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OUT FROM OPEN JAWS

As a child growing up in the 1960’s every Shabbos I thought of the Jews of the Soviet Union. Our family always sang the Shabbos zemer of Ko Ribon Olam. The third stanza forms a prayer to HaShem in which we plead with Him to please save the sheep from the mouth of the lion, and take out Your nation from their exile.

What a picture! The lion’s jaws are already open and the sheep is in his mouth. Once the lion closes his mouth there will be no more sheep. That is the illustration of HaShem’s people in this exile. This picture was certainly not an accurate description of the exile I was experiencing in Baltimore. It was, however, a perfect illustration of the plight of the Jews of the Soviet Union.

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UNDERSTANDING YOUR BALANCE SHEET

This week’s Parsha, Mikeitz, begins with the Torah informing us that Yosef’s freedom from prison was delayed two years. Our Sages explain that this was the con-sequence of Yosef’s lack of bitachon (trust) in HaShem. In last week’s Parsha, after Yosef deciphered the butler’s dream he asked the butler to please remember him to Pharaoh and to get him out of prison. This slight reliance on the butler’s assistance demonstrated an ever so slight shortcoming in Yosef’s bitachon. He should have said nothing to the butler and allow HaShem to bring about his freedom with no assistance at all.

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THE BLIND HAVE DEEPER INSIGHT

Adapted from Rabbi Aaron Lopiansky’s talk

I am so grateful to the readership of TableTalk as you provide me the opportunity of ‘pirsumei nisa’ on this beautiful holiday of Chanuka. In light of the holiday I wish to dedicate this thought to Chanukah rather than to this week’s Parsha, Mikeitz.

Chanukah celebrates our survival and ultimate triumph over the threat of assimilation into the Greek culture. Although we achieved both military and political victories against the Greeks, it is the religious victory that we celebrate. The reason for this is because the criteria of being worthy of establishing a holiday on our calendar is that the event must be an historically alter-ing event. For example, the Exodus transformed us into a people. The receiving of the Torah gave definition to our mission as a people and so on.

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THE SMALL WEAK FLAME CONTINUES TO BURN

Among the many lessons of Chanukah is the power of the minority. We find this quality is underscored in the Al Hanisim that is said multiple times a day throughout Chanukah. The composers of this prayer equate the purity and the righteousness of our people to their being weak and few in numbers. Certainly, purity and righteous-ness qualify us and make us worthy of victory. But how does being weak and few in numbers make us worthy of victory?

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THE STRUGGLE

As we currently stand in the middle of Chanukah I would like to look past our weekly Parsha, Mikeitz, and keep our focus on Chanukah.

HaShem designed the human being with the capacity to train himself to do difficult activities that with enough practice those activities become easy. For example, anyone who changes their daily routine to wake up at 4:30 am will find this quite difficult and yet once it becomes routine the difficulty diminishes if it does not become natural for him. Similarly, this is true with learning a new discipline. A person can train himself to hear the fine differences between the various notes and octaves until it becomes second nature. This is truly a blessing.