TORAH READING FOR 4 TEVET 5784 Dec 15-16, 2023
TORAH STUDY 6 PM AND SHAZOOM 7:30 PM December 15, 2023
PRAYER FOR PEACE – OUR HEARTS ARE WITH THE PEOPLE OF ISRAEL
From “Mishkan T’filah / A Reform Siddur” CCAR, New York 2007, p.178
SHALOM RAV al Yisrael amcha tasim l’olam, ki atah hu Mélech Adon l’chōl hashalom.
V’tov b’ënécha l’varëch et amcha Yisrael b’chōl ët uv’chōl sha’ah bish’lomécha.
GRANT ABUNDANT PEACE to Israel Your people forever,
for You are the Sovereign God of all peace.
May it be pleasing to You to bless Your people Israel
in every season and moment with Your peace.
PARSHA
From Reform Judaism https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/mikeitz
Mikeitz (מִקֵּץ — Hebrew for “After [Two Years]”) – Gen. 41:1-44:17
At the end of two years’ time Pharaoh had a dream: there he was, standing by the Nile, when seven cows came up out of the Nile, handsome and fat. – Genesis 41:1-2
SUMMARY:
- Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s two dreams and predicts seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of famine. (41:1-32)
- Pharaoh places Joseph in charge of food collection and distribution. (41:37-49)
- Joseph marries Asenath, and they have two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim. (41:50-52)
- When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food during the famine, Joseph accuses them of spying. He holds Simeon hostage while the rest of the brothers return to Canaan to retrieve Benjamin for him. (42:3-42:38)
- The brothers return to Egypt with Benjamin and for more food. Joseph continues the test, this time falsely accusing Benjamin of stealing and declaring that Benjamin must remain his slave. (43:1-44:17)
HAFTARAH
I Kings 3:15-4:1
RECOMMENDED READING
From Reform Judaism https://reformjudaism.org/torah/portion/mikeitz
By: Rabbi Kari Tuling
STRUGGLING WITH TORAH and REFLECTION
We will have BOTH Torah Study at 6 pm and Shazoom at 7:30 pm, this evening Friday, December 15, 2023. The Haftarah for this week is I Kings 3:15-4:1. You can read this week’s Torah Portion at https://www.sefaria.org/Genesis.41.1-44.17 and Haftarah at https://www.sefaria.org/I_Kings.3.15-4.17
From “The Torah / A Women’s Commentary” edited by Dr. Tamara Cohn Eskenazi and Rabbi Andrea L. Weiss, Ph.D., Women of Reform Judaism/The Federation of Temple Sisterhoods and URJ Press New York 2008
מקץ Mikeitz – Genesis 41:1-44:17
Contemporary Reflection – by Suzanne Singer, pp. 254-5
THE PAINFUL PAST casts a long shadow on parashat Mikeitz. A father’s insensitive treatment of his sons–and the resulting sibling rivalry–form the backdrop to this tale. Though the women are never explicitly mentioned here, Jacob’s relationship to his sons’ mothers underlies his attitude toward their children. Among his wives, Jacob loves Rachel only, paying scant attention to Leah and the sisters’ maidservants. Likewise, Jacob clearly favors Joseph–Rachel’s firstborn–showing little evidence of affection toward his other children. Blind to the difficult family dynamic he engenders, Jacob had sent Joseph alone to check on his brothers (37:13–14), setting up a situation rife with the potential for disaster. Joseph’s ensuing disappearance does nothing to stop Jacob from now favoring yet another son, Benjamin, Rachel’s second (see 42:4).
But healing and transformation also begin here. A hint of what is to come is encapsulated in the name Joseph chooses for his first son, Manasseh, “For God has made me forget all the troubles I endured in my father’s house” (41:51). Clearly Joseph has not forgotten his troubles if they form the basis of his son’s name. Rather, it seems that the past is no longer a burden to him. He is able to thrive despite the horrors he suffered in the pit where his jealous brothers threw him (37:24). The name of Joseph’s second son, Ephraim, expresses this forward movement: “For God has made me fruitful in the land of my affliction” (41:52). His marriage to Asenath indeed bears fruit: their children will become tribes of Israel.
Joseph soon enables his older brothers to achieve a new relationship with their past as well, creating a set of circumstances that provides them with the opportunity to respond to favoritism differently. That would represent true t’shuvah (literally “return”), as the medieval Spanish rabbi and philosopher Moses Maimonides describes it: t’shuvah has occurred when a person, confronted with the opportunity to commit a transgression anew, refrains from doing so–not out of fear of being caught or failure of strength (Mishneh Torah, Hilchot T’shuvah § 2.1). T’shuvah is, indeed, a primary theme of parashat Mikeitz. The word, too often mistranslated as “repentance,” actually means “return”–to the right path. Whereas “repentance” connotes remorse and self-flagellation, “return” suggests a kind of joyous homecoming. Our mistakes, rather than serving solely as a source of guilt, become also a springboard of opportunity.
Perhaps unwittingly, the brothers had begun the process of t’shuvah before meeting Joseph again in Egypt. In 42:1, at home with their father, they are referred to as Jacob’s sons. Two verses later, on their way to Egypt, we read, “So Joseph’s brothers went down…” Restating classic midrashim, Rashi opines that “they set their hearts on conducting themselves toward him as brothers.” This is an optimistic reading, but the language does suggest a change in their relationship to Joseph–though one that is undoubtedly buried beneath layers of guilt and denial.
Joseph manipulates the situation so that the brothers’ feelings can rise to the surface. Simeon is held back as ransom. Alarmed at the prospect of returning home to their father one brother short, the brothers recall their cruelty of more than twenty years ago: “Oh, we are being punished on account of our brother! We saw his soul’s distress when he pleaded with us, but we didn’t listen…” (42:21). Perhaps because they could not hear him then, Joseph’s pleading was not mentioned in the initial narrative (Genesis 37). Now, for the first time, the brothers exhibit empathy toward Joseph. According to Marsha Pravder Mirkin, empathy is the key to t’shuvah: “Empathy…is valuing another person enough to listen and hear her voice. It is a halting that then allows us to take action…that brings us closer to becoming the best we can be” (“Hearken to Her Voice: Empathy as Teshuva,” in Gail Twersky Reimer and Judith A. Kates, eds., Beginning Anew: A Woman’s Companion to the High Holy Days, 1997, p. 70).
When the brothers return to their father in Canaan, a significant transformation has occurred. The first indication is their report of their time in Egypt: the brothers demonstrate a newfound sensitivity to their father’s feelings, sparing Jacob some of the more disturbing details of their journey. Modern Israeli commentator Nehama Leibowitz points out, for example, that they omit Joseph’s original plan to keep all but one of them in Egypt (42:16) and the threat of death (42:20) (New Studies in Bereshit/Genesis, undated, pp. 471–2). Then, in the face of their father’s fear for Benjamin’s life, Reuben offers his own sons’ lives in pledge for Benjamin’s (42:37). This is an impulsive and ill-conceived gesture–yet a marked change for the man whose idea it was to throw Joseph into the pit (37:22). Finally Judah, who had convinced his brothers to sell Joseph to the Ishmaelites (37:27), offers to take personal responsibility for the life of his youngest brother (43:9). Clearly, Judah is the brother who has matured and evolved the most.
He and his brothers have made peace with their father’s favoritism. We might imagine that, after Joseph forces them to confront their guilt, they realize that their earlier violent response to their father’s unequal love has not changed Jacob. Aware that hurting Jacob or Benjamin will not get them greater attention from their father, they come to terms with Jacob’s failings, choosing compassion over anger in their dealings with him.
This parashah ends mid-action, leaving us to wonder: Will Joseph really enslave Benjamin? How will the brothers respond? Will Joseph reveal his identity? The answers are not clear–because neither Joseph’s motivation for putting his brothers through this ordeal, nor their commitment to ethical behavior, are fully actualized until the next parashah. Perhaps the Rabbis broke off the story here to suggest that our choices are moment-to-moment decisions, the path never certain until the time comes to act. This cliffhanger ending is also a signal of hope, because t’shuvah is always open to us.
Another Contemporary Reflection – by Judy Schindler, pp. 255-6
ACCORDING TO parashat Mikeitz, Joseph marries an Egyptian. Their children, Ephraim and Manasseh (41:45–52), subsequently become progenitors of two Israelite tribes. A traditional blessing of children invokes these sons’ names. Around the Sabbath table for many generations, parents of sons have been reciting (as one English translation renders it): “May you be like Ephraim and Manasseh.” This biblical precedent, which recognizes the children of a non-Israelite mother as equal–even distinguished–members of Israel, invites an examination of assumptions as to who is counted as part of the people Israel and on what basis.
Most biblical texts implicitly reflect patrilineal descent: the child’s membership is determined by that of the father, not the mother. A major exception is the book of Ezra, which excludes foreign wives with their children from the community (Ezra 10:3). The implication: these children, like their mother, do not belong to Israel even though their fathers are Israelites.
In the post-biblical era, rabbinic halachah determined what became normative in Judaism: a child of a Jewish mother is a Jew. (For a detailed discussion, see Shaye Cohen, The Beginning of Jewishness, 1999.)
In 1983, the Central Conference of American Rabbis voted to return to patrilineal descent while also retaining matrilineal descent. The resolution required that in the case of intermarriage, a child’s Jewish identity must be confirmed through “acts of identification with the Jewish people” and “the performance of mitzvoth” (if either the mother or father is Jewish). According to this formulation, lineage is not determined by genetics alone but by identification with the Jewish people and by Jewish practice.
Rabbi Alexander Schindler, the visionary behind this effort, viewed this resolution as an extension of his vision of Outreach in response to the growing reality of intermarriage in American Jewish life. But he viewed the return to patrilineality also as an egalitarian issue. At a 1986 conference on Jewish unity he noted, “Why should a movement that from its birth-hour insisted on the full equality of men and women in religious life unquestioningly accept the principle that Jewish lineage is valid through the maternal line alone–all the more so because there is substantial support in our tradition for the validity of Jewish lineage through the paternal line!” (Princeton, New Jersey; March 16, 1986). (The Reconstructionist movement likewise adopted patrilineal descent as valid. The Conservative movement and Orthodox Jews do not accept patrilineal descent as defining who is a Jew.)
While patrilineal descent has been criticized harshly across the greater Jewish world for dividing the Jewish people, its supporters see its inclusion not as a movement away from tradition but as a transition back to certain biblical roots in the light of changed circumstances. Thus Rabbi Bernard Zlotowitz writes that “the changes enacted in the Reform movement fall within the traditional parameters of Judaism as a living faith. In times of necessity and for the welfare of the people, halachah was revised and traditions set aside in favor of more adaptive ones” (“Patrilineal Descent,” in The Jewish Condition, ed. Aron Hirt-Manheimer, 1995, p. 265). Zlotowitz notes several examples of adaptive changes that have become part of the halachah: the removal of the laws of the sotah (the wife suspected of adultery as in Numbers 5–see Naso, Contemporary Reflection, p. 838 [in The Torah / A Women’s Commentary, URJ Press New York 2008]), and the abolition of the husband’s right to divorce his wife without cause. These examples are similar in that the changed laws aim to provide for the Jewish community’s preservation and continuity in the face of changing circumstances and values.
PRAYERS
FOR OUR COUNTRY p.376
THUS SAYS ADONAI, This is what I desire: to unlock the fetters of wickedness, and untie the cords of lawlessness; to let the oppressed go free, to break off every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry, and take the wretched poor into your home. When you see the naked, give clothing, and do not ignore your own kin.
O GUARDIAN of life and liberty, may our nation always merit Your protection. Teach us to give thanks for what we have by sharing it with those who are in need. Keep our eyes open to the wonders of creation, and alert to the care of the earth. May we never be lazy in the work of peace; may we honor those who have [served, suffered or] died in defense of our ideals. Grant our leaders wisdom and forbearance. May they govern with justice and compassion. Help us all to appreciate one another, and to respect the many ways that we may serve You. May our homes be safe from affliction and strife, and our country be sound in body and spirit. Amen.
PRAYER FOR THE STATE OF ISRAEL p.552
O HEAVENLY ONE, Protector and Redeemer of Israel, bless the State of Israel which marks the dawning of hope for all who seek peace. Shield it beneath the wings of your love; spread over it the canopy of Your peace; send Your light and truth to all who lead and advise, guiding them with Your good counsel. Establish peace in the land and fullness of joy for all who dwell there. Amen.
FOR HEALING
We recite MI SHEBËRACH for the victims of abuse, brutality, conflicts, fear, natural disasters, pandemics, tragedies, violence of all kinds especially directed at individuals and specific communities including us, and war; for all those at home alone or lonely; for all those in need of physical, emotional, and mental healing. “R’fuah sh’lëmah” – a complete recovery!
YAHRZEITS/ANYOS
We say KADDISH YATOM for those of our friends and families who have died and been buried this last week; those in the period of Sh’loshim (30 days since burial); those who have died in the last year; and those whose Yahrzeits/Anyos occur at this time; as well as the victims of brutality, conflict, disease, natural disasters, pandemics, tragedies, violence of all kinds, and war.
This coming week, 4 Tevet through 10 Tevet, we lovingly remember:
Leo Blumberg
TKH Memorial Board, founding member
Alfredo Espinoza
Father of TKH member Mary Caron
Those victims of the Sho’ah (Holocaust) who died at this time of year.
“ZICHRONAM LIV’RACHAH” – MAY THEIR MEMORIES BE FOR BLESSING.
TORAH STUDY AND SHAZOOM
We will meet as usual at the regular times for both Torah Study and Shazoom this evening, Friday, December 15, 2023. We will continue reading and discussing Tehillim (Psalms) found in the third section of Tanakh, Ketuvim.
Zoom regularly updates its security and performance features. Making sure you have the latest version of Zoom, please join us online this evening with wine/grape juice for Kiddush and Challah for Motzi, and your favorite Chanukah food and drink.
Topic: Torah Study – Ketuvim: Tehillim
Time: Dec 15, 2023 06:00 PM Arizona
and/or
Shazoom – Erev Shabbat Service
Time: Dec 15, 2023 07:30 PM Arizona
To join Torah Study and/or Shazoom click on the following link [you may need to copy it into your browser]: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/72510500854?pwd=Z3VQZWF4U1BBZytNYmh3aHFTWkFDZz09
Meeting ID: 725 1050 0854
Passcode: 4NrMk0
Hint: The last character of the password is the number zero. These are the same link/Meeting ID and Passcode we use for our regular Torah Study and Shazoom.
Shabbat Shalom – Buen Shabbat/Gut Shabbos!
-Ruben
PS – About Tehillim (Psalms) and the NEW schedule through December 2023:
From My Jewish Learning
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-book-of-psalms/
From Jewish Encyclopedia
https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/12409-psalms
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_psalms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imprecatory_Psalms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psalm_of_communal_lament
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piyyut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymn
From Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/topic/biblical-literature/Psalms
From Sefaria
https://www.sefaria.org/Psalms?tab=contents
NEW Schedule for Torah Study and Shazoom (Arizona Time Zone):
December 15, 2023 – Torah Study at 6 pm and Shazoom at 7:30 pm [Chanukah ends]
December 22, 2023 – Shazoom at 6:30 pm
December 29, 2023 – Torah Study at 6 pm and Shazoom at 7:30 pm