Miketz

As we continue to watch the unfolding events in the war in Gaza, we need to distinguish between suffering and accountability.

...if, like this Pharaoh, we can move beyond the terror to seeking options with an open mind, we may find ourselves with more resources at hand than we ever realized was possible.

I am puzzled by the ways in which a country that readily replaces phones and computers as soon as we experience even the slightest decrease in performance can insist that our inherited system for organizing our economy and government works just fine.

A D’var Torah for Parshat Miketz by Rabbi Ruven Barkan This summer, as we lived through the social upheaval fueled by COVID-19 and sparked by police brutality, I began to recognize more clearly the passive yet growing isolation and alienation between Jewish and African-American communities. (Recognizing, of course, that these are not mutually exclusive categories...

Tuning into the news these days can feel like we’re trapped in a bad dream. The rollback of protections for the most vulnerable, the closing of our shores to refugees, the use of xenophobic, misogynistic, Anti-Semitic, homophobic speech by those in power and the resulting violence this has incited (to name just a few of...

“Not by might, not by power, but by my spirit….” (Zechariah 4:6) Is that the way forward in 2017? Our rabbinic ancestors chose Zechariah’s important words as the prophetic message of Chanukah. In some ways, it’s an odd choice. In the Torah portion, Miketz, Joseph harnesses Pharaoh’s might and power to save the Egyptians from...

Rabbi Michael Adam Latz's response to Pastor Martin Niemoller (z"l)'s "First they came" poem: "First they came for the African Americans and I spoke up— Because I am my sisters’ and my brothers’ keeper..."

This week’s Parashah, Miketz, contains the well known story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams about the seven fat cows being devoured by the seven skinny cows and the seven healthy sheaves of wheat being displaced by the seven sickly sheaves. Joseph, brought out of his prison cell to interpret the dreams, goes farther and advises Pharaoh...

When we tell others the stories of our lives, we often find ourselves spicing up the narrative a bit as we tell and retell the story. It’s only human to exaggerate a bit, especially if our audiences don’t seem to be giving the stories the attention we feel that they deserve. Our additions add an...

The intersection of Parshat Miketz and Hanukah invites us to reflect on two different ways in which transformational impact can be effected, and the importance of understanding the nuances of each. We see two drastically different models of power and change in these stories.  In Miketz, Joseph—an Israelite foreigner in Egypt who, by happenstance, is granted an...