Second Semester

Well, the year is over, and as I had summarized what I liked about my psychology class, I thought would write about what I liked and raise some questions I might think of while I do.

This semester, we learned a lot about growth. First we learned about the development of the world: G-d created a hierarchy that people were supposed to follow, and it soon became clear that the people would not be able to keep to the hierarchy and develop morals and ethics on their own- G-d would have to show them. Eventually, G-d recognized that His plan for ethical and moral people would have to go from a collective goal to an individual goal.

This leads us directly into Avraham, about whom we learn about growth. Avraham was an inconoclast- although he grew up in a society that was polytheistic and did not have many morals, Avraham became a moral and ethical man who believed in G-d. He spread G-d's name (in direct contrast to the Dor Haflaga, who only wanted to spread their names) and converted people to ethical lifestyles. Although he faced many challenges, he overcame them and held fast in his belief in G-d. He overcame the challenges to zera (Lot, Eliezer, Yishmael, oh my) and the challenges to eretz (the king's offered him land and he passed on it). Avraham was willing to sacrifice his ideas of morals and ethics because in the end, the only thing that mattered for Avraham was that he do what G-d commanded. He passed the ultimate challenge- the challenge of the akeida, thereby becoming the paradigm of a great religious and spiritual leader. I quite enjoyed learning about Avraham because we could learn things from him to help guide our own lives, and it was great character development and intrigue.

The next growth I liked learning about was Yaakov. He went from being a quite little boy who did nothing, to a boy who obeyed his mother, to a youngster who ran away and worked for his uncle, to a man who voiced his opinion, to a father who led his family away, and to a political leader who would stand up to Lavan and Esau. The story that we learn about the birthright and Yaakov and Esau is fascinating; is that when the brothers began to resent one another? Had it been before that? Or was it only after Yaakov took the blessing that Esau wanted (the political blessing) that Esau hated Yaakov. Again, from Yaakov we can learn that we can become leaders and that people can go from being timid to being uncompromising.

I also thought that throughout the year, the ideas of morals and ethics has been an important one. We talked so often about it that it is hard to not apply the things we talked about to our own lives, and begin to look for themes of ethical monotheism in every story that we read (was Yaakov moral when he tricked his father? Was it right for Yitzchak to favor Esau? Why wasn't Esau allowed to be nidcheh? Why did Yitzchak pit his sons against each other in his blessing?)

This past semester was full of insightful comparisons, people who developed tremendously throughout their lives, and a great way to relearn the stories that had once seemed so simple and somewhat naive and nonsensical in first grade. This is because not only did we learn it as high schoolers with fresh perspectives and analytical minds, but because we actually read the pasukim and found out the whole story ;)

It was a truly lovely year.