Meketz (At the end) Genesis 41:1-44:17
1.In this Torah portion the brothers did not recognize their brother because of the clothes he was wearing. This encounter between Joseph and his brothers is the fifth in a series of stories in which clothes play a key role. Can you think of the other four occasions? What is scripture telling us in these situations?
a.Jacob dressed in Esau’s clothes to bring his father a meal and take his brother Esau’s blessing. Jacob wore Esau’s clothes because he was worried that his blind father would touch him and realize that the smooth skin did not belong to Esau but to his younger brother. In the end it was not only the texture but also the smell of the clothes that deceives Isaac:
“Ah, the smell of my son is like the smell of a field the Lord has blessed.” Gen. 37:33
b.Joseph’s robe or coat of many colors was brought back to their father stained with blood. Joseph’s stained robe was produced by the brothers to conceal the fact that they were responsible for Joseph’s disappearance. Jacob recognized it and said, “It is my son’s robe! A wild animal has devoured him. Joseph has surely been torn to pieces.” Gen 37:33
c.Tamar took off her widow’s dress and made herself look as if she were a prostitute.
Tamar’s dressing as a veiled prostitute was intended to deceive Judah into sleeping with her. She wanted to have a child to “raise up the name” of her dead husband.
d.Joseph’s robe left in the hands of Potiphar’s wife. Potiphar’s wife used the evidence of Joseph’s torn robe to substantiate her claim that he had tried to rape her, a crime of which he was innocent.
e.Pharaoh dressed Joseph as a high ranking Egyptian, with clothes of linen, a gold chain and the royal signet ring. Joseph used the fact that his brothers did not recognize him to set in motion a series of staged events to test whether they were still capable of selling a brother as a slave or whether they had changed.
What all five cases have in common is that they facilitate deception.
In each case things are not as they seem.
So the five stories about garments tell a single story: things are not necessarily as they seem. Appearances deceive. The Hebrew word for garment, b-g-d, is also the Hebrew word for “betrayal.”
Look back to the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit,
This story is not about eating fruit.
It is about the fact that they let what they saw override what they heard from G-d.
The brother’s did not really recognize Joseph from the beginning because they allowed their feelings to be guided by the coat of many colors that inflamed their envy of their younger brother.
Judge by appearances and you will miss the deeper truth about situations and people.
You might even miss G-d Himself.
That is why the primary imperative in Judaism is Shema Yisrael, “Listen, O Israel,”
Appearances deceive. Clothes can betray. Deeper understanding, whether of G-d or of human beings, cannot come from appearances only.
In order to choose between right and wrong, between good and bad – in order to live the moral life – we must make sure not only to look, but also to listen.
The word beged is also used in connection with our salvation.
Isaiah 61:10, “I will greatly rejoice in the L-rd, my soul shall be joyful in my G-d; for He has clothed mewith garments of salvation [big’deh yesha], He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with a garland, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”
A disguise is an act of hiding – from others, and perhaps from oneself. We cannot hide from G-d. He hears our cry. He answers our unspoken prayer.
What we must remember is, when we stand before G-d we have no disguises. He knows us. He created us. He loves us.
Question: The “clothing” you present to the world each day – is it a disguise or do they see your garments of salvation?
2.Last week, Joseph knowing that the chief butler was about to be restored to his position, asked him to bring his case to the attention of Pharaoh.
“Remember me when it is well with you; please do me the kindness to make mention of me to Pharaoh, and so get me out of this place. For indeed I was stolen out of the land of the Hebrews; and here also I have done nothing that they should have put me into prison.” Gen 39:14-15.
Then in the last verse of last week’s Torah portion we read, “Yet the chief butler did not remember Joseph but forgot him.” Genesis 40:23. Think of Joseph waiting day after day for news. None comes. He was probably feeling his last, best hope has gone. It took 2 years for the chief butler to remember. What is Torah teaching us in these verses?
Our parsha this week begins by telling us it took “two whole years” for Joseph to be remembered. Pharaoh had two dreams that no one in the court could interpret, The chief butler then remembered the man he had met in prison.
Joseph was brought to Pharaoh, and within hours was transformed from prisoner-without-hope to viceroy of the greatest empire of the ancient world. Why this extraordinary chain of events? It is telling us something important, God answers our prayers, but often not when we thought or how we thought. When we face difficulties and we pray and pray seemingly without results G-d is still there. He still sees and knows what we are going through.
He does not abandon us. He will answer but maybe in a different way than we ever thought.
Joseph sought to get out of prison, and he did get out of prison. But not immediately, and not because the butler kept his promise. He got out in G-d’s timing. Joseph’s story truly shows us how to wait for answers in difficult circumstances in our lives, to continue to have hope and not despair.
G-d had a plan.
His plan here was to provide a way for Israel to be rescued from the famine sweeping the known world. Each of the people had a part, or a role to play. Joseph had a part to play. He was released at just the right time in G-d’s plan to play that part.
G-d gives each of us the opportunity to be used as a part of His plan for our life. We are not here by accident but by the hand of G-d. The timing is in G-d’s hands as here in our portion.
If the butler had acted on Joseph’s request earlier it would have not fit into the plan of G-d. Everything happens on His schedule and on His time frame. Our task is to be ever ready to do our part when called upon and leave the rest in the hands of the Father. Allow the Father to be your guide and light. Do His will for your life and the results are in His Hands.
3.If you read Genesis 41:25-36 do you see any difference in the first part of Joseph’s conversation with Pharaoh concerning the dreams and the last part where he is giving him a plan of action? Is G-d mentioned in the plan of action? Is there a problem in how this plan worked out? Is there a lesson here?
Joseph accredited the explanation of Pharaoh’s dreams to G-d Almighty. The action plans he suggested to Pharaoh came from the business man – Joseph. Nowhere does scripture say he looked to G-d for direction for a plan.
His plan saved Egypt and his family from starvation but it also caused Egyptians to lose everything they had and to become subjects or slaves to Pharaoh. This could have set the stage for his own family to be enslaved.
As time went on, a Pharaoh who knew not Joseph came to power. These systems, where the Egyptians sold everything, even their land for food, had been set in place by Joseph. Later they were used to enslave Israel. What is the lesson here?
My point in all this is when G-d gives us direction it is important to not get sidetracked into something that looks good but isn’t G-d’s best. As with Pharaoh, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
4.Look at Genesis 43:1, “And the famine was heavy on the land.” In Hebrew this verse consists of only three main words, famine, heavy and land. The word for famine is used in modern Hebrew to express hunger. See what you can find in scripture where famines are discussed. Are there places in scripture where the word famine is used but not talking about lack of food?
We see the word famine used often in scripture. Here it appears in the fulfillment of Pharaoh’s dream of the lean years which were foretold by Joseph in his interpretation.
The idea of famine can be found throughout both the Hebrew scriptures and the Messianic scriptures.
Some examples are:
II Kings 6:25, “There was a great famine in the city; the siege lasted so long that a donkey’s head sold for eighty shekels of silver, and a quarter of a cab of seed pods for five shekels.”
Genesis 12:10 “Now there was a famine in the land, and Abram went down to Egypt to live there for a while because the famine was severe.”
Acts 11:27-30, “ During this time some prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. 28 One of them, named Agabus, stood up and through the Spirit predicted that a severe famine would spread over the entire Roman world. (This happened during the reign of Claudius.) The disciples, as each one was able, decided to provide help for the brothers and sisters living in Judea. This they did, sending their gift to the elders by Barnabas and Saul.
The important point, other than the physical harm that resulted from these famines, was what G-d was saying to the people by allowing famines to strike the earth. What are we to learn from them? Are they only to be looked at in a physical way or is the message deeper than it seems on the surface?
The prodigal son changed the direction of his life because of a famine.
Luke 15:14-20, “After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and went to his father.But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.”
In Amos 8:11-12, ““The days are coming,” declares the Sovereign L-rd, “when I will send a famine through the land— not a famine of food or a thirst for water, but a famine of hearing the words of the L-rd. People will stagger from sea to sea and wander from north to east, searching for the word of the L-rd, but they will not find it.”
So famines can also indicate a spiritual problem. Amos tells us that a famine can be more than a hunger for bread or water. There can be a famine for hearing the words of the L-rd, but they will not find it.
Perhaps we see that same situation arising in our own day. We see G-d’s word ignored.
We see His word changed or rearranged to say something G-d never intended it to say.
We see His people forgetting His word to them and being swept away by ideas and thoughts that are foreign to what we as His people should be standing for.
The situations we are going through in our day may be the beginning of an exile, while not geographically displaced, we may find ourselves in a spiritual exile, living in a world that does not want to know the truth. We may find ourselves in an environment that rejects the values and traditions of our spiritual walk.
However, even in such a scenario we have the words of Paul in Romans 8:35-39, “Who shall separate us from the love of Yeshua? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of G-d in Yeshua HaMashiach our L-rd.”
So in our day, when we see famine in our world, the same famine of which Amos speaks, the question that comes to us is how do we respond? I pray we all will stand strong in His word in everything we face.