Generating an AI voice recording would be fairly easy - I've already set up command line access to Amazon Polly, so it would take me only a few seconds per article. The down side is that I'm pretty sure the AI would choke pretty badly on a lot of the Hebrew words.
If there was a significant demand, I suppose I could record it myself (I do that for a living - https://www.udemy.com/user/david-clinton-12/). But I'm not sure how many people would go for it.
The story, while silly and ahisorical, has a very different message and is really innocent.
1. Nobody coveted the man's esrog. They wanted him to stay for yom tov to share the esrog with them and they made it worth his while.
2. They refused him hospitality to bring out his greatness to serve as a limud zchuz for Kllal Yisroel.
3. At the end he got what he had been promised and more.
The message of the story is that a yid was willing to give up his olam habo for performing a mitzvah here and now. Snd that is Ahavas Hashem and avodah leshma.
You're right. That may be what people think was "happening" - and that's likely the motivation for those who would retell the story. But it's exactly that kind of flawed thinking that prompts immature and entitled individuals to try to force their will on unwilling victims (and communities). Subtext counts - and is often a far more effective teacher than text.
Any chance you could make posts listenable?
Generating an AI voice recording would be fairly easy - I've already set up command line access to Amazon Polly, so it would take me only a few seconds per article. The down side is that I'm pretty sure the AI would choke pretty badly on a lot of the Hebrew words.
If there was a significant demand, I suppose I could record it myself (I do that for a living - https://www.udemy.com/user/david-clinton-12/). But I'm not sure how many people would go for it.
The story, while silly and ahisorical, has a very different message and is really innocent.
1. Nobody coveted the man's esrog. They wanted him to stay for yom tov to share the esrog with them and they made it worth his while.
2. They refused him hospitality to bring out his greatness to serve as a limud zchuz for Kllal Yisroel.
3. At the end he got what he had been promised and more.
The message of the story is that a yid was willing to give up his olam habo for performing a mitzvah here and now. Snd that is Ahavas Hashem and avodah leshma.
You're right. That may be what people think was "happening" - and that's likely the motivation for those who would retell the story. But it's exactly that kind of flawed thinking that prompts immature and entitled individuals to try to force their will on unwilling victims (and communities). Subtext counts - and is often a far more effective teacher than text.