Parashat” Miketz”
Parashat “Miketz” continues to tell the story of Joseph. This time, Joseph arises from the pit in prison into which he was thrown after the incident with Potiphar’s wife. He rises straight to the Pharaoh’s palace, where he solves the Pharaoh’s troubling dreams and is appointed as his deputy. This, despite the fact that we are used to imagining Joseph as a prince of Egypt, as the person who aggressively handles the meeting with his brothers, and as the individual who is responsible for all of crop production in the land of Egypt, and for all intents and purposes, the Egyptian economy.
But the pit in the prison is not the only pit from which Joseph arises. He was, also, thrown into the water pit when his brothers plotted to kill him and in the meantime sat to break bread, in one of the most heartless moments depicted in the Torah. Joseph arose from that pit after Judah convinced the brothers to sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelites which by chance passed by.
This time, I would like to share a midrash which expands on an incident which did not occur in this week’s parasha, parashat “Miketz,” but rather occurs in parashat “Va’Yechi,” the parasha with which the book of Genesis ends. This midrashic story comes from Midrash Tanchuma, and occurs after Jacob passes away, and Joseph and his brothers return to Canaan to bury their father. After the burial, the Torah states, “And Joseph’s brothers saw that their father had died, and they said, ‘Perhaps Joseph will hate us and return to us all the evil that we did to him'” (Genesis 50:15). The brothers make their way back to Egypt and they become fearful of Joseph’s revenge; a revenge that was l by the emotional and physical schlep to Canaan and back, and was followed by an emotional left unfulfilled breakdown for Joseph and his brothers, which ultimately led to reconciliation. However, traumas, difficult events, and strong feelings do not tend to merely disappear.
Midrash Tanchuma wisely asks why do these feelings of fear suddenly return to Joseph’s brothers? What causes it? “And Joseph’s brothers saw that their father had died. What was it that they saw which caused them fear? On the way back from their father’s burial they saw that Joseph went to recite the blessing at the very pit into which they had cast him. And he recited the blessing which one is obligated to recite at a place where a miracle happened: ‘Blessed are You who performed a miracle for me at this place’” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi, 17).
This midrash teaches us that on the way back from Jacob’s grave, the brothers pass by the place where the whole story of throwing Joseph into the pit occurred. Joseph then stops and stares into the pit, into the place where he was thrown naked, by family members with whom he’d grown up. He, clearly, didn’t think he would ever be freed from that pit. Joseph stares deep into his trauma, and his brothers become fearful of what may likely awaken within him. Point blank, they fear that he will take revenge upon them. But Joseph the wise, who loves the Lord, who in the Muslim tradition is considered a prophet due to the special closeness he had with God and his spiritual power, looks deep into his personal abyss and chooses differently. He chooses to bless. He does not say a blessing over the life he currently has, the life of success, wealth and respect, but rather over the lack of logic, the unexpected moment, that cannot be defined other than as a miracle, during which he did not sit and wait for his death in that place.
During the eight days of Hanukkah, we say a blessing over the miracles (Al Hanissim) which were performed “during those days, during that time” (BaYamim HaHem BaZman HaZeh). Joseph connects the miracle to his internal spiritual power, and not to an external power that is manifested as revenge. The brothers are still stuck wandering through that thought, and thus they are afraid of Joseph. But Joseph, himself, found the internal strength to believe in that which he could not have imagined himself, and this strength changed revenge into a mightier power.
A. D. Gordon once said, in accordance with the stance of Kabala, that “the light will not be victorious over the darkness so long as we do not stand for the simple truth that instead of fighting the darkness we must increase the light.” Joseph’s spiritual example increases the light in a place of darkness, and changes the use of force, and the eradication of the other, by internal fortitude which is unquantifiable.