Clifford S. Fishman
This week’s Torah portion is Miketz: Genesis 41:1 – 44:17
Imagine the Joseph saga as a three-season series on HBO.
Season one (last week’s parashah) began with Joseph’s birth and his troubled childhood, segued to his enslavement in Egypt, his rise to prominence in Potiphar’s household and his imprisonment on trumped-up charges. In the final episode of season one, Joseph interpreted dreams of Pharaoh’s baker and cupbearer with uncanny accuracy. As the episode wound down, the cupbearer promised Joseph that once he regained his position, he would tell Pharaoh about Joseph — his ability to interpret dreams, his administrative skills (the Torah tells us that Joseph virtually ran the prison for the chief jailer) and, most of all, that he is innocent of the charge that landed him in prison. In the final minutes, we saw Joseph’s barely repressed excitement about his impending liberation intermixed with vignettes showing the cupbearer discussing several trivial topics with Pharaoh. But he never mentioned Joseph. (The final verse of last week’s parashah reads: “Yet the chief cupbearer did not think of Joseph; he forgot him.”) Then a message flashed on the screen: “End of Season One.”
We viewers are angry. “Unfair! How can you leave us hanging like that?” But we can’t wait to see how next season’s first episode begins.
This week’s parashah is season two. After the opening credits, the message flashes on the screen: “Two years later.” We learn about Pharaoh’s dreams. Episode by episode, the story progresses. The cupbearer “remembers” Joseph and tells Pharaoh about him. Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams. Displaying the chutzpah for which we are famous (or notorious), Joseph manipulates Pharaoh into making Joseph his vizier. We see Joseph’s encounters with his brothers, and watch Joseph instruct a servant to frame Benjamin for stealing his goblet — to justify keeping Benjamin with him in Egypt forever. He tells his brothers that he will keep only the goblet-thief as a slave; the rest are free to go home.
Then the message: “End of Season Two.”
This is the work of a master storyteller. And remember, for many centuries, the audience who heard this multi-episode drama could not read, and books, as we know them, did not exist. They heard these stories in synagogue week by week on Shabbat. What drama! What entertainment!
Of course, that audience, who heard this story each year, knew how it would end. Did that detract from the tension and anxiety they felt each year, as it was read to them over these three weeks?
I don’t think so. Do you have a favorite novel that you reread every few years? Why? You remember how it ends. Or think of movies: “High Noon,” “Apollo 13,” “To Kill a Mockingbird,” “Saving Private Ryan,” “Sleepless in Seattle,” and “The Shawshank Redemption.” Even though you know how they end, don’t you still feel the tension and excitement (and sometimes the agony) when you watch them again?
Appreciating the Joseph narrative in the Torah as a great work of literature helps us also appreciate what inspired the author or authors to include this and other stories, to edit and refine them, until they took the final form we read week to week and year to year.
Let us too take inspiration from these stories that inspired our sages (and us) to look for hidden meanings and lessons within the narrative. May their brilliance inspire us to lead lives worthy of the traditions and the values that their work has preserved for thousands of years — the traditions and values that have also preserved us all those years.
And remember: “tune in” at synagogue this Shabbat for this season’s episodes; and next week — season three!
Clifford S. Fishman is emeritus professor of law at The Catholic University of America. He is a long-time member and past president of Tikvat Israel Congregation in Rockville, Maryland.
