Parashat MiKetz 5768/2007

Torah Gems - December 7

Friday evening services begin at 3:59 pm, 5 minutes following a 3:54 pm candle lighting (the latest appropriate time to light Shabbat candles - beginning 5 minutes following such a time, theoretically allows people 5 minutes to walk from home to shul for services) in our Rabb Chapel. Saturday morning services will begin at 8:45 am.

Following a noontime Kiddush, Landers Playspace will be open. Talmud will convene at 4:00 pm. Mincha will be in our Rabb Chapel at 3:39 pm. My Mincha and Metaphysics topic will be "Havdalah's Bond with Hanukkah and Purim." Havdallah takes place no earlier than 4:54 pm. --Rabbi Hamilton

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Earlier this week, a member of our KI family asked me a question of Jewish law: "Should a blind person recite the early-morning blessing (pokeach ivrim) which thanks God for opening ours eyes to a new day." In pondering the question Tuesday night after lighting Hanukkah's first lights, several present suggested that a blind person indeed should say this blessing - even if she/he may not be able to experience eyesight.

Rabbi David Wolpe offers the following reflection, which seems fitting for our Festival of Lights. "What does it mean to have vision? The prophets and sages of our tradition had vision; they did not see or act like those around them. At times, no doubt, they seemed strange to their contemporaries. We can imagine the prophets eliciting the kind of remark that the poet William Blake once prompted when someone said to a friend of his, "I believe Blake is cracked." The friend answered, "Yes, but it is the sort of crack that lets in the light."

Religious vision means seeing beyond what is apparent. There is a blessing we recite each morning, thanking God for the marvelous workings of the human body. The chatima, the end of the blessing, declares that God is mafli la'asot, that in fashioning the human body, God acts wondrously, that God has fashioned miracles.

The author of that ancient Talmudic blessing was Rav Sheshet, who was blind. Imagine the vision granted to that sage. He did not see what was visible, but he saw what was essential. In his life and ours, Rav Sheshet let in the light."

A couple of comments from Richard Elliot Friedman follow. In this week's Torah portion, Miketz, we read (Chapter 42:1) that "Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt..and he said, "I've heard there's grain in Egypt."" How could he have seen it? Rashi says that he had a vision. This rather reflects the metaphor of seeing as meaning to know, to learn, to find out, to comprehend. It shows the high value we place on sight over the other senses. The Torah will convey this in many ways, including a progression: Isaac cannot see on his deathbed, and so he is deceived. Jacob cannot see on his deathbed, but he has more insight than he did when he was young and could see. (He sees his grandsons' destinies, when earlier he could not see what was going on among his sons.) And then Moses' "eye was not dim" up to the time of his death at the age of 120.

"And he asked if they were well, and he said, "Is your old father whom you mentioned well? Is he still alive?"(Chapter 43:27). Recall that the brothers were described earlier as being unable to speak to Joseph of shalom, that is, to say "hello" or "how are you?" (37:4). Now they and Joseph finally speak of shalom. Even though it is unwitting, it is the beginning of their reconciliation with their brother. Is he still alive? Here is an exceptional example of the emotional power that looms in the background of the Torah's stories. From the point of view of the brothers and Egyptians who were present, Joseph is just making polite conversation, graciously asking about "your old father whom you mentioned." But, inside, Joseph is about to find out - with anticipation, dread, even guilt? - whether his own father, who loved him the most, is alive or dead.

Finally, in the spirit of pausing to 'let in the light' this Shabbat, consider the words of Abraham Joshua Heschel on the soul's attentiveness to the uniqueness of the present. "No other deficiency makes the soul more barren than the lack of a sense for the unique. The creative man is he who succeeds in capturing the exceptional and instantaneous before it becomes stagnant in his mind. In the language of creative thinking, whatever is alive is unique. And true insight is a moment of perceiving a situation before it freezes into similarity with something else..At night - in the soul - all moments look alike."

Heschel has said elsewhere "There is hardly a soul capable of radiating more light than it receives." May this Shabbat Hanukkah offer you unique (soul-dilating) moments that receive and radiate the light of insight and wonder. A bright, happy, and health Hanukkah to you, and Shabbat Shalom.