D’var Torah - Vayeshev

A friend of mine texted me the other day writing:

“What a dark year – I hope you are taking care of your health as best you can these days… Stay strong! A community looks up to you for leadership and strength!

Wow, that felt like a message from G-d! and my friend being the delivering angel 

It’s been very hard these past two months on so many levels, as an Israeli whose family and many friends live in Israel during this horrible war, as a Jewish woman in the diaspora seeing the world’s reaction to October 7th crimes towards humanity, as a Jewish mother with a daughter in college who is experiencing hate for the first time in her life while away from her family, and as a Jewish Israeli in America trying to defend Israel from the world’s opinions and many unjustified accusations!

And lastly, as a spiritual leader to a Jewish community, a director of a Jewish school and a teacher who needs to find strength to see the light to guide herself and the people around her to it.

It is not an easy task, but it is one that I know I meant to do and believe I can accomplish because I believe in G-d, angels and miracles! And most of all I believe in US! All of us!

When people are inspired, they can rise to meet great challenges. These are times when the pure “oil” of people’s soul can shine brightly.

Banu Chosech Legaresh – we came to chase away the darkness!

This Chanukah song says:

We came to chase away the darkness

in our hands is light and fire.

Everyone is a small light,

and all of us together are a strong light.

Fight darkness, further blackness!

Fight because of the light!

On the first night of Chanukah is when we spread light by starting with one candle and building up to eight. Every candle we add and place in the Chanukkiah, the special menorah for Chanukah, represents our victory and miracle and we ought to feel stronger just as every hostage is returning and taking his place back in his home in Israel.

Long before the Chanukah story, the Menorah became a symbol of hope and light and then, many centuries later, the Menorah became the symbol of the Jewish People.

We are told to place the Chanukkiah at the window of our homes to publicize the big miracle and that is what we do with every victory of a returned hostage when we publish and share in our computers’ windows for the world to see and rejoice with us.

Chanukah’s eternal power of light over darkness – represents the power of good over evil. The Jewish nation might seem small but we are not weak, we are “Or Lagoim” – light to the nations! We believe the smallest amount of light and hope is enough to bring a change. Every person saved is as if a whole world is saved with him.

This week’s Torah portion is Vayeshev which is often read around the time of this festival of lights. In this Torah portion, we read the parallel stories of Joseph and Tamar and their journeys to light though darkness. Every step they make in their life’s journey gets them closer to accomplishing their Tikkun, what they were destined to achieve in life. They were guided every step of the way.

Joseph started his path when he was given a beautiful garment that represented his father’s love for him and was the cause of his brothers’ jealousy and hatred. His story continues when he meets an angel – Hish- who directed him as he was sent by his father to look for his brothers although Jacob knew how much they hated him and wanted him dead.

Judah was the brother who convinces the rest of the brothers to sell Joseph instead of killing him and eventually, by Judah saving Joseph’s life he helped him become a very powerful man in the land of Egypt from where he was able to save the entire nation of Israel.

We also read the story of Tamar who longs to be a mother, but whose husband dies before she is able to conceive a baby and therefore is left with no one to be allowed by law to marry her. But when she hears of the death of Judah’s wife, she changes her widow’s mourning clothes, and wraps herself in a cloth of new identity and gets her wish to come true. Her pregnancy almost gets her put to death by fire ordered by Judah, who got her pregnant in the first place, and lastly, she is saved by him (just like Joseph) thanks to her thinking ahead and having in her possession his personal objects to serve as proof to her real identity. Tamar wishes to become a mother and all the struggles she endures get her a bigger reward: becoming the mother of a special person, King David and the messianic line. The resemblance of these two stories might help us understand why they both appear in the same Torah portion. Their stories help us draw strength as we go through our struggles.

On the wall of a cellar in Cologne, Germany, where Jews hid from the Nazis, these words were revealed: “I believe in the sun even when it is not shining.”

These powerful inscribed words are words of light and faith in a dark place. Joseph became a dad to two sons, Ephraim and Menashe who Jacob / Israel regarded as his own children and blessed them and all of us to be as them, since they are the only two brothers who don’t fight with one another.

Tamar who was granted her wish to become a mother, gave light, as you say in Spanish, to twin boys, Perez and Zarach. Zarach – means brightness and sunrise. Just as the Jewish person during the holocaust who believed that the sun is still shining, Joseph saw the sun in his dreams bowing to him as a sign for his great future, and Tamar believed that she would get to have children even when it seemed impossible. These are examples of the external and enduring power of light!

The word vayeshev means “and he settled down” (set down) but with the power to create the change we need, let us switch the vowels to change the meaning of the word to vayasuv which means “and he will return”. Let’s pray together as we light the Chanukiah that all 137 hostages left in captivity will return home.

May we have 137 more reasons to celebrate in this holiday season.

Happy Chanukah!