A long, long time ago I was going to blog about the painting shown above. Way back in the times when I spent my days hanging around at the Philadelphia Museum of Art I happened upon Pompeo Girolamo Batoni's painting called Esther before Ahasuerus and I found it so remarkable! What do you think of this painting? Like/loathe?
Reflections
Never would I ever have imagined that a "Megillot" class would have been able to teach me so much about my life. Then Mrs. Perl goes ahead and starts re-writing NACH, and all of a sudden anything is possible. All of a sudden these works are approachable and meaningful. Things that were so difficult to understand at first are now easy as pie to pick up, read, and interpret. MIND. BLOWING!!
KOHELET: For the longest time this class wasn't "Megillot class" it was just "Kohelet Class". This was partly due to the fact that we thought it would take us until the end of the year to finish Sefer Kohelet, true; the main reason we called it 'kohelet', though, was because we were all so into it! Don't believe me, just go up to Alyssa and ask her what she thought about the transformation of the Chacham (spoiler alert: she doesn't approve, but she sure is passionate about it!).
Kohelet taught me that, though at times it may seem like it, hakol is not hevel. There may be things in life that we cannot understand- that we struggle with- but we shouldn't let them stump us. The key in life is recognizing that we don't know everything. Once we know that, things will easily fall into place.
This was for sure my favorite Sefer to blog about, partly because I could accompany my blogs with Calvin and Hobbes comics. It's only appropriate, then, that the last blog of my whole high school career include one such comic.
We dealt with questions like this in Kohelet. Why do bad things happen to good people? In Ester it was more of "why all the secrecy?". So deep, Calvin!
EICHA: This one was very difficult to get through at first because it initially felt like it was just a terribly depressing/terrifying book. However, once perspectified, Eicha proves to be a very current book that teaches us about life in Galut. Even though we can't see God, we shouldn't assume that God isn't there. Eicha teaches us about the right way to approach a loss; Eicha teaches us that betrayal hurts, but recovery is necessary; Eicha teaches us that Teshuva is always an option. Perhaps most powerfully, Eicha teaches us how important it is to have a strong community to stand by when times are tough. We are always stronger when we come together.
ESTER: My favorite part about learning Ester was learning about the evolution of Ester herself. I was angry at the beginning when I noticed how passive she was. Then I was in awe as she transformed before our eyes. I think that Ester is such a powerful, positive biblical female role model. I know that there are lots of other lessons from Ester, but, to be honest, this is the one that I will take with me for the years to come. (Are any of you actually surprised? Nah.)
RUTH: The Book of Ruth gets the award for most improved. This book was incredibly inappropriate and uninspiring the first time I read it. Once we went over it in class, however, slowly but surely the Megillah of Ruth and the character Ruth redeemed themselves. The selfless, wonderful, awesome Ruth gets full credit for this. All of the other characters pale in comparison to this woman. I would also like to point out that the way MP related this sefer to Shavuot was truly beautiful. Mitzvot ben adam lechavero are so essential to a person's Jewish identity, and Ruth really embodies how important it is to live one's life according to the ideals of morality, tzedek umisphat, and chessed.
To those of you still listening to me, I leave you with this final wish:
Dream big, and you can accomplish anything. But don't forget to appreciate those big, sunny fields. The simplest things are sometimes the greatest. Think about our megillot class- we didn't go into extensive meforshim or anything. We looked at most of the sefarim simply by doing an in-depth reading of the original text. And yet.. we got so much out of it.
Thanks for a great year!
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