By Rabbi Ezra Weinberg
Parshat Mikets is the second of three parshyot that tell the story of Joseph and his brothers. This week we are also celebrating the festival of Hanukkah. If the point of Torah study is to make connections to our ancient stories to draw wisdom for today then one appropriate question to ask is what can we learn about Miketz through looking at the lenses of Hanukkah? Get ready to put on your Hanukoggles.
The first lenses worth noting comes from Jewish tradition. Several daily prayers get a special addition on Hanukkah called “Al Hanisim,” often translated as “for the miracles.” From that we can assume that the builders of Jewish life in rabbinic times, when modern prayer was constructed, wanted us to associate the festival of Hanukkah with miracles. With thanks to the Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah song many of us may think of Hanukkah as the “festival of light.” The language of light, however, actually limits Hanukkah to one miracle – the oil burning for eight days. It might be more traditionally accurate to refer to Hanukkah, instead, as the Holiday of Miracles.
Using the lenses of miracles then, what does parsha miketz have to teach us? One does not have to look far in the parsha to see some pretty miraculous activity. Joseph begins the parsha rotting in an Egyptian jail for crimes he didn’t commit. Fortunes change quickly when, through an old connection and an incredible opportunity, Joseph is asked to interpret the nightmare dreams of the Pharoah – sole ruler of Egypt. Just the opportunity itself might be enough to constitute a miracle, but Joseph and his dream interpreting skills go the distance on this one. From Pharaoh’s dreams Joseph conjures up the entire meteorological and agricultural pattern of the Middle East for the next fourteen years. Joseph interprets seven years of surplus harvest followed by seven years of famine, drought and food scarcity. At that point, Pharaoh realizes what is at stake. He appoints Joseph as the senior Egyptian official to oversee the national storage of food so that the bounty
years will supply everyone through the famine years. In one of the Torah’s great comeback storylines, one could argue that through understanding these dreams, Joseph saves not only Egypt but much of the region from massive starvation.
From this section of the parsha alone, we have several miracles to choose from.
1. Joseph’s rise to prominence and power.
2. Egypt being saved from potential disaster because of one man’s talent to interpret dreams
3. Pharoah simply taking advice from a lowly prisoner.
4. Joseph’s dreams of ascending to greatness coming true, which came from the previous parsha.
But are these really miracles? If we look at the modern Hebrew translation the word used for miracle, “nes” actually means a “banner.” The literal meaning does not necessarily conotate some supernatural event, but rather an event that is held up high enough for many more people to see. Like a bannar, a “nes” gives a message greater exposure to the public. Nothing that happens in this segment of the Joseph story is supernatural. It maybe hard to believe that the story is historically accurate, but it doesn’t defy the laws of nature like crossing the Red Sea and other such miracles in the Torah. Dream interpretation happens today as it did in ancient times. Its not a science and it’s not unfathomable to hear a story when a dream predicted a future event. What if we look at the Joseph story as a banner kind of “nes,”? What is the message that is being broadcasted? Is it about Jewish potential for power in the non-Jewish world? Perhaps the banner’s message is about the delicate balance between nature and human will. Maybe the answer to some of the ecological challenges such as drought and food shortages are only one well-interpreted