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continued from page 44
unfolding of a script.
This allows us to resolve one of the great 
paradoxes of the religious life — the seem-
ing contradiction between Divine provi-
dence and human free will. As Rabbi Akiva 
put it most famously: “
All is foreseen, yet 
freedom of choice is given.
”
On the face of it, these two propositions 
cannot both be true. If God knows in 
advance we are going to do X, then we are 
not free not to do it. If, on the other hand, 
we are genuinely free, then no one can know 
what we will choose before we choose it.
The paradox arises because of the nature 
of time. We live in time. God lives beyond it. 
An analogy: Imagine going to see a soccer 
match. While the match is in progress, you 
are on the edge of your seat. You do not 
know — no one knows — what is going 
to happen next. Now imagine watching a 
recording of the same match on television 
later that night. You know exactly what is 
going to happen next.
That knowledge does not mean that the 
players have had their freedom retroactively 
removed. All it means is that you are now 
watching the match from a different time 
perspective. When you were in the stadium, 

you were watching it in the present. On 
television you are watching it as an event in 
the past.
So it is with life itself. As we live it day 
by day, we choose in the present in order 
to shape what is for us an unknown, unde-
termined future. Only looking back are we 
able to see the consequences of our actions 
and realize their part in the unfolding of our 
autobiography.
It is then, with hindsight, that we begin 
to see how providence has guided our steps, 
leading us to where God needs us to be. 
That is one meaning of the phrase spoken 
by God to Moses: “Then I shall take away 
My hand, and you will see My back, but My 
face cannot not be seen.
” Exodus 33:23
Only looking back do we see God’s prov-
idence interwoven with our life, never look-
ing forward (“My face cannot not be seen”).
How subtly and deftly this point is made 
in the story of Joseph — the supreme 
example of a life in which human action 
and Divine intervention are inextricably 
entwined. It is all there in the verse about 
the doubling of Pharaoh’s dream. By 
delaying this information until later in 
Joseph’s life, the Torah shows us how a later 

event can force us to re-interpret an earlier 
one, teaching us the difference between 
two-time perspectives: the present and the 
understanding that only hindsight can bring 
to the past. It does so not by expounding 
complex philosophical propositions, but by 
the art of story-telling — a far simpler and 
more powerful way of conveying a difficult 
truth.
These two perspectives on time are 
embodied, in Judaism, in two different 
literatures. Through Halachah, we learn 
to make choices in the present. Through 
aggadah, we strive to understand the 
past. Together, these two ways of thinking 
constitute the twin hemispheres of the 
Jewish brain. We are free. But we are also 
characters in a Divinely scripted drama. We 
choose, but we are also chosen. The Jewish 
imagination lives in the tension between 
these two frames of reference: between 
freedom and providence, our decisions and 
God’s plan. 

The late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks served as the 

chief rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of 

the Commonwealth, 1991-2013. His teachings have 

been made available to all at rabbisacks.org. This 

essay was written in 2010.

SPIRIT

Learn to Be Prepared
A

s Michiganders, we 
are no strangers to 
rapid changes in the 
weather. Especially at this time 
of year, as fall transitions into 
winter, you never quite know 
how fiercely, how cold or from 
what quarter the winds 
might be blowing at 
any given moment. 
In ancient Egypt, 
on the other hand, 
farmer and Pharaoh 
alike could count on a 
steady desert climate 
and regular flooding 
of the Nile River. One 
can only imagine 
the uncertainty and 
fear that a significant 
disruption to this 
rhythm would have 
caused. No one in ancient 

Egypt ever needed to keep 
their sandals, sneakers, rain 
boots and snow boots all at the 
ready at the same time. 
Pharaoh must have 
been in a state of panicked 
desperation then when he 
agreed to his butler’s 
suggestion that Joseph, 
an unknown Hebrew 
kid, be brought into his 
presence to interpret 
Pharoah’s dreams, which 
directly referenced the 
Nile’s bounty. Pharaoh 
even seems to let his 
composure slip in Genesis 
41:19. In telling Joseph 
about the second set of 
cows to emerge from the 
Nile, Pharaoh says, “… 
never had I seen their 
likes for ugliness in all the 

land of Egypt!” This reaction 
suggests that this Pharaoh has 
had nothing but fair winds 
during his reign and is facing 
a potential calamity for which 
he is unprepared. 
Joseph, by contrast, has 
faced significant volatility in 
his fortunes. He was born 
the favored son of his father’s 
favored wife and spent a 
childhood imagining himself 
as the brightest star of his 
family. Since then, Joseph has 
been sold and resold, been 
subject to the whims of greater 
men (and women) and finally 
found himself in prison. 
Joseph is in an ideal position 
to understand Pharaoh’s 
dreams and help Egypt 
undertake plans to cope with 
what is to come. He knows 

what it is like to live in times 
of plenty but also the shock of 
that plenty being consumed by 
the lean and ugly. Joseph has 
made the best of his situation 
at every turn, first rising in 
Potiphar’s house and then 
making an ally of Pharoah’s 
jailed butler. Joseph is clearly 
the kind of person who has 
learned to keep an umbrella 
and rain boots by the door. 
He’ll certainly need them by 
the end of the parshah when 
his brothers show up. 
Hopefully, we are also 
equipped to weather the 
storm, no matter what the 
winds blow our way. 

Rebecca Strobehn is a Jewish studies 

instructor at Frankel Jewish Academy in 

West Bloomfield.

TORAH PORTION

Rebecca 
Strobehn

Parshat 

Mikketz: 

Genesis 

41:1-44:17; 

I Kings 

3:15-4:1.

