|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
By: Chaya Sora Jungreis-Gertzulin
“V’lo zochar sar hamashkim es Yosef, va’yishkocheihu, And the chief wine butler didn’t remember Yosef, and he forgot him” (Bereishis 40:23)
The closing words of last week’s parsha, Vayeishev. Words that seem redundant. Didn’t remember… forgot. What is the message?
Yosef showed care and concern for his fellow prisoners, the chief wine butler, and the chief baker. He asks them, “Why are your faces so sad today?” Even in the darkest of places, where one may understandably become absorbed with his own problems, Yosef turned his eyes and heart towards others.
Yosef listens to them describe their disturbing dreams, and interprets them correctly. When the wine butler is released from prison, Yosef asks that he please remember him.
Va’yishkocheihu, and he forgot. Not only did the wine butler not remember, but he forgot. A conscious decision to forget Yosef. It wasn’t an absent-minded lapse of memory, but a thought-out intentional forgetting. Not wanting to acknowledge the good Yosef did for him, not wanting to be indebted to the Jew in prison.
Week after week, since the war began, it amazes me how the parsha reflects what is happening in Israel.
Just as the wine butler did not want to remember Yosef, nations of the world don’t want to acknowledge Israel’s right to defend itself and its people, even its right to exist.
I think of Turkey, whose president, Tayyip Erdoğan, called Israel a terrorist state, guilty of fascism, while at the same time defended the Hamas “liberation fighters”. He received cheers and a standing ovation when he proclaimed “Israel, your end is near”. Moreover, an unbelievable 1.5 million attended an anti-Israel march in Istanbul.
Less than a year ago, in February 2023, Turkey suffered a devastating earthquake. Without any hesitation, Israel deployed hundreds of specially trained search and rescue, disaster relief and humanitarian aid workers, sent more than 15 cargo planes with hundreds of tons of humanitarian aid and set up a field hospital. As a result of its efforts, hundreds – if not thousands – of Turkish lives were saved, with countless others given proper medical attention.
Va’yishkocheihu. How easy, even convenient, it is to “forget” the good done. How quick it is to turn the page and join the mob mentality when it suits your political agenda.
We have all heard the IDF spokespeople say “We are in a difficult war…. a war we didn’t ask for”. I think of these words, and I think of Yosef’s life. A life of pain and hardship, difficulties he didn’t ask for.
Yosef didn’t ask to lose his mother at a young age. He didn’t ask to be the subject of his brothers’ bullying. He didn’t ask to be thrown into a pit filled with snakes and scorpions, or to be sold to a caravan of merchants. He didn’t ask to become separated from his father, and all the Torah which they studied together. He didn’t ask to become a slave in the house of Potiphar, and end up being falsely accused of abusing his wife. And, he didn’t ask to languish in a dark, dreary dungeon-like prison.
This week, we read Parshas Mikeitz. Mikeitz, meaning the end. The end of Yosef’s struggles. The end of his difficult journey. Despite all he went through, Yosef never asked where is G-d. He had the emunah and bitachon that HaShem did not forget him. That He was with him at all times.
“And HaShem was with Yosef, and he was an “Ish matzliach, a successful person.” (Ibid. 39:2)
We tend to measure success in terms of a power position, worldly possessions, or trophy family. The Sefas Emes teaches otherwise. Hatzlacha, true success, is measured by how one deals with his life circumstances. Yosef endured many trials and tribulations, yet emerged a “matzliach, a success”.
Reb Meilech Biderman points out that the word hatzlacha begins and ends with the letter “hei”, symbolizing HaShem’s name. The middle three letters are tzadi, lamed, and ches. By rearranging these letters, we have the word lachatz, meaning pressure. The message is clear. Surround yourself with hei, HaShem, and instead of lachatz, pressure, you will find hatzlacha, success. Precisely what Yosef did.
Pharaoh had a dream that gave him no peace, no rest. A nightmare of a dream. He sees seven thin, sickly cows devour seven healthy, robust cows. Pharaoh wakes with a start, and then falls back asleep. He dreams again. Seven thin, dried out ears of corn swallow seven full ears. Frightened to the core, he calls upon wizards of black magic, to find an explanation. None were able to interpret the dreams to his liking.
Enter the wine butler. Thinking that suggesting the name of a possible “dream interpreter” would win him favor in Pharaoh’s eyes, he now recalls Yosef. But even then, he belittled and disparaged him. The butler describes Yosef as “na’ar”, young, which Rashi explains as “shoteh” – foolish, “Ivri”, Jewish – not one of us, “ehved”, a slave – from a lowly part of society. Words meant to sting.
Pharaoh relates his dream, and Yosef prefaces his words by saying, “bil’odoi”, It’s beyond me, “Elokim ya’ahneh”, the answer will come from HaShem. (Ibid. 41:16)
Pharaoh was not a believer in monotheism. Yet, Yosef fearlessly proclaimed that it is all from HaShem. He wasn’t concerned about being politically correct, but did what was right for him as a Jew.
Yosef’s journey is coming full circle. Mikeitz, the beginning of the end. While Yosef didn’t know HaShem’s timing, throughout his journey, from “the pit to the palace”, his faith never dimmed, never wavered. A faith that earned him the title Yosef HaTzaddik, a righteous man walking with HaShem, no matter where life took him.
My husband and I were fortunate to join my mother, the Rebbetzin a”h, on one the Hineni trips to Eastern Europe. We visited the Hidden Shul of Theresienstadt, a Nazi concentration camp. Like Yosef in prison, no matter how difficult, how depressing life in Theresienstadt was, the Jewish people didn’t give up their hope and belief. They built an underground shul, and Reb Asher Berlinger, one of its inmates, inscribed various Hebrew prayers upon the walls, including “U’vchol zos, Shimcha lo sha’chachnu, But despite all of this, we have not forgotten Your name. We beg You, not to forget us.”
From the dungeons of Egypt to an underground concentration camp shul, to the tunnels of Gaza, while we may not understand all of HaShem’s ways, our faith remains strong and steadfast.
Va’yishkocheihu. The nations of the world may forget us. But Am Yisroel never forgets. We remember our people and our G-d.
Shabbat Shalom!
Chaya Sora
Chaya Sora can reached at [email protected]
This article was written L’zecher Nishmas /In Memory Of HaRav Meshulem ben HaRav Osher Anshil HaLevi, zt”l and Rebbetzin Esther bas HaRav Avraham HaLevi, zt”l
