44 | DECEMBER 14 • 2023 

S

omething extraordinary 
happens between the 
previous parshah and 
this one. It is almost as if the 
pause of a week between them 
were itself part of 
the story.
Recall last 
week’s parshah 
about the child-
hood of Joseph, 
focusing not 
on what happened 
but on who made 
it happen. Throughout the entire 
rollercoaster ride of Joseph’s early 
life, he is described as passive, 
not active; the done-to, not the 
doer; the object, not the subject, 
of verbs.
It was his father who loved 
him and gave him the richly 
embroidered cloak. It was his 
brothers who envied and hated 
him. He had dreams, but we do 
not dream because we want to 
but because, in some mysterious 
way still not yet fully understood, 
they come unbidden into our 
sleeping mind.
His brothers, tending their 
flocks far from home, plotted to 
kill him. They threw him into 

a pit. He was sold as a slave. In 
Potiphar’s house he rose to a 
position of seniority, but the text 
goes out of its way to say that this 
was not because of Joseph him-
self, but because of God: “God 
was with Joseph, and he became 
a successful man. He lived in the 
house of his Egyptian master. His 
master saw that God was with 
him, and that God granted him 
success in all that he did.
” Gen. 
39:2–3
Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce 
him, and failed, but here, too, 
Joseph was passive, not active. 
He did not seek her, she sought 
him. Eventually, “she caught 
him by his cloak, saying, ‘Lie 
with me!’ But he left his garment 
in her hand, and fled and ran 
outside” (Gen. 39:12). Using the 
garment as evidence, she had 
him imprisoned on a totally 
false charge. There was nothing 
Joseph could do to establish his 
innocence.
In prison, again he became 
a leader, a manager, but again 
the Torah goes out of its way to 
attribute this not to Joseph but to 
Divine intervention:
“God was with Joseph and 

showed him kindness, granting 
him favor in the sight of the 
prison warden … Whatever was 
done there, God was the one 
who did it. The prison warden 
paid no heed to anything that 
was in Joseph’s care, because God 
was with him; and whatever he 
did, God made it prosper.
” Gen. 
39:21–23
Then Joseph met Pharaoh’s 
chief butler and baker. They 
had dreams, and Joseph inter-
preted them, but insisted 
that it is not he but God who 
was doing so: “Joseph said to 
them, ‘Interpretations belong to 
God. Tell me your dreams.
’” Gen. 
40:8
There is nothing like this any-
where else in Tanach. Whatever 
happened to Joseph was the 
result of someone else’s deed: 
those of his father, his brothers, 
his master’s wife, the prison war-
den or God Himself. Joseph was 
the ball thrown by hands other 
than his own.

IT TAKES TWO
Then, for essentially the first 
time in the whole story, Joseph 
decided to take fate into his own 

hands. Knowing that the chief 
butler was about to be restored 
to his position, he 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
A double injustice had been 
done, and Joseph saw this as 
his one chance of regaining his 
freedom. But the end of the par-
shah delivers a devastating 
blow: “The chief cupbearer did 
not remember Joseph and for-
got him.
” Gen. 39:23
The anticlimax is intense, 
emphasized by the double verb, 
“did not remember” and “forgot.
” 
We sense Joseph waiting day 
after day for news. None comes. 
His last, best hope has gone. He 
will never go free. Or so it seems.
To understand the power of 
this anticlimax, we must remem-
ber that only since the invention 
of printing and the availability 
of books have we been able to 
tell what happens next merely 
by turning a page. For many 
centuries, there were no printed 
books. People knew the biblical 
story primarily by listening to 
it week by week. Those who 
were hearing the story for the 
first time had to wait a week 
to discover what Joseph’s fate 
would be.
The parshah break is thus a 
kind of real-life equivalent to 
the delay Joseph experienced in 
prison, which, as this parshah 
begins by telling us, took “two 
whole years.
” It was then that 
Pharaoh had two dreams that no 
one in the court could interpret, 
prompting the chief butler to 
remember the man he had met 
in prison. Joseph was brought to 
Pharaoh, and within hours was 
transformed from zero to hero: 

Rabbi Lord 
Jonathan 
Sacks

To Wait 
 Without 
 Despair

SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH