moadim l'simcha

yesterday i was not looking forward to chumash. and if i dread chumash, how can chana possibly look forward to it?

then again, the things we dislike about it are different. i dread the conflict. she dreads that she doesn't know it naturally, and has to work at it.

i decided i would have in mind to do a minimal amount, and then it would be more relaxed. we did one new pasuk and we did review, and it went fine. chana even asked permission to flop at one point, when i asked her to review a pasuk for a 2nd time, and we laughed and then she flopped.

today, she asked why noach would curse k'na'an if cham was the one who saw him naked. she asked why he would be a slave to his brothers if he didn't do anything. and how come noach didn't say anything about cham if he was the one who did it.

yes, i'm aware of the midrash that it was k'na'an. but that's not pshat. and i don't like to teach midrash as pshat. i asked her to think about it. she begged me to tell her. i said there was more than one answer.

i asked her what happens if a father is a not so good person. she said: ummm.. . his children become slaves?? she's trying to figure out how it fits into the pasuk. (i was hoping to say that maybe the midos of the parents are the same midos in the children, which causes certain results, but i guess that was too many steps).

anyway, then i told her we were doing 3 more pesukim til the end of the paragraph, and she said she needed to go flop. i promised her they were easy, and they were.

she asked if shem was the favorite.

we still have chazara. maybe tonight.