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D'var: Parashat Miqeitz 5785 Commentary by Michael Goldstein Friday, December 27, 2024 |
| Miqeitz Genesis 41:1 — 44:17 |
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The Parshah this Shabbat is Miketz. It is generally read on the first Shabbat during Chanukah.
Miketz translates as At The End Of which seems to refer to Joseph’s imprisonment after
having been falsely accused of rape, or maybe to his estrangement from his father and brothers,
or even, perhaps, to all the hardships he had after he was sold into slavery.
In Miketz, Pharaoh has two troubling dreams. His cupbearer, who remembers from prison Joseph’s ability to understand dreams, suggests Pharaoh have Joseph interpret them. Joseph says the dreams mean there will be seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Then he outlines how Pharaoh can provide food to his people during the famine. Pharaoh is so impressed by Joseph that he makes him his second in command. During the famine, Jacob sends his other sons, save Benjamin, to buy food in Egypt. Joseph knows who they are, but they don’t recognize him. He gives them grain, arrests Simeon as a hostage, and says to bring Benjamin to him to prove they are not spies. When they return with Benjamin, he puts a silver goblet in Benjamin’s bag and accuses him of stealing it. Here are the first four verses of Miketz.
It came to pass at the end of two full years, that Pharaoh was dreaming, and behold, he was standing by the Nile.
And from the Nile were coming up seven cows, of handsome appearance and robust flesh, and they pastured in the marshland. And behold, seven other cows were coming up after them from the Nile, of ugly appearance and lean of flesh, and they stood beside the cows [which were] on the Nile bank. And the cows of ugly appearance and lean of flesh devoured the seven cows that were of handsome appearance and healthy (Gen. 41:1-4). Keeping in mind that Joseph was despised by his brothers, and that he related better to the children of his father’s concubines than to the children of Leah, his father’s lesser-loved wife, perhaps the author of this Parshah is saying that it was Joseph’s status as a relative outsider that made it possible for him to see below the surface to the deeper truth of his being a visionary and prophet... a truth his brothers so cruelly rejected. It has been said that the Jewish people, whose position as monotheists in a pagan world, and their subsequent 2,000 years of exile made them the ultimate outsiders; that the adversity they endured as outsiders gave them a Joseph-like ability to see beyond the realities of the world around them, and that all their struggles made it possible for them to have a deeper, more insightful view of the societies in which they lived. I think it is fitting that this Parshah, which speaks to kindling the light of reconciliation between Joseph and his family is read during Chanukah, a time when monotheistic Jews saw beyond Hellenistic culture and fought for their brighter vision of the world as the way it should be. This story of Joseph’s journey from humiliation to dignity foreshadows the larger story of the Jewish people. According to the Torah, only a few generations later, the Israelites – who had initially prospered and multiplied under Egyptian goodwill —were enslaved and faced the possibility of genocide. Then, when it seemed their conditions could not get any worse, they had a sudden reversal of fortune when Moses arrived. Again and again, this has proven to be the great narrative of the Jewish people. The darkness of persecution by the Greeks gave way to the menorah’s light; Haman’s wicked plot brought us to the edge of genocide, only to find last-minute salvation by Esther, the winner of a Persian beauty contest. And what was true of our ancient history echoes just as loudly, perhaps more so, in modern times. Consider that in the summer of 1944, the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz were running at maximum capacity. More than 400,000 Jews were brought to Auschwitz during that summer. Most were murdered in those gas chambers. And yet, less than four years later, at 4:00 o’clock on Friday afternoon, May 14, 1948, David Ben-Gurion (who would become the first Prime Minister and Minister of Defense eight hours later) stood in the main hall of the Tel Aviv Museum, now known as Independence Hall, to announce the birth that midnight of the State of Israel. In so many ways and over so many years, we Jews have experienced terrifying depths of suffering, and yet risen from that dark misery to new and unexpected sunlight. I would like to hope that we need not suffer exile or oppression in order, like Joseph, to see what others do not see, and to reveal, to ourselves and to the world, the sometimes hard truths that those others are afraid even to whisper. Chag Chanukah Sameach. Michael Goldstein |
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