leftyjew

So I spent last night teaching at a local Jewish learning program. I had no idea what I was going to teach until about 3pm on Sunday. I had read the Torah portion twice (Ha'azinu = Deut. 32) and I had read all of Midrash Rabbah about it and had a few ideas that I wasn't particularly excited about. "I guess I can talk about the Jews as the sands of the see/stars of the sky and compare that to the opening lines of the poem," I thought. I wasn't thrilled and thought I should move my heretical group learning topic to the main shiur... but then I'd have to find sources, and I wouldn't get to hear as many ideas. AND, my group learning topic was seasonally appropriate, but had nothing to do with the parasha (and I don't like when we ignore the parasha).
Anyway, I found a really interesting source on Sunday night which changed my approach. After reading through dozens of shiurim about Haazinu that had nothing to do with Haazinu (and were all about Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur), I finally found a Maharal I could use:

וזה כמו שאמרנו כי גברו ישראל והתפשט כח שלהם ביותר ולכך השירה הזאת היא אריח על גבי לבינה כי זה מורה התפשטות לפי שהם מונחים בענין שיש להרחיב תמיד וכך כאשר ישראל מקבלים שלימות אין זה הוא התכלית שאי אפשר שיהיה עוד רק הם מוכנים להיות להם יותר שלימות אבל השירה הזאת היא אריח על גבי אריח כי השירה הזאת בשביל שהפיל שונאיהן שלא היה לו תקומה כלל וזהו נפילה גמורה שהגיע למפלתן של רשעים

The quote actually isn't about Haazinu, but it was in a shiur about the graphical structure of the song. The quote also wasn't translated or punctuated, but I managed to mostly parse it by myself, and

alanscottevil helped where I got stuck in the translation. I got a few other sources about the topic of the layout of songs in Tanakh (some of which were mentioned in the shiur, but not quoted), and came to my own conclusions. Also, most of the sources weren't translated. I'm very happy with my ability to figure out what was going on. Thank you to all of my teachers for that.
So in the end, I think I did pretty well. I didn't prepare a script, but I knew my stuff well enough to ad lib it decently. I probably should have shown what I was talking about before I started, and probably passed it around... but it went pretty well. And the best thing is that other people had amazing insights! They really creatively brought things together in this great way - their conclusions were all much better than mine, I think.
I really felt great that so many people came to hear me who don't normally come and whom I respect. I'm not used to being known, and especially not known for being a teacher of things Torah. It's a good feeling! Anyway, it was fun. Maybe I'll do it again some time. And I got a more satisfying answer to my group learning heresy, too. I'm so glad that people are smarter than I am!

PS. I love the Maharal. I am considering getting something he's written. And also Midrash Rabbah