This week’s parasha, “Va-yeishev”, is from the book of Genesis, and tells the story of Joseph and how his brothers sold him into slavery. Why did his brothers hate him so much? Part of it is no doubt because of their father. According to the Torah, Jacob “loved Joseph best of all his sons”. He made no secret of his favoritism, even giving him the famous coat of many colors. The Torah also tells us that Joseph “brought bad reports” of the brothers to their father. Who wouldn’t hate a younger sibling who was always tattling on us? In addition, Joseph had multiple dreams that seemed to indicate that he was superior to his brothers and that they were destined to be subservient to him. The impression one gets is that Joseph was an arrogant, spoiled, snot-nosed kid. No wonder his older brothers decided to sell him into slavery!
Yet despite being a spoiled brat, Joseph shows real character when faced with adversity. Once in Egypt he is sold as a slave to Potiphar, a high-ranking Egyptian. He works hard and Potiphar is so impressed that he makes Joseph his personal attendant and puts him in charge of his entire household. Unfortunately for Joseph, Potiphar’s lovely wife accuses him of rape, and Joseph, despite being innocent, is thrown into prison. But even in prison Joseph manages to turn things around. The chief jailor is impressed with him and puts him in charge of all the other prisoners. We all know the rest of the story, and how Joseph ends up being second in command only to Pharaoh himself. Rather than giving into despair, Joseph somehow always seems to make the best out of a bad situation.
This idea of not giving into despair even when things look darkest lends itself very well to the theme of Hanukkah. Hanukkah falls towards the end of Kislev, a time of the month when the moon is waning, and light disappears. Not only that but it is also close to the winter solstice, a time when the sun is similarly at a low point. This is the darkest and coldest time of the year. And yet each night we light an additional light of the menorah, until the eighth day when the menorah gives off the maximum light. The number eight can also stand for infinity or the Eternal. The eternal light burned for eight nights even though there was only enough oil for one night. The very fact that the Maccabees won against all odds indicates that miracles are possible, and that no matter how dark things may look, there is always reason for hope.
I would like to tell you a story about how the hope of Hanukkah saved the lives of two young people during the Holocaust. This story, called “The Power of Light”, was written by Isaac Bashevis Singer. In the last days of the Warsaw ghetto a boy and a girl, were hiding amongst the ruins of a collapsed cellar. Their families had been killed long ago, and the bombed out cellar was all that remained of the apartment building where they had once lived. The boy, David, was fourteen; the girl, Rebecca was thirteen. It was the first night of Hanukkah and bitterly cold. Each day David would go out to forage for food, but it was getting harder and harder to find food in the bombed out city. One night he was gone a particularly long time, and Rebecca began to lose hope. Just as she was about to give up, David returned. Miraculously, he had a package of food, but that wasn’t all. He had even managed to find a candle and some matches. They decided to light the candle in honor of Hanukkah. Seeing the candle gave them courage. They decided to try to flee the ghetto, even though it was extremely dangerous, and the chances that they would actually succeed were almost nil. They left as soon as the candle had sputtered out.
Miraculously, they managed to escape and, and exactly one week later, they found their way to partisans in the woods. It was the eighth night of Hanukkah, and the partisans were playing dreidel on the stump of an old oak tree. Eventually David and Rebecca decided to flee to Israel. It was a long and dangerous trip. They had to cross multiple countries that were still occupied by the Nazis, including Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Yugoslavia. Somehow they managed to get onto a ship that was manned by a Haganah crew. But they were still not safe. The waters were rough and the ship was overcrowded. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the Nazis tried to bomb them. Yet somehow, against all odds, they arrived in Israel. They were among the first refugees to actually make it.
Isaac Bashevis Singer concludes the story as follows:
“After some rest they were sent to a special school where foreigners were taught modern Hebrew…After finishing high school, David was able to enter the academy of engineering in Haifa, and Rebecca, who excelled in languages and literature, studied in Tel Aviv—but they always met on weekends. When Rebecca was eighteen, she and David were married. They found a small house with a garden in Ramat Gan, a suburb of Tel Aviv.
I know all this because David and Rebecca told me their story on a Hanukkah evening in their house in Ramat Gan about eight years later. The Hanukkah candles were burning, and Rebecca was frying potato pancakes served with applesauce for all of us. David and I were playing dreidel with their little son, Menahem Eliezer, named after both of his grandfathers. David told me that this large wooden dreidel was the same one the partisans had played with on that Hanukkah evening in the forest in Poland. Rebecca said to me, ‘If it had not been for that little candle David brought to our hiding place, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. That glimmer of light awakened in us a hope and strength we didn’t know we possessed. We’ll give the dreidel to Menahem Eliezer when he is old enough to understand what we went through and how miraculously we were saved.”
Just as Joseph refused to give up hope even after being sold as a slave and thrown into prison, Jews have always managed to endure despite great odds. We have only to look at our history to know that miracles can and do happen. As you light the menorah next week, remember that the darkest hour is right before the dawn, and that spring is just around the corner.
Shabbat Shalom. Chag sameach.