The Shoftim Cycle - מחזוריות השופטים

Goals:

1. The chanichim should understand the different stages of the Shoftim cycle and how it differs from the system of Melucha-Galut.

2. 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 2^nd 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).

Written by- Sarah Gordon

sygordon@gmail.com

Many of the ideas from these shiruim are adapted from the book "Shofet HaShoftim" by Yisroel Rozenson, published by Machon Herzog.

Machal Shiur #4:

Goals:

1. The chanichim should understand the different stages of the Shoftim cycle and how it differs from the system of Melucha-Galut.

2. 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 2^nd 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).

Trigger:

Have the chanichim skim Shoftim Perek 2: 6-13 – what do Bnei Israel do after Yehoshua dies?

Shoftim 2: 14-19: What is happening here? What is G-d’s response? What type of cycle is being set up here? Now Hashem will no longer help them fight their enemies – why? Is this middah k’negged middah? If they won’t keep G-d’s Torah, Hashem won’t help them fight their wars. From now on Hashem will give them over into the hands of their enemies. When they do Teshuva, Hashem will send them a one time savior- a Shofet, who will come and save the day. But then Bnei Israel will not listen and will sin again – leading G-d to hand them over to another enemy, where they will suffer again until they do Teshuva and G-d will send them another Shofet to save them.

The reason:

Shoftim 2: 20-23: Middah k’negged Middah, we are no longer keeping our end of the deal, no longer keeping the Torah, so Hashem will not help us win wars, and will leave the nations that influenced us in the land, as a test. We were lax in kicking them out and became influenced, so now we’re on our own to fix the problem.

**This is different then the punishment-anger shown by the angel in Bochim. That was due to us not conquering the land and finishing the job (sin #1), not taking initiative to conquer the rest of Israel. This is now sin #2 (though it’s a consequence of the 1^st sin) of being influenced by the nations we left in the land and turning to avodah zara.

The Shoftim Cycle: Shofet #1 – Otniel Ben Kenaz

This negative circular cycle of us sinning, doing teshuva, being saved and then sinning again can be seen with the 1^st shofet – Otniel Ben Kenaz.

Have the chanichim look at his story: Shoftim 3: 5-12. Have them give names for each stage of the cycle and try to chart it out.

Why is it that Bnei Israel keep sinning after the shofet has died? What’s the problem with this system? If they had one main leader – like a king – would it be different? What’s the problem when there is only a leader when the problem needs to be fixed as opposed to all the time?

Machal Shiur #4: