These parshos bother me

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PinkFridge

Sun, Nov 17 2019, 1:25 pm

A good sefer might be Michtav MeEliyahu, Strive For Truth in English. I'm not sure which volume deals with Tanach.

SuperWify

Sun, Nov 17 2019, 3:17 pm

Cheiny wrote:

I answered that above, as heard from a rov in Shiur this week.

Yes I just read what you wrote! I remember hearing that years ago so thanks for reminding me!

MitzadSheini

Sun, Nov 17 2019, 4:37 pm

Op go listen to this shiur

https://www.torahanytime.com/#.....94800

Takes things on a whole new level. My guess is that you won't be able to understand the shiur without hearing earlier ones... So I hope you are inspired to go learn more.

There is SO MUCH MORE to Torah than the way you are reading these stories.

Cheiny

Sun, Nov 17 2019, 5:03 pm

SuperWify wrote:

Yes I just read what you wrote! I remember hearing that years ago so thanks for reminding me!

I find sefer Bereishis especially interesting.

amother

Rose

Sun, Nov 17 2019, 5:07 pm

They bother me too, but more because these people were so extraordinarily good, and suffered so much.

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 4:25 am

the story cheiny referred to about lot's daughters is in this shiur:
https://www.torahanytime.com/#.....94944
among explanations of several other topics referred to above.

PinkFridge

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 4:54 am

amother [ Rose ] wrote:

They bother me too, but more because these people were so extraordinarily good, and suffered so much.

Of course you have sympathy for your grandparents ;-D But it goes back to the concept of nisayon. Not only could they not get rewarded till the potential was drawn out into an action, this koach couldn't be passed to down to their descendants as part of our spiritual DNA without the nisyonos. For example, the koach hatefilla was manifest in their davening for children. Because they went through that, we have koach hatefilla.

miami85

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 7:30 am

I like a lot of what has been said thus far, but one comment I have not yet seen is that one major difference between Torah and "The Bible" version of these stories is that we have medrashim and meforshim that add deeper levels to these "stories". Like others have said there is an element of "what to learn from them"--meaning starting from "Day 1"of man", he sinned and the world has never been the same ever since. Moshe Rabbeinu zt"l was denied entrance to E"Y for "hitting the rock instead of speaking to it"--seemingly a trivial offense. However, what we don't see just from reading the pesukim is that there were much deeper "cosmic level" intentions, meaning because our avos and imahos had some level of nevuah they understood some of the "global" impact of their actions as well as the spiritual ramifications of their actions. Meaning it wasn't just "marry hagar and I'm insecure" but there were "how will this impact the universe" thoughts there as well.

Rabbi Shafier has a lot of great "shmuz"im about this type of information, the insights to human nature and the deeper level of the text. Most of his earlier ones go parsha by parsha so I'm sure there's a better explanation.

STMommy

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:29 am

Any good mefarshim/sefarim that discuss the inicdent of Lot offering up his daughters to the mob in Sedom? That bothered me a lot upon reading.
Also, the haftora we read on Sukkos that the start of the invasion in the war of Gog and Magog will be the women of yerushalayim getting raped.

amother

Chartreuse

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:31 am

amother [ Navy ] wrote:

Rabbi YY Rubenstien quotes this story of Lots daughters in a shiur on Parashas Vayera. He actually reads it out word forword, I believe it is printed in a sefer of Rav Moshe Feinstien. , You can find it on torahanytime.com
In general, I recommend to the OP and anyone else interested, there's a wealth of brilliant shuiurim that illuminate each of these concepts on TorahAnytime.com. I particularly love listening to Rabbi Daniel Glatstien. You see that every aspect of Torah is interconnected over the generations and nothing is only as it seems.

As a single girl, I used to attend the Chumash shiur of Rabbi Tendler (SIL of R' Moshe Feinstein) on Friday nights.

He used to say the following fascinating story: As a young man, R' Moshe was a Rav in Russia. At one time, he was called to attend an elderly man who was dying a very strange death. His tongue was swelling and would soon choke him.

The man told R' Moshe that as a young man, he used to especially denigrate the daughters of Lot for what they did, sleeping with their father...one night he had a dream in which they came to him. They told him that he was wrong - they believed they were the only ones left in the world and did what they thought they had to do. And to their credit, they did not lie about it. They could have done what the mother of Oso Haish did, and claim immaculate conception, but in their righteousness they did not do so, so that all would know that there is no such thing. For their honestly, they merited two great nations coming from them, and younger one even had Ruth as her descendant....

They told him that because he spoke L"H against them, when his time comes, he would die the death of the meraglim who spoke L"H - his tongue would swell and fill his mouth and he would choke. And that is what happened.

amother

Chartreuse

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:33 am

Cheiny wrote:

I’m not going to answer all of it now but I’ll pass along along what I heard in a Shiur this week and hopefully it’ll give you some perspective. It’s about not judging people.

(First, it was not Noach’s daughters who slept with him, it was Lot’s. ) There’s a story recorded in Rav Moshe Feinstein’s personal writings in which he tells the following story (I’ll retell it as best as I remember, hopefully I won’t mess up any details). Rav Moshe was asked to come visit someone who was suffering terribly with a strange illness in the hospital. He had swelling all over including his tongue. He told Rav Moshe that he was trying to find a reason for his strange illness and suffering and was asked if he could remember saying anything very bad about anyone...at night, the daughters of Lot came to him in a dream and he was reminded of having scoffed about them when giving a speech about the parsha, and saying how awful they were for not only doing that to their father, but even worse naming a child after the father as if to brag to the world about the despicable and shameful deed they’d done. The daughters then told him in the dream, you shouldn’t judge us, because we thought at that time that the entire world was destroyed and it would be the end of humanity! We thought that by what we did it would save the world as Hashem wanted! And the reason I named my son after my father was because we didn’t want people in the future to believe that the children were born by the way the non jews believe (immaculate conception) so we wanted to publicize and memorialize it was conceived in the normal way of the world and not by avoda Zara.” Therefore their actions were l’shem Shomayim. The moral of the story was not to judge just because we don’t understand, and to you I’d say certainly we can’t judge the Avos and imahos.

I should've read this thread before posting. Yes this is the story. I heard it from R' Moshe's SIL myself.

Ruchel

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:37 am

Many things bother. We need the right rabbi or rebbetzen to explain.

cbsp

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:40 am

STMommy wrote:

Rabbi Viener has a really good series on Chumash Bereishis. It's available on his site, torahstream.org as well as torahanytime.com and Kol HaLashon.

The incident with Lot and his daughter is the case of misguided Chesed - sacrificing one's family for the sake of the Chesed. He lost out on hadrachah when he moved away from Avraham and Sarah.

There's more to it, but this is what I'm remembering.

etky

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:46 am

STMommy wrote:

So, not traditional parshanut - but I read an article by a scholar whose field of expertise is Bedouin culture and he explains Lot's offer on the backdrop of the Bedouin code of hospitality according to which a host is obliged to protect his guests as a paramount value.
Not easy for modern, western ears to hear but that is his understanding of this.

Chayalle

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 8:53 am

amother [ OP ] wrote:

Full disclosure, my emunah is shaky.

I look at these parshos this time of year and I am bewildered. The avos and imahos seem like such regular people with the same vices we have in 2019. Last week Sarah told Avrohom to take Hagar since she couldn't have children. When Yishmael was born, Sarah felt less important to her husband and regretted suggesting that Avrohom be with Hagar. She reprimanded Avrohom and told him that hashem will deal with him for this. She's the one who suggested the whole arrangement!

That's pretty simplistic. It's not that Sarah felt less important to her husband once Yishmael was born - it's that Hagar publicly denigrated her, saying that the fact that she had a child must mean that she is actually spiritually superior to Sarah - that Sarah's being barren must indicate that she's not so great, really.

As a woman with SIF, I relate very strongly to this. I think there's B"H more awareness today, and a woman who is B"H blessed with children would (I hope) not think that a woman who is not must have done something awful to deserve that. We know that we don't understand the ways of Hashem, that Hashem has his reasons. But at various times in history, women were looked down upon and denigrated for their childlessness, which caused them double suffering.

Sarah was upset that Avraham did not put Hagar in her place for her comments, and she said Hashem would judge him for that.

She also felt that Avraham had prayed for himself to have children - but not for her. Now that Yishmael was born, she was bringing to his attention the fact that she was still childless and wanting him to continue davening for her.

I just studied this very Parsha with my seminary-DD. Education is the key to understanding. I suggest a Chumash Shiur, or just open a chumash and see what Rashi, Ramban, Kli Yakar, etc....have to say about any topic that bothers you. It is fascinating.

Quote:

Then we have Sarah lying about laughing at the idea she'd have a baby,

Commentaries explain that Sarah's laughing was deeply subconscious, so she was unaware, at the surface level, that she had laughed. It says so straight out in the paskuk, actually - Vatitzchak Sarah B'Kirbah. .

Quote:

and Sarah concocting a lie to trick Avimelech into thinking Sarah was his sister. Avrohom didn't have emunah that hashem (who he was on literal speaking terms with) would help him thru it?

Some commentaries criticize Avraham for putting Sarah into danger while saving his own skin. I recall learning one commentary that said he actually considered Sarah greater than himself and trusted that Hashem would save her. As to himself, he went according to Ain Somchin Al Hanes. And that he would be able to help her more alive than dead....

PinkFridge

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 12:51 pm

STMommy wrote:

Re your first paragraph, I'm following. As I said, the Artscroll Stone Chumash starts this section off with the words, Lot, a Perplexing Hero.
As far as the haftora, very disturbing, yes. But is it possible that the war of Gog and Magog has started, in stages? (And I will be"H go back to check what the words exactly are and how they can be translated.)

PinkFridge

Mon, Nov 18 2019, 12:53 pm

etky wrote:

Wow. Considering how Yishmael has so much genetic material from Avraham, this is not surprising to hear.

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