Blog/December 2016/Dec 30th

December 30th

This week’s Torah portion is מקץ, which begins with Pharaoh’s dream, and Joseph being brought out from his prison to interpret the dream. The first sentence is a continuation from the previous week’s cliff-hanger, in which Joseph begs Pharaoh’s wine-steward, who is being released from prison, to intercede on his behalf with Pharaoh and have him released as well. But our portion tells us that it was “two full years later” before Joseph was finally released. Our traditional commentators tell us that this was a punishment from God, for Joseph putting his faith in man rather than in Him.

A slightly different take on the story is that Joseph was not perceiving reality correctly. He knew, or should have known, that he had God’s favor — as the Torah repeatedly states. But in his distress over being falsely accused and unjustly punished, he lost the clarity of vision which one needs to properly perceive reality. What should have been clear to him, was that the wine-steward was not his friend or his agent, and would act solely for his own good and not for Joseph’s. But in his desperation, Joseph pleaded his innocence and begged the steward for his help. But that man stabbed Joseph in the back, figuratively.

History repeats itself, it is said. So it appears from this week’s current-events, which eerily mirror our Torah portion’s story. The outgoing USAn administration gave the green light in the UN for Israel to be defamed, and for legal actions to be brought against its citizens. The Israeli government had previously spent a great deal of effort begging and scraping and pleading with world leaders to please, please, not let this UN resolution go ahead. But the one in whom our feckless leaders put their trust, our “closest ally”, betrayed us in a craven and underhanded manner.

Our leaders should not have been surprised. They should have been prepared for the betrayal: after all, the writing on the wall was clear enough. Obama and his coterie of radical progressive utopian ideologues see Israel as an obstacle to the implementation of their Utopia. Likewise with much of the European leadership. There is nothing — absolutely nothing — which Israel can do to please them, except self-destruct. Our leaders would be wise to adjust their glasses so they perceive reality more clearly.

But as with our leaders, so too with us. We all wear glasses which filter our perceptions and distort reality. We need to make a concerted concious effort to correct our vision, to toss out the filters which make us view reality yet see our own projections. As Isaiah said, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that change darkness into light, and light into darkness; that change bitter into sweet, and sweet into bitter!”.

To switch to more mundane topics: we had a busy week, as usual. Esther was still on vacation, Sarah was working a lot. I was also working a lot. Among other things, I’m working on improvements to 8th for the upcoming release (coming in January, to a server near you!). The weather has been about 5C lower than average for the season, so we are studiously trying to stay warm. And I wrote a small program to show when ḥanukka and Christmas coincide.

Hanukkah has been different this year: cold and blustery. My “candles” never worked properly, burning for only a few minutes most times. One evening, Esther’s candles did a weird flop and ended up looking like a Salvador Dali sculpture. We went out one evening, during a heavy rain, and as we entered a parking structure Esther lowered the window to take the parking ticket. The window issued a loud “thump” and she and I spent the next 20 minutes trying to get the window back into a closed and sealed position. We did manage, and are happy that we’ll be replacing the car next week. Just in the nick of time!

The weather is supposed to stay cold, but no rain until Monday or so. We’ll see about that.

This shabbat Sarah’s away, but Dinah’s coming to buoy our spirits. We’ll have:
chicken a la Provençal (sans anchovy), rice, eggplant “parmesan”, lentil soup, roasted veggies, various salatim, and some variety of dessert.

Until next time,
shabbat shalom, ḥanukka sameaḥ and ḥodesh tov!

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