Shoftim – The Army of Gidon – Gideon Defeats Midian – Speaker: Rabbi Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld ז”ל.
00:00 – Review of the beginning of Sefer Shoftim.
*03:00 – “You cannot reach the limit of Hashem’s patience and kindness” – Rabbi Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld ז”ל.
04:00 – An angel appears to Gidon ben Yoash, from the tribe of Menashe.
11:20 – Hashem commands Gidon to destroy an altar to Baal and receives an additional name: Yiru-Baal. He asks and receives Divine proof that he should amass an army against Midian.
18:00 – A selection of soldiers is made by testing them in drinking at a river. Only 300 of 10,000 soldiers didn’t get down on their knees to drink. “At no time should a Jew get down on both knees.” – Rabbi Rosenfeld.
23:00 – Meaning of the Midianite soldier’s dream about the loaf of oat bread.
26:00 – In panic, the Midianite soldiers destroyed one another. Gidon pursues and kills the two kings of Midian.
30:00 – Gidon refuses to accept kingship over Israel. His half-son Avimelech instigates a rebellion and kills 69 of Gidon’s 70 sons. Only the youngest son, Yosam (Jotham), remained.
38:00 – Yosam tells the parable of the thorn to the people of Shechem who had joined Avimelech’s rebellion.
40:00 – Avimelech is killed and temporary peace for the Jews returns until they fall away from Hashem again. “Each Jew can find himself in the words of Navi because [like the People of Israel] he [personally] goes through these periods of elevation and descent” – Rabbi Zvi Aryeh Rosenfeld ז”ל.
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