Shemoth: authority

Shemoth: authority

Early in the parsha, Pharaoh launches two plots.  The first: enslave the Hebrews,  There seems to be no dissent from this decree. There is not even a mention of Hebrew resistance. Quite surprising. Everyone  just fell in line. 

The second plot is  the Hebrew newborn androcide. killing the Israelite boys.  This would seem to be a much simpler edict to accomplish.  The Hebrews had a pair of midwives that serviced them.  If the midwives obeyed the King's command, the law would be carried out.  But these midwives feared the Gd,  They felt  that there was a higher authority, above the Pharoah.  They did not carry out the order. . 

The androcidal law devolved upon each individual to cast the male children into the river.  Yocheved did as instructed by Pharoah.  She simply supplemented the order by providing her baby with a boat. Moshe was  rescued and  formed through the kindness of strangers. 

In his exile, Moshe shows curiosity about the natural world.  The non destructive fire catches his attention and he meets the Gd that is the master of nature.  The Gd that has tolerated the subjugation of Israel long enough and will now begin the process of their liberation: with a show of power. 

Pharaoh does not recognize the authority of this Gd.  He increases the burden:: The workers must now make bricks without  raw materials( straw). Now there is some protest against Pharoah...which he ignores.  But no Hebrew rebellion.  Rather the Hebrew elders complain about Moshe and Aaron , characterizing them as trouble makers ( the forerunners of union organizers?) 

People don't question changes in the familiar power structure.   They Just follow orders. 

Questioning authority is an early step in righteousness. . 

Vayechi: Prophecy

Vayechi: Prophecy

Vayechi deals with prophecy.

Gd had revealed to Jacob's grandfather, Abraham that generations of his offspring would be slaves in Egypt and they would be redeemed, returned to the Promised Land. Jacob and his offspring knew this was the grand plan. They did not know how it would come to pass.

Each of the children of Israel led life in some compromise between reaction to the situation and ancestral rules.  They were shepherds, like their father. When their position in history was threatened by the favored brother, they tried to eliminate Joseph from the scene. They reacted to the situation.

They knew that eventually the descendants of Abraham would be slaves in Egypt and they knew that after a long period of suffering their, even more distant, descendants would be redeemed and brought into the Promised Land.  But the vision was vague, they did not know their role in the process, they did not know that they would volunteer to be slaves to Joseph...and Joseph, the slave of Pharaoh, automatically transferred their indenture  to Pharaoh ( Ma shekanah eved, kana Rabbo)

 The last will of Jacob and the last will of Joseph  refelect the prophecy, these last wishes clearly demonstrate both a knowledge of the prophecy and faith in its eventual fulfillment.  They  reinforce the prophecy, add to it.

Jacob asks to be buried  in the family crypt, to join Abraham and Isaac, Sarah and Rebecca and Leah.  He adds his remains to the significance of the  place. Joseph's last will  included the secret code, Pakod yifkod, that would be the password for the redeemer, Moshe.  It reflects faith that the redemption  part of the prophecy would be fulfilled.

This week my son and daughter-in-law sent a photo of  them at the graves of my parents in Israel.  My parents did not know their role in the prophecy. 

Vayigosh: approach ( with caution)

Vayigosh: approach ( with caution) 

There are many  situations of approach in this week's parasha:  Judah approaches Joseph, Joseph approaches his brothers ,  someone conveys  the news of the arrival of the Israelite immigrants to Pharaoh,  Joseph's brothers and  Jacob approach Pharaoh ,...., the hungry masses approach Joseph for food, etc.   Only   the approach of Judah merits  the appellation Vayigosh.  Vayigosh reminds me of  Will Rogers,  the Okie,  with his shy, gosh manner.  

Prior use of the word  in the Torah is consistent with the idea of  approach with  trepdiation.  

וַיִּגַּ֥שׁ אַבְרָהָ֖ם וַיֹּאמַ֑ר הַאַ֣ף תִּסְפֶּ֔ה צַדִּ֖יק עִם־רָשָֽׁע: Abraham approaches Gd to question  Gd's judgement about mass killing in Sodom

וַיִּגַּ֧שׁ יַעֲקֹ֛ב אֶל־יִצְחָ֥ק אָבִ֖יו: Jacob approaches Isaac in disguise, after admitting that he fears being discovered a fraud

The migrant, Israelites are placed in Goshen , a word with  the same phoneme, gosh,  .  It is a refugee camp, a place that approaches Egypt, but  has a lower status. It is a place where there will be no mixing with the Egyptians. Goshen approaches Egypt

Part of Joseph's cleverness was the maintenance of power.  The temptation to revolution in a famine, after total impoverishment seems overwhelming.  Joseph must have had a strong bureaucracy. 

IN desperation. the downtrodden can approach power, they become a treat to power.  Josephs compromises - the flat  20% income  tax, the welfare state - become the model of all states.  Joseph  moves the state from an agency of force to an organization for the benefit if its citizens,  

Joseph for Viceroy!

Miketz: apocalypse

Miketz: apocalypse

Ketz means the end, the apocalypse.  In Noach ( 6;13), Gd tells Noach Ketz kol bosor...the end of all flesh has come before me.  The world had set on a course that led, inevitably , to total destruction.  Gd modified the destruction so that the world could be regenerated. 

This week's  parsha is Miketz, from the end, a taste of the apocalypse.The world famine could have led to the destruction of our species, but Joseph, through his interpretation of Pharaoh's dream, rescues humanity.  A result of that rescue is that the enslavement of the Israelite , a process that could have meant their destruction had Gd not redeemed them through Moshe. 

Ketz also means awakening from a dream.. Vayikatz Pharaoh.. and Pharaoh awakened,  The realization of  apocalypse is an  awakening from a dream. Everything comes to an end. 

Miketz, itself signal end of Joseph's imprisonment, a positive event, but a link in this chain of destruction...and redemption. 

One can frame the story such that Joseph manipulates  the future.  Joseph predicts seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine.  Farmers plant and reap, anticipating the famine, they plant and reap more and deplete the soil, causing the famine. 

The famine becomes the tool  through which Pharoah becomes the central authority.  He controls the food. He has collectivized the country, brought the food from the countryside into the city.  He has converted the peasants into workers.  This Joseph is the model for a more recent Joseph... Stalin. This is an ancient story of using starvation as a political tool fro collectivization.  

I do not understand hunger. My parents did.  My mother never let me leave the house without food,  When she said "me tur nisht zindigen... One may not sin" she meant that one may not waste food.  In he parsha, Jacob is willing to risk his most prized son, Benjamin, for food. 

May we be spared a world order based upon hunger, a world order that leads to apocalypse

Vayeshev: domination and love

Vayeshev: domination and love

Domination is the thread of the parsha.  Jacob's invading family has settled in the land that his ancestors wandered. Joseph is chosen as the supervising son, the middle manager.  He reports to the boss, Jacob.  

Joseph has dreams.  His dreams are of domination, the sheaves, the brothers, the sun and the moon and the stars bow to Joseph in his dream 

Those whom Joseph dreams of dominating rebel and dominate him,  throw  him into a pit.  Reuben, hoping to regain his  upper middle  status in the family, saves Joseph from murder at the hands of his other brothers. 

Joseph  is relegated to a permanent status of subjugation, he is made a slave. He is changed from a person to a property, an object that is bought and sold.  He is now  a purely economic entity, he is his monetary value, his net worth

The parsha  then switches to the story of Tamar and Judah.  A woman who cannot marry, in those days, was relegated to a life of poverty.  In the context of the  Torah, she is relegated to a a life that has no purpose, a life without progeny. Tamar descends to the ultimate degradation, to prostitution, to put meaning into her life.  The male domination of her time ( that is carried forward by unfortunate tradition) comes through very clearly in her story of  courage.

The story of the slave Joseph, that ends the parsha, ties together many of the threads.  Joseph is not only a slave, he is a slave to chief executioner ( like my father was  in Treblinka).  As a slave he is subject to the commands of the free people that own him, including the woman of the house, who wants to prostitute him.  He descends to another pit, the prison.  And there he interprets dreams of ascent, dreams of restoration to a  middle position.  These dreams will lead to Joseph's ascent, but that will take time

The parsha  explores the driver's of everyday life: the desire to dominate, suffering under domination; the desire for love, often in the wrong places.

  Sometimes things work out