From Darkness into Light
Dec 19, 2009 By David Hoffman | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
We Jews know that stories are not simple things. As a people, we tell tales that place us in the drama of world history and connect us with a common past and a shared future. Our national stories challenge us as individuals and as a community; they provide us with contexts to work out moral dilemmas, and help us reflect collectively on what it means to live life well.
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Fruits of the Land, Song of the Soil
Dec 12, 2012 By Matthew Berkowitz | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
The Joseph narrative continues its dramatic twists and turns as Joseph, through his talented dream interpretations, rises to become the second most powerful figure in the land of Egypt.
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Why There Is Suffering
Dec 24, 2011 By Charlie Schwartz | Commentary | Text Study | Miketz | Hanukkah
Who among us has not experienced suffering? After all, loss, sadness, and struggle are as much a part of life as joy, happiness, and triumph. This is as apparent in the emotional arc of Joseph and his family in parashat Miketz as it is in life’s experience.
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Holy Innovation and the Festival of Hanukkah
Dec 11, 2012 By Daniel Nevins | Commentary | Hanukkah
What is the essential message of Hanukkah, the beloved Festival of Lights? Like many of our holidays, this celebration is protean, shifting shape to accommodate our changing Jewish needs.
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Miketz—Hanukkah—Thanksgiving
Nov 27, 2013 By Burton L. Visotzky | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
Hanukkah is the original Thanksgiving. While it is true that our ancestors did not eat turkey (a North American bird), they certainly were cooking with oil.
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The Fortitude of the Jewish Soul
Dec 15, 2001 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
This year I will not be celebrating Hanukkah at home. I’m off to Israel on December 6, and will not be back till the seventh day of the festival, just in time to light a full complement of eight candles on the last night in the midst of family. It is hard to capture the beauty of this holiday or any other on your own. Neither synagogue nor prayer begins to exhaust the repertoire of ritual that enlivens the distinctive character of every Jewish holy day. The home is the great aquifer of our Judaism, indispensable but undervalued.
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“By Spirit Alone”
Dec 19, 1998 By Ismar Schorsch | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
Judaism shuns the celebration of military victory. The conquest of Canaan by Joshua was never transmuted into a holy day. Passover commemorates our redemption from Egypt; Shavuot, the giving of the Torah at Sinai; Tisha B’Av, the destruction of the Temples; but the demolition of Jericho by Joshua or the final achievement of sovereignty with the erection of the national shrine at Shiloh (Joshua 18:1) find no place in the religious calendar of Judaism.
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The Potential of Tiny Things
Dec 27, 1997 By Joseph Lukinsky (<em>z”l</em>) | Commentary | Miketz | Hanukkah
Every time you eat a latke or a sufganiah (jelly doughnut in Israel) during Hanukkah, you are reenacting the miracle of the cruse of oil that the Maccabees found when they struggled to rededicate the Temple. There was only enough oil for one day, but it lasted for eight! A little oil goes a long way!
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