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).

To teach the chanachim about Parshat Vayetze and Yaakov's dream and also about the land of Israel through an interactive quiz.

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.

The chanichim should leave the sicha understanding

(1)   The power of Yom Ha’atzmaut – how all these different Jews came together to fight as an Am and why it was it was so important for the Jews in 1948 to have an independent Jewish State.

(2)   The battle for Yom Ha’atzmaut applies to us today and we can only truly appreciate it when looking at it as part of a cycle of the hardships of Jewish History (Yom Hashoah and Yom HaZicaron).

Review the history and struggle to free Soviet Jewry, discuss the mass Aliya of Russian Jewry; explain the joys and problems of absorbing so many new olim