
3. I wanted an ice-cream but didn’t have any money me –then I found $1.00 on the ground, so I could buy one.
4. When I saw the fire truck going to a house that was on fire, I prayed that everyone would get out of the fire safely and they did.
5. I wake up every morning feeling fresh and ready to start the day.
6. When the forest fire was out of control, the wind turned and the rain came and put it out.
7. God created the world in seven days.
8. I prayed that something bad would happen to the boy at school who is always teasing me, and then he broke his arm.
9 . A standard passenger plane weighs more than 100 adult elephants when it is loaded, and yet it can still get into the air and fly!
PDF 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?
“Hagar Leaves the House of Abraham”
Rubens, Peter Paul, 1577-1640,
Flemish Baroque Painter
Image source: http://www.artbible.info/art/large/826.html
PDF 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
PDF 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#