update on Nach Yomi

For those who followed, you might remember that I took up to read a perek of Nach every day, to see what is commitment like and to serve as an example to 8 yo in his drum practice. Here is the original post. This is an update on how it's been going.

Till mid-October, I have been faithfully reading a perek a day. I got into a routine with it, at least reading the p'shat in English, sometimes reading the commentaries, too, sometimes just skimming on those pesukim where I had questions. Then my sister got married, and we trekked to New York and spent a good week traveling. At that point, even though I brought Navi with me, I fell off. There was too much going on, there was no routine, and there was no emotional energy flowing towards it. After berating myself a few nights for not getting it done, I decided to let go till I get back home. Then it took a good week to fall back into any sort of normalcy, and Navi has not been on the radar. I finally got back into it, but it has not been in the same groove that I had before the wedding. I have been starting on it too late in the night, and falling asleep while reading. When I fell asleep in the middle of Ammon and Tamar's story, I knew that the material had nothing to do with it; my choice of time and level of exhaustion were to blame.

So I have not been as consistent about it since October. I did finish Shmuel Beit two nights ago. I have been surprised at the end of it; I took Shmuel Beit in highschool, but I guess I do not remember that we did not finish the sefer. The wars of David, the census, the enigmatic threshing floor for sale to stop the plague; none of these stories rang the bell. I am also slowly crawling my way through "Lies My Teacher Told Me", and the central point of that book is that history is written by the winners. Even 8 yo noticed that. He wondered why we do not have more history from the rest of the world, why is everything taking place first in the Mesopotamia, then in the Mediterranean and then in Europe. Perfect case for why history survey courses are called Western Civilization.

Shmuel Beit is written by Davidic dynasty to establish it. Even though David had all these wonderful qualities quoted by Chazal ( conquering his yetzer hara, humility, zealotry for Hashem, desire to build the Beit Hamikdash), he does not come off as quite a popular king. It takes seven years for people to even recognize his anointment, and then he has three major rebellions during his lifetime. Oh, and his general is a serial killer, yet David's hands are metaphorically tied. I wish I had a chavrusa to work through particularly enigmatic and disturbing parts of the book.

I will continue to Melachim. That is the last volume that we have in Artscrol Rubin edition. At the rate I am going, I do not know how long that will take me. Maybe they will publish the next volume by the time I finish.

As for the drumming: 8 yo seems to pass into the area where practice is fun. He is practicing on his own, and we trade the minutes he practices for Pokemon movie time. His teacher says that his drumming has improved. He can show it off now, even though it still does not sound perfect. His commitment seems to be more solid than mine.