Miketz
After years in prison, Joseph is brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dreams. He tells Pharaoh that seven years of plenty will be followed by seven years of famine, and how to deal with this, and Pharaoh appoints him viceroy of Egypt. Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food, don’t recognise Joseph, and are accused of treachery and imprisoned. When Joseph forces them to bring his youngest brother, Benjamin, to Egypt, Joseph plants his silver cup in his sack, leading to a final confrontation.
Miketz – Danny Maseng
Danny Maseng is the Chazzan and Musical Director of Temple Israel of Hollywood in California. His liturgical compositions are sung in synagogues around the world. A singer, songwriter, actor and much sought-after scholar, Danny is also the patron artist of the Abraham Geiger School of Cantorial Arts in Berlin.
Andrew Lloyd Webber must love Joseph, and why shouldn’t he? His outrageously successful career was launched on the coattails of Joseph’s garments. Funny how a tunic of stripes can become a Technicolor Dream Coat, but, such is the power of show business, that it can sometimes turn the profound into the profitable while transmuting subtle shades into gaudy, meaningless chintz.
Growing up in Israel and attending my uninspired secular school, which shall remain nameless, Joseph was approached as a transitional character, wedged between Jacob and Moses as some necessary narrative ploy to move the Children of Israel from the book of Genesis to the book of Exodus. He was presented to us as nothing more than an annoying younger brother who ought to have kept his mouth shut more often. This version of Joseph was merely someone who lucked out later on in life. Nothing special here, they implied, just the vicissitudes of life and the cost of bad family dynamics. Behave yourself and keep a low profile and you won’t get thrown into a hole in the ground.
Only when I began my journey through the Hassidic and Kabalistic worlds as an adult, did I discover a Joseph of different stripes: a magical, colorful, profound prophet, whose place in Jewish history is so crucial that he is called Tzadik Yessod Olam – The Righteous Foundation of the World.
Why such reverence for Joseph, from where comes such adoration? Clearly, Joseph is one of the best written characters of the Torah. We watch his development from a cocky, boastful, self centered youth to a mature, humble adult. We follow his journey from pampered childhood, through near death, to slavery, to jail and, finally, to the highest ranks of Egyptian government, all within his first thirty years of his life. All this is fine and good but, surely, not enough to make him the pillar of our existence.
To understand Joseph fully, one must look to his pivotal placement in the axis of Biblical time and his ability to see it, understand it and act upon it. It is one thing to have talent, and Joseph was certainly talented, but talent is not earned – it is a gift from God. What separates the merely talented from the truly great is the ability to grasp one’s talent, to come to terms with it and to make something of it for the benefit of others. Joseph’s greatness lies in his ability to see the past, the present and the future and identify, indeed, own his crucial role in facilitating the flow between them.
The language the Bible uses to inform and enlighten is especially crucial in the Joseph narrative. The use of descent and ascent, of parallel numbers, as well as the foreshadowing of memorable events while drawing on the past, all come to point us towards the unmistakable realization that Joseph is, indeed, our foundational Tzadik, righteous one. The Torah is saying to us: No Joseph – no food and no life; no slavery and no redemption from it; no Mount Sinai and no Torah; no wandering through the wilderness and no Promised Land.
Joseph's very arrival in Egypt depended on three nations coming together at a crucial moment at an empty well. The prophet and future savior of the Israelites is brought up from the depths of the well by Midianites, who, in turn, sell him to the Ishmaelite merchants who 'take him down' to Egypt. And in this one act, the descendants of Abraham’s first born son, Ishmael, representing the past, receive into their hands the favorite son of Israel, representing the present, delivered up from the pit by Moses' future in-laws, the Midianites, representing the future.
Jacob found his beloved Rachel at a well in Haran; his son, Joseph is drawn, as it were, from an empty well in Canaan, and Moses will find his wife, Tzipora at a well in Midian. Past, present and future merge in Joseph at the well of his destiny. In order to arrive at the beginning of our portion, Joseph is thrown down into a well and then taken up from the well; down into Egypt and then up into Potiphar’s care; down again into a pit in Pharaoh’s jail and, finally, up again for his final ascent to his moment of revelation.
Two matters in this portion of Miketz will help to clarify the connection between these disparate chapters that span three different books in the Torah: First, Joseph's answer to Pharaoh's question about his two dreams and, second, Joseph's words to his brothers upon their arrival in Egypt.
At the very beginning of our portion, when Pharaoh describes his two dreams, Joseph answers: "... Pharaoh's dream is one dream". Clearly, the narrative speaks of two dreams, each involving the number Seven: Seven good cows and seven ill cows; seven good sheaves and seven sickly ones. And, yet, Joseph insists on them being one dream. Why? The answer lies in Vayetze, when Jacob has to work seven 'good' years to earn his beloved Rachel, only to end up with her sister, Leah, whom he does not love. So deceived, he must then labor seven more 'bad' years in order to finally get Rachel.
Genesis, chapter 42 introduces the famine in Canaan. Jacob sends ten of his sons down to Egypt, leaving Benjamin with him, to bring back food for the hungry Israelites. When Joseph’s treacherous brothers arrive in Egypt with hat in hand, they do not recognize the brother they had sold into slavery. Joseph, however, recognizes them immediately and says to them: "...you are spies, you have come to see the nakedness of the land". It is a curious choice of words for so many reasons. Why not explode with anger? Why not reproach them for their wickedness? Why not inquire as to the well-being of his father? Instead, Joseph catapults his betrayers into the distant future, through his words, to the moment ten out of twelve spies will return to Moses speaking ill of the Promised Land. Only two will speak for good, Caleb and Joshua. Once again, we see the importance of numbers in Joseph's life: Ten brothers who caused him injustice, arrayed against the two brothers, innocent and beloved, Joseph and Benjamin, the only sons born to Rachel.
The parallel symmetry of all these events does not elude Joseph. His own life’' history is his palate. Nothing that has occurred before was accidental, everything that will come to pass flows though him at this moment in time. Joseph displays not a trace of arrogance, nor one bit of self pity. There is no vengeance, no animus and no bitterness. The former narcissist has become the altruist; the former slave of men has become the servant of God. Nothing is meaningless, nothing is pointless and all of it, cruel and compassionate, delivered by the hand of God.
Baruch Shomer Hab’rit, Blessed is the keeper of the covenant.
Another Voice
Joseph anticipates famine, and implements food policy for Egypt’s survival. Are we ready to do the same?
Michael Pollan, from New York Times Magazine, writes: "with a suddenness that has taken us all by surprise, the era of cheap and abundant food appears to be drawing to a close". The wealthy world has relied upon fossil-fuel driven agriculture to inexpensively produce calories, but at environmental and health costs that cannot be sustained—morally or economically.
Famine risk remains high; for instance, the Economist reports: "the Horn of Africa has remained a hunger zone ... the present drought is the worst there since 1984." Rising food prices now also threaten merely disadvantaged populations with hunger, and all of us with more costly groceries.
Volatile energy prices, climate change, water shortages, and violent conflict contribute to both acute famine and chronic scarcity. 2008 saw global food riots; sadly recent relief in energy prices has not translated into significant relief in food prices. The financial crisis won't help, as wealthy nations tighten aid budgets and poor country expatriates reduce remittances home.
All the world is Egypt today, and our 'seven years of plenty' are running out. Can we be Joseph, and change - ourselves, our countries, the world - to survive?
