TORAH SPARKS
Parshat Miketz, Rosh Chodesh, Hannukah
December 24, 2022 | 30 Kislev 5783
Torah: Genesis 41:1-44:17; Rosh Chodesh: Numbers 28:9-15; Hannukah: Numbers 7:42-47 Triennial: 41:1-52
Haftarah: Zechariah 2:14-4:7
Sarah, Rebecca, and Joseph
Bex Stern-Rosenblatt
Parashah
Just as his father and grandfather did before him, Jacob faces famine in the land of Israel. Just as they did, Jacob will have to make a decision to go elsewhere in search of food. And just as happened in their stories, a family member s hidden identity will be revealed. However, unlike Abraham and Isaac, Jacob is reluctant to leave Israel and tries to send his sons instead of him. Moreover, it is his son, Joseph, who will reveal a hidden identity, in place of the wives, Rebecca and Sarah, doing so.
Food and its absence is important in the stories of Jacob s sons. Last week we read of Jacob s sons sitting around feasting while Joseph was below in a pit, without even water to drink. When the sons come back to Jacob and ask him to recognize Joseph s bloody coat, Jacob s mind immediately jumps to food. He imagines an evil animal eating Joseph up, devouring him. It seems only appropriate that these people who feasted and imagined feasting while Joseph was without food should become dependent on his food to help them out during a famine.
Similarly, Isaac s descent in a time of famine comes after a story of food. We read, Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew. And he ate and he drank and he got up and he went. And Esau spurned the birthright, which is immediately followed by, And there was a famine in the land. Isaac goes to Gerar instead of Egypt, where he passes Rebecca off as his sister for fear he might be killed on account of her beauty. Abraham s descent shares the sister-wife theme with that of Isaac, but in this first telling of descent in time of famine, no food is involved.
Three times the story of famine and concealed identity is told in Genesis. Each successive telling is longer than the one before it, filling in details. In Jacob s story, it is easy to read the famine as measure-for-measure punishment – those who were food-driven and denied food to Joseph now depend on Joseph for their food. It is easy to understand Joseph s taking on a new identity. He becomes Zaphnath-Paaneah, Pharaoh s right-hand man and in doing so saves his family. It is also easy to understand Jacob s grief. Through his actions, he has lost a loved one. Much of this second half of Genesis is propelled by Jacob s sorrow at the loss of the son he sent away.
We needed this third retelling to flesh out the details of the first two famine stories. In the first two stories, we do not hear anything from the one sent away, the one with a new identity. Sarah and Rebecca are silent. The rewards of wealth that come at the ends of the stories are not attributed to their cleverness or the skill with which they navigated their roles. It is difficult to see how much is asked of them, to see them put their lives and dignity on the line in order to save their husbands. It is most difficult in the case of Sarah, who lives through it twice. As we have seen, for Sarah, the famine is not a case of measure-for-measure punishment. She and Abraham had no sooner arrived in Israel then the famine came.
Reading Joseph as parallel to Sarah and Rebecca helps to rehabilitate them. Joseph stands in here for the wife, for his mother, for Rachel. He too is beautiful. Most important, in this telling, Joseph is the hero. Joseph consciously works as God s tool to help save his family and the world. Perhaps Sarah and Rebecca did as well. Perhaps they acted as Esther did. Perhaps they did not. But the third famine in Genesis reminds us that in the face of famine, in the face of tragedy, we can act. We can acknowledge what went wrong and take steps to make it right, not just for us but for the whole world.
Hannukah Not Just the Menorah Story
Vered Hollander-Goldfarb
Haftarah
This haftarah seems like an obvious choice for the Shabbat of Hannukah. The golden menorah with 7 candles perfectly connects the miracle of the renewed Mikdash (Temple) with our commemoration of the miracle by lighting candles. However, if that was the case, the haftarah should have opened with the menorah scene and continued past the end of the haftarah, since the story of the menorah does not end there. There seems to be a different message of Hannukah here.
The events of Hannukah took place in the second century BCE, after the events described by Zechariah (end of 6th century BCE) in the haftarah. But the events share plenty of points. In both, the Mikdash plays a central role, and in both it was a means to an end not the goal itself.
Zechariah spoke to the people who had received permission to rebuild the religious center in Jerusalem. From the haftarah it appears that this task was not going smoothly.
Intertwined with the building of the Mikdash was a greater dream: the renewal of an independent state, just as in the days of the first Mikdash. The benevolent Persian king allowed freedom of religion but did not offer any hope of political freedom. That did not quench the thirst for a sovereign state, but it might have forced it underground, as can be seen in the haftarah:
(3:8) Hear, O Joshua, the high priest, you and your companions who sit before you, they are men of wondrous sign; For behold, I am bringing forth My servant Branch. (9) And I will remove the iniquity of that land in one day .
The key to understanding Zechariah s ambiguous reference to God s servant Branch is found in Jeremiah 23:5-6:
(5) Behold, days are coming, says the
Lord,
That I will raise to David a Branch of righteousness;
A King shall reign and prosper, and do judgment and righteousness in the earth.
(6)In His days Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell safely
Jeremiah (who prophesied on the eve of the destruction of Jerusalem) spoke of a future king from the house of David, one we might refer to as the Messiah. He will be a sovereign head of a kingdom in which justice reigns, making personal and national safety possible. Zechariah speaks of sitting under the vine and the fig, a picturesque depiction of long-term peace found also in the days of Solomon.
Zechariah had to speak cautiously to his generation s desire for such a kingdom. He spoke in code that could be understood by those who treasured Jeremiah s prophecies. Just as in the Hannukah event, purifying the Mikdash and lighting the Menorah are not the entire story, neither is the building of the Mikdash the final goal in the days of Zechariah. In both events the Mikdash is a religious symbol that is part of the greater desire for an independent, autonomous state. Zechariah spoke about it; the Hasmoneans saw it happen. The haftarah, just like the Hannukah story, is about a combined spiritual and national recovery.
The First Halakhic Change in History
The Halakhah in the
Parashah
Joshua Kulp
Although we re not reading from the books of the Maccabees in our synagogues, my column this week will focus on this book and an important halakhic episode that is a crucial part of the story. In Maccabees I chapter 2, Mattityahu sets off the revolt in Modiin (my home city) by refusing to sacrifice to pagan gods and then killing a Jew who did. Pursued by Greek soldiers, Mattityahu s followers are forced to flee. Hiding in caves, they refuse to come out and obey the king s command. In response, we read in verses 35-37, The soldiers attacked them immediately, but the Jews did nothing to resist; they did not even throw stones or block the entrances to the caves where they were hiding. They said, We will all die with a clear conscience. Let heaven and earth bear witness that you are slaughtering us unjustly. So the enemy attacked them on the Sabbath and killed the men, their wives, their children, and their livestock. A thousand people died. It is unclear whether or not the Greeks knew that the Jews would not fight back on Shabbat, but one can only imagine that once it was clear that they would not, the Greeks now had an easy way to defeat the rebels.
Mattityahu and his followers had a choice: They could fight on Shabbat and attempt to overthrow their Greek enemies, or die as martyrs for their cause. They chose the former. When Mattityahu and his friends heard the news about this, they were greatly saddened and said to one another, If all of us do as these other Jews have done and refuse to fight the Gentiles to defend our lives and our religion, we will soon be wiped off the face of the earth. On that day they decided that if anyone attacked them on the Sabbath, they would defend themselves, so that they would not all die as other Jews had died in the caves. Mattityahu s decision allowed them to fight the next Shabbat, eventually overthrow their Greek enemies and purify the defiled Temple. So powerful was their decision that it was really not questioned for the rest of Jewish history. In Hebrew we say, — Saving a life overrides the Shabbat.
But there is more to the story. The Book of Maccabees is not just a recording of historical facts. Like all books in the ancient world, it shapes its tale to convey a pedagogical message to the reader. The author here has carved out a careful message concerning which battles are worth dying for and which are not. When the Greeks command the Jews to offer foreign sacrifices or to eat pig (as we find in the tale of the seven sons in Maccabees II), Jews lay down their lives and are praised for doing so. Life is of course an important value, but the struggle to physically survive does not take precedence when one s entire way of living is threatened. Abrogating the prohibition of idolatry or the dietary rules at the command of the king are instances in which the Greeks were attempting to destroy Judaism itself. As such, the editors of these books advocate for martyrdom. However, the case of fighting on Shabbat is different. The Greeks were not commanding the Jews to break Shabbat. They were simply taking advantage of the Jewish reticence to fight on Shabbat. This was not a case of martyrdom –demonstrating one s fealty to God at the cost of death. At certain times, commandments must be broken in order to achieve the higher goal of preservation of life and the Jewish people.
Following the precedent of the Maccabees, the rabbis were adamant that pikuach nefesh the saving of life, overrides the commandment to keep Shabbat but only when it is not done as part of religious persecution (see Bavli Sanhedrin 74a; Maimonides, Foundations of the Torah 5:1-2). Today, Shabbat is routinely violated in hospitals throughout the Jewish world. Indeed in any case where there is even a potential threat to life, not only may Shabbat be violated, but it must be violated. The Israeli army violates Shabbat in order to protect its citizens. Today we take this for granted, but we can look back to Mattityahu and his embattled partners and thank them for this remarkable innovation life is a more important value in Judaism than (almost) any particular commandment.