started w/ rashi, and as usual, devolved by the end of chumash. partly coz jack woke up and we got rushed.

chana had a number of good questions today. first in rashi, we wondered (well, i did mostly, not her) why hashem needed TWO messengers for himself in the bris ben habesarim.

then chana felt that with so many pronouns, the pesukim should say who ran away from whom. then she noticed (as she has noticed before) that the pesukim say that the malach hashem says to hagar each pasuk. and we are already in the middle of the conversation and we already KNOW the malach hashem is talking, so why mention it so many times?? further, why mention it here so much and be ambiguous in other places? good observations.

then we had some trouble understanding the phrases regarding yishmael. his hand in all? the hand of all in him? a wild man? (chana kept asking: you mean like elazar?" in the face of all his brothers he will dwell? we used rashi's interpretations, though living in the face of his brothers meaning having a lot of children was not so intuitive. vs me poking my hand at her and her poking her hand back at me. we did that back and forth for a bit.

then the idea that she gave hashem a new name was a new idea to us. she named him "Gd who saw me." i don't think chana grasped the significance of that. she started feeling very upset that hashem is so mean to sarai. and only gave him one son. and i said "wait til you find out that hashem asks avram to kill him." well that got her really upset and she ranted about that for a bit. i then told her that he didn't kill him after all--surprise ending. she said, he stuck the knife in and he didn't die? i said no, he stopped him before he stuck the knife in. then she began to imagine the ensuing conversation between sara and avraham about it. and i said that the torah doesn't talk about it (i left out the rashi that she dies...)

another tough phrase for us was didn't i see here after i saw? so i peeked at rashi--that i had seen malachim in avraham's house, but i didn't think i'd see them here, too. don't think chana grasps that significance either.