back to the grind

so before we hit the circus today, chana read the rashi 4x (and what a battle that was). actually, she ended up reading it 3x and negotiated to do a previous rashi (easier) once. she remarked the other day that she's a better negotiator than i am, and now it often diffuses our arguments when we start getting heated and i use the word negotiate, like "i see you are negotiating..." so that was that rashi, which i hope to have her do again a couple more times before shabbos. we have basically let go the one about chanoch, and i'm having her read the noach one a lot because there are words i want her familiar with like "shelo, ba, lo, v'hu, and lahem." she is nowhere near the ability to translate. actually, after she read a bunch of it this morning i said it out loud and asked her to translate it (because she's used to me speaking hebrew, she can do it more easily auditorily than if she's reading it) and she pitched a fit that this is not rashi. and i said, yes it is rashi; rashi is reading and understanding. hmph. we're still in negotiations about that.

(pitching a fit is in general a sign that i'm pushing her; whether or not i'm pushing her too much and should back off or whether it's just her crying out as i properly expand her abilities and "brain muscle" so to speak, has to be determined in every single instance).

then we went to the circus, and now we're doing chumash. the names and generations are over, so we are back to the slower pace of harder translation work. it happens to be that this next bit is not terribly difficult to translate, but very cryptic.

at this point, chana isn't troubled much when she doesn't understand it. it's a little sad to me. she's taking up so much energy getting through the labor of literal translation, that she has little inclination to enjoy the oddities of the text and what puzzles they are revealing. (she did wonder why anyone on earth would name their child "name." it's odd that the sons of elohim (we translated it as officers as per rashi and onkelos) married the daughters of adam. isn't everyone the children of adam, including the officers? what does it mean that hashem isn't going to fight (rashi, not onkelos) w/ adam anymore because he is meat? chana started puzzling that, but it got too complicated.

these 5 pesukim are taking us quite a while with breaks. we did the first one, then break. then the second one, then brak. then the third one, then break. then the fourth, and i didn't want to do a break, but chana desperately wanted to go to the playground so she negotiated. so now we have one very long pasuk left and then hopefully some rashi. (but i'll bet a break in between...). then we are up to the maftir of parshas bereshis! go, chana!