Jewish academic and Hebrew scholar Irene Lancaster reflects on the meaning of the story of Joseph.
At the tip of the 12 months, encapsulated within the name of our latest parsha, Miketz, (Genesis 41-44:17), Joseph the dreamer finds himself in a hole.
What do you do in a hole? Resign yourself to your fate; or, as in Joseph’s case, use your talents with a purpose to extricate yourself and forge a latest future?
Pharaoh has a famous dream of seven fat cows followed by seven thin cows which swallow the fat cows. This dream is succeeded by seven ears of corn in similar mode.
Joseph, often known as the interpreter of dreams, is named upon to interpret the dream and advises Pharaoh to appoint an economist to assist Egypt save up during times of plenty for the time of famine which is able to arrive in seven years.
Joseph is chosen and appointed to the role of economist. He also marries Pharoah’s daughter, so is now related to Pharaoh himself, the identical Pharaoh who had him imprisoned on trumped-up charges.
Why is Miketz (‘At the tip …’), the Joseph story, read towards the tip of the gentile 12 months and across the time of Chanukah, the eight-day festival which we’re currently celebrating?
Both the Joseph story and the Chanukah story cope with Jews who make good in diaspora, only to seek out that, at the tip of the day, diaspora repudiates Jews.
Chanukah commemorates the heroism of the Maccabees from Modiin in Israel. Almost single-handedly, they stood out against the Syrian Greek rulers who had succeeded in Hellenizing a big a part of Israel. In 168-167 BCE, the Syrian Greek king, Antiochus Epiphanes, defiled the Temple in Jerusalem and at best most Jews stood by and let it occur.
The Maccabees defeated the Syrian Greeks and within the Temple a miracle took place. They found a cruse of oil, barely enough for in the future. But the oil lasted for eight days and that is what we commemorate at our annual Chanukah festival. We light candles every single day for eight days, starting with one, and increasing the number every day.
If not for the heroic stance of the Maccabees, the miracle of the oil wouldn’t have happened.
Today the Jews in diaspora find themselves in the identical predicament as each Joseph in Egypt and the Hellenized Jews of 168 BCE.
Unlike at Purim which takes place in Persia a number of centuries earlier, the Hellenized Greeks didn’t wish to physically exterminate the Jews; they simply desired to de-Judaize them and force them to adopt their very own customs.
Joseph has his name modified by Pharaoh and becomes outwardly an Egyptian. But in the long term this total assimilation is just not good for the Jews, as we discover when a latest Pharaoh arises who ‘knows not Joseph’ (Exodus 1:8).
This 12 months, in a rare incidence, Chanukah began at Christmas and ends within the New Year. But the 2 festivals couldn’t be more different.
Chanukah celebrates the nation that was extricated from near-certain death and oblivion through assimilation. And it was human beings who made this occur, human beings who went against the grain and were unpopular amongst their very own people. As a result, belief in a single G-d was saved by the Jews for the world.
A rabbinic explanation states how the cruse of oil within the Temple was actually split in two, the numerical value of the letters of the Hebrew ‘pach’ being 88. This is why we light 44 candles in total today.
However, we also sing in regards to the word ‘pach’ in our song ‘Maoz Tsur’ which accompanies the nightly candle-lighting. This song, the title of which was incorporated into Israel’s Declaration of Independence of May 1948, features a reference to those that want to destroy the Jewish people. These destroyers find yourself being hoist on their very own petard and the technique of execution becomes a ‘pach’, here not a cruse, but a ‘snare’.
To return to Joseph’s ‘hole’. Is this hole a snare, a trap which is able to imprison him for all times? Or, will it break open to disclose the oil of life, illuminating him in his appointed role as saviour of the Egyptian people at their time of need?
This is the story of the Jewish people, a few of whom are still imprisoned in Gaza today by the forces of evil. Jews have all the time been called upon to assist the world, but too often they’ve been made to pay for the envy and greed of others by punishment of their good deeds.
May the approaching 12 months, paralleling the onset of longer days, shine a latest light on the world as our final eight candles are lit on the brand new month of Tevet within the Jewish calendar. This 12 months the Jewish latest moon of Tevet, all the time going down on the eighth and final night of Chanukah, coincides with January 1 2025.
Chanukah is dedication. May we rededicate ourselves to each the tasks at hand and the brand new tasks awaiting us in the long run.
