and some freudian analysis

i pushed chana pretty hard this morning because i was taking the boys to see oma and til i got downstairs at 10, we only had 1 hour until we were leaving. so i wanted to do rashi first but chana wanted to do new pesukim first but i said we had to start from the beginning of shlishi. chana fought it but i was pretty recalcitrant. i didn't argue, i just insisted. she wasn't happy but she did it. then i gave her a 10 minute break and then we did rashi. i was working her pretty hard and i was in an interesting place this morning where i didn't get too involved emotionally. like i just had it in my head that we were going to cover all of shlishi and the 7 or so rashis in the hour and that's that. so she complained and muttered and sometimes whined and cried, but it was like i was a physical trainer and she was crying out with being pushed to the limit but i could tell i wasn't pushing her past her endurance. i don't know if it was because of my state of mind or if it was because of her state of mind. or a combo.

chana asked why did they say "recognize the coat of your son" vs "our brother."

at one point, she was dramatically saying that she would not or could not do a rashi. i just kept pointing to it and saying, "go." she said, "well, that's supportive." which i thought was amusing. then she asked why i laughed. she says things like a punch line and i laugh, and she asks why i think she's funny even though i know she's kind of trying to solicit the laugh.

so she was pretty annoyed at the amount of rashis. and she hit the phrase "talmud lomar." we have seen that a few times, and i've tried to teach her the definition is "this is to teach us" but it hasn't been sticking. so i have been having her do it via shoresh, and she translates it as "learn in order to say" which is close enough. so every time she hits the word "talmud" i've been having her find the shoresh if she doesn't know it. i've mentioned before that she really doesn't have an intuition for finding the shoresh like sarah did. so we practice it. which she dislikes, but i think she is coming to see it is useful and that she can know what words mean more easily if she identifies the shoresh. so she got stuck on "talmud" and i asked her for the shoresh. "talam" nope. so i pointed with my finger to the "l'mud" part.

so she said "lamud." then she said, "lamut." to die.

then she said it was "lamad" to learn. after she finished the rashi, she said, "why did i say 'lamut?''"

and i said, "because you want me to die." (she was pretty angry about the rashi, and on top of that, dissecting the shoresh). as usual, she was a little uncomfortable with the thought of her aggression against me. so i said what i always do: "you want me to die this much" (and i put my thumb and pointer together to signify just a little bit) "and overall, it wouldn't feel good if i died, because you love me and you would miss me. but if i died you wouldn't have to do these rashis or this much chumash."

then she got on the bandwagon and said, "yeah, and i could do what i want all the time. i could play on the computer and not do any chumash." pause. "unless daddy would make me do chumash, too." pause. "but i would be able to play on the computer and not do rashi." smile. "ok, next rashi."