Parsha for Kids: Miketz 2022
Below is the transcript for this week’s episode of Parsha for Kids, Miketz 2022.
You can listen to the podcast on Spotify (link to this week’s episode), Apple, Audible, iHeartRadio and a variety of other places. (Some of these might only update with the new episode content tomorrow.)
Please give it a listen and share it with the kids in your life. Additionally, I would very much appreciate it if you would be willing to subscribe, rate the podcast on the app where you listen to it, and leave a review.
Episode 10:
Hello! My name is Chana and this is Parsha for Kids. The Parsha of the week is Miketz. Miketz means “from the end” or more correctly in English, “at the end.”
At the end of what, though?
At the end of two years. That is how long Yosef remained in jail after the cupbearer was released.
What happened at the end of two years?
Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, had a dream. Well, he had two dreams, but they happened on the same night. First, he dreamt that seven healthy, plump, goodlooking cows arose from the Nile River and ate grass in the marshland. But then, seven ugly, bad-looking, thin, skinny cows came out of the Nile River. They stood beside the seven fat cows, and then the skinny cows ate up all the fat cows!
Pharoah awoke. It was a very unsettling dream. But then Pharoah was able to get back to sleep again. As he slept, he dreamed that there were seven big ears of grain growing out of one stalk. Each grain kernel looked healthy and ripe.
Then, seven more ears of grain sprouted. They were thin and shriveled. The thin ears of grain swallowed up the seven healthy ears of grain.
Pharaoh woke up once more. This time it was morning. Disturbed by the dream, Pharoah sent for all the wise men of egypt, including his magicians and necromancers. (Necromancers are those who talk to the dead, a type of dark magic). He asked them to explain the dream to him. According to Rashi, they gave him explanations but the explanations did not feel right to Pharoah. For example, the magicians told Pharaoh that he would have seven daughters, but then all seven daughters would die. This did not satisfy Pharoah, who thought that the symbolism of the Nile River, the cows and the grain had something to do with the nation and not just his personal life.
As Pharaoh was becoming frustrated because no one could explain his dream correctly, the cupbearer remembered the time he had been in prison. He spoke up, reminding Pharaoh of how he and the baker had both been placed in prison. He revealed that he and the baker had both dreamed dreams and that a man in the prison, eved ivri, a Hebrew slave, had been able to explain the meanings of the dreams. “And everything happened just the way he interpreted it,” the cupbearer concluded, “I was restored to my position and the baker was hanged.”
Pharaoh called for Yosef to come. But it would have been disrespectful for Yosef to come in his shabby, dirty clothes and overgrown hair before a king. The servants rushed to pull Yosef out of the pit, the dungeon, and cut his hair and change his clothes. Then Yosef came to Pharoah.
TRANSITION
Pharoah explained that he had dreamed a dream but no one could interpret it correctly. However, he had heard that Yosef had the ability to properly interpret dreams.
Yosef, as you may remember, was very connected to God. Therefore, he replied, “It is not I who can interpret dreams. God is the one who will give an answer that will bring peace to Pharoah.”
From here we see that Yosef was humble- he didn’t pretend that he had more abilities or power than he actually possessed. We also see that he chose to give credit to God, which meant he understood the source of His power. In our lives, too, it is important to know what we are able to do well and what we are still working to improve. It is also important to recognize who is the real source of whatever we have. On some level, that might be our parents and guardians, but ultimately, the good things we have in life come from God.
Pharaoh told Yosef exactly what he had dreamed regarding the fat and thin cows, and the healthy and shriveled grains of wheat. Pharoah explained that nobody had been able to explain the dream to his satisfaction.
Yosef listened carefully. Then he said, “Pharaoh's dreams are one. God has told what He is about to do to Pharaoh. The seven fat cows and seven good ears of grain represent seven good years. The seven skinny and ugly cows and the seven shriveled ears of grain represent seven bad years, years of famine. You see, God will make Egypt have seven years of plenty- where the crops grow and there is even a surplus. But after that, God will bring seven years of famine upon Egypt. It will be so bad that the years of plenty are forgotten and the famine will destroy the land. You dreamt the dream twice because God is going to bring this about very quickly, and the repetition of your dream shows us this.”
Yosef paused for a moment, then continued. “Let Pharoah seek out an understanding and wise man and appoint him over Egypt. Pharaoh should appoint other officials over the land as well. Together, these officials will collect food during the years of plenty and store it so that it is available to be given out during the seven years of famine. That way the land will not be destroyed by famine.”
Pharoah immediately understood that this was the correct explanation. This interpretation of the dream addressed why Pharaoh had specifically seen cows and grain by the Nile River. This was a dream of national importance and it centered around the health of the land and its crops.
Pharaoh turned to his servants and stated, “Will we find anyone else like this, a man in whom there is the spirit of God?” Pharoah understood that Yosef was unique. He wasn’t a haughty, grasping man who was trying to seize power. If so, he would have declared that of course he was the amazing, marvelous interpreter of dreams and would not have explained his ability to interpret stemmed from God. Rather, Yosef was clearly a man who kept faith with God, and in turn, God gave him unique wisdom and insight.
TRANSITION
Pharaoh thought about Yosef’s advice to find an understanding and wise man to appoint in charge of the food conservation effort. Pharoah spoke, telling Yosef, “Since God has let you know all of this, there is no one as understanding and wise as you. You shall be appointed over my household and through your command all my people will be nourished. The only thing of mine you will not have is my throne.”
This was an incredible moment in Yosef’s life. He had been the outcast, the one derided for the dreams his brothers thought were foolish or prideful. His own family had turned against him and sold him. His master’s wife had lied about him. The cupbearer forgot to mention him to Pharoah even when Yosef had done him a good turn. But in the end, God was with Yosef. Everything that had happened to Yosef had led him to this moment- when Pharaoh would pluck him from the dungeons and turn him into a viceroy, second in command to none other than Pharaoh himself.
For those of you who read fairy tales or watch Disney movies, this type of story is familiar. We call it a rags-to-riches story, or a Cinderella story. In Cinderella, the orphaned daughter is treated badly by the rest of her family. She doesn’t have nice clothing to wear and she has to do all the chores in the house. But in the end, because of her kindness and hard work, her fairy godmother sends her off to the ball and the prince chooses her. Well, before there was Cinderella, and all the other fairy tales you know and love, there was Yosef. This story really happened, and it happened to our ancestor.
In order to show that Pharoah was serious about Yosef’s new position, he removed his ring from his finger and placed it on Yosef’s hand. He also dressed Yosef in fine linen clothes befitting his new rank and placed a golden chain around his neck. He had Yosef ride in a carriage that showed his high position and people called out before him, “Avrech,” which meant, “This is the person chosen and honored by the king.”
Pharaoh said to Yosef, “I am Pharoah, and without your permission, no one may lift his hand or foot in the entire Egypt.” This was not meant literally- people were still allowed to walk- but rather, showed the immense power Pharaoh was entrusting to Yosef.
Pharaoh gave Yosef a new name, Tzafnat Paneach. Rashi explains that the meaning of Tzafnat Paneach was ‘The Revealer of Secrets,’ or ‘He Who Explains Hidden Things.’ Pharoah also gave Yosef a wife named Osnat.
Yosef’s rise to greatness and his being appointed second-in-command in Egypt all happened when he was thirty years old.
TRANSITION
Everything came to pass as Yosef predicted. During the years of plenty, Yosef gathered food and made sure that it was kept safe since he knew it would be needed during the years of famine. During the years of plenty, Yosef and Osnat had two children. The first was a boy named Menashe. Yosef named him Menashe because the name meant, “God has made me forget, nashani Elokim, all my toil and my father’s house.”
The second son Yosef called Ephraim because the name meant, “Hifrani Elokim, God has made me fruitful, in the land of my pain.”
You will notice that Yosef did not forget his past even when he rose to his high position. The names he gave his sons demonstrate this. Yosef names Menashe “Menashe” to show that he, Yosef, now enjoys a life of comfort instead of being picked on and misunderstood by his brothers. He names Ephraim “Ephraim” because God has helped him to have children and be productive even in a land where he was a foreigner, a stranger and was wrongly thrown into jail. With both of his children’s names, Yosef is thanking God for his good fortune, but he is also remembering the past.
TRANSITION
The seven years of famine began. People were very hungry and they cried out for bread. Pharoah directed the people to go to Yosef. Yosef opened the storehouses and sold grain to the hungry Egyptians so they would have food.
Meanwhile, back in Eretz Canaan, Yaakov held a meeting with his sons. The countries around Egypt were also being affected by the famine, so there was not too much food left in Yaakov’s home. Yaakov directed his sons to travel to Egypt and buy food for their family. However, he did not allow Binyomin to travel with his other sons. Yaakov was worried that some misfortune might befall Binyomin just like his mother Rachel had died and his brother Yosef had presumably been killed by a wild beast.
So Yosef’s brothers came to Egypt. They came before Yosef and bowed low to the ground before him. Yosef recognized them but they did not recognize him. At this moment, Yosef had several choices.
He could have immediately told them that he was the teenager they had sold into slavery. He could have berated and rebuked them and thrown it into their faces that they were now dependent on him and his mercy for food to eat.
He could have forgiven them completely, revealing himself to them and saying that since so much time had passed, he was no longer upset.
But Yosef did neither of these things. Instead, he pretended like he was a stranger even though he recognized his brothers. Moreover, Yosef remembered the dream he had dreamt where the brothers’ bundles of wheat bowed down to him. He realized that his dream was being fulfilled because here were his brothers, bowing before him.
Then Yosef did something strange. He accused his brothers, saying, “You are spies! You have come to see the nakedness of the land.” This is an odd turn of phrase that meant that the brothers had come to find out whether Egypt was easy or hard to conquer in a war.
Why did Yosef accuse his brothers of something that was clearly not true?
Commentators offer several possibilities. Here is one reason. Yosef remembered all of the events that had occurred. He also saw that his little brother Binyamin was not with his brothers. Yosef did not know the reason for this and was concerned that perhaps his brothers had taken the hatred they felt for him, the special and favored son of Rachel, and transferred it to his younger brother.
Therefore, Yosef figured that he needed to test his brothers. Test them to see whether they had grown and changed. And most of all, to make sure they now felt empathy.
What is empathy?
Empathy is the ability to understand and feel the feelings of another person. We talked about a skill that is part of empathy, perspective taking, in last week’s parsha. Someone who is able to take the perspective of another person is able to see the world through their eyes. Yosef wondered if the brothers had learned to take the perspective of others, or whether they still thought mainly about themselves and how events impacted them.
So Yosef decided to make the brothers fearful, thinking that they were in danger. He wanted to see what they would do.
TRANSITION
The brothers immediately told Yosef, “We are not spies! We have come to buy food. We are all sons of one man. We are honest.”
Yosef insisted they were spies. The brothers explained, “We are twelve brothers, the sons of one man in Canaan. The youngest brother is with our father today and one of our brothers is gone.”
Yosef still claimed they were spies. He told the brothers they would not be allowed to leave until their youngest brother came down to Egypt. Yosef told them they could send one of the brothers to go get Binyomin and the other brothers would need to remain in Egypt.” And he put all the brothers in prison for three days so they could see he was serious.
After three days, Yosef changed the terms of the deal. One brother would need to remain in Egypt as collateral but the other brothers would be free to go back home to Canaan to bring food to their hungry families. And they would then need to bring their youngest brother to him in Egypt.
This whole time, the brothers spoke to Yosef through an interpreter. The brothers spoke in Hebrew and the interpreter would repeat what they said to Yosef in Egyptian. Then Yosef would say something in Egyptian and the interpreter would tell the brothers what he just said in Hebrew. Therefore, the brothers did not know Yosef understood Hebrew. The brothers began to talk to one another. They realized it was no coincidence they had been placed in prison, a kind of pit, after having put their brother Yosef into a pit many years ago. “We are guilty because of our brother”they said - referring to Yosef- “because we saw his distress when he begged us and we did not listen. That is why this is happening to us.”
And Reuven said, “Didn’t I tell you not to sin against the boy but you did not listen? And now see, his blood is being demanded!”
Yosef turned aside and wept, but made sure his brothers did not see him do so, then took Shimon and placed him in an Egyptian prison.
Why Shimon? Rashi addresses this. Rashi explains that Shimon was the one who threw Yosef into the pit, or alternatively, the one who had said “Behold, the dreamer is coming.” It might also have been a practical move on Yosef’s part, because if Shimon and Levi were left together, they might come up with a way to kill him in the same way that they had killed out the people of Shechem.
TRANSITION
Yosef commanded his servants to fill up the brothers’ vessels with grain. He also commanded his servants to return his brothers’ payment by sneaking the money back into their sacks. He also told his servants to give the brothers extra food for the journey back to Canaan.
The brothers loaded their sacks of grain onto the backs of their donkeys and they stopped by an inn on the way home. One brother opened up his sack and saw his money had been returned to him. He told his brothers and the brothers trembled in fear. “What is this that God has done to us?” they asked. Because they assumed the money had been returned so that the viceroy, who was Yosef even though they didn’t know it, could accuse them falsely and claim that they had stolen it .
When the brothers returned to Yaakov, they told him everything that had happened, including the harsh way the viceroy had spoken to them, that Shimon remained behind as a prisoner, and that they had been ordered to bring Binyomin to the viceroy.
Then the brothers began to empty their sacks and they realized that each one of them had had their money returned to him and they became even more frightened.
Yaakov was upset. “Yosef is gone, Shimon is gone, and now you want to take Binyomin from me!” he exclaimed. “All these troubles have come upon me.”
Reuven felt responsible for his father’s distress. After all, he had tried to mitigate the damage with Yosef by telling his brothers to put Yosef in a pit, planning to extract him later- but he had been too late. Reuven offered to safeguard Binyomin on the journey to Egypt. He swore he would take the job so seriously that if he failed to return with Binyomin, Yaakov could execute his, Reuven’s, own two sons.
Yaakov absolutely refused to send Binyomin down to Egypt.
TRANSITION
But the famine continued and Yaakov’s family had finished eating their grain. Yaakov told the brothers to go back to Egypt and buy more food.
Yehuda stepped forward this time and explained that “The man warned us repeatedly that we would not be allowed to see his face if our brother Binyomin was not with us. If you send our brother Binyomin with us, we will go down and buy food, but if you do not, we will not go down.”
Yaaakov was distressed and said, “Why have you harmed me by telling this man that you had another brother?”
The brothers explained that Yosef had actually asked them about their family, specifically: “Is your father still alive? Do you have another brother?” How could they have known that he would want them to bring that brother down to Egypt?
Yehuda asked Yaakov to trust him, saying that he himself would be Binyomin’s guarantor. “If I do not bring him back and stand him up before you,” Yehuda said, “I will have sinned against you forever. If we had not waited, we could already have gone to Egypt and come back two times by now.”
Perhaps because Yehuda had had two of his own sons die, Yaakov trusted him and was willing to allow him to take Binyomin. Yaakov did construct a plan, however. He told the brothers to bring some of the choice products of Eretz Canaan to the man, some balm, honey, wax, lotus, pistachios and almonds. And he told them to take double the money since perhaps the money that had been returned to them in their sacks was a mistake. Yaakov blessed them that God should make the man have rachamim, mercy, on them so as to give them back Shimon and also send Binyomin back to Canaan.
TRANSITION
When Yosef saw that Binyomin had come with the brothers, he ordered the official in charge of his house to slaughter an animal and invite all the brothers to eat with him. The brothers were alarmed that Pharaoh's second in command wanted to eat with them because they thought this was just another pretext to get them in trouble.
The brothers told Yosef’s servant that they had received their money back in their sacks on the way home and that they wanted to give it back. But the man explained that this was a treasure from their God and that they did not need to worry- he had received their payment. Then the man helped them get ready for the meal they would have with Pharaoh's second in command.
The brothers prepared the gift that they had brought and all of them bowed down before Yosef. Yosef asked how they were and whether their elderly father was still alive. And when Yosef saw Binyomin he asked, “Is this your little brother whom you told me about?” And he said to Binyomin, “May God favor you, my son.”
Yosef’s mercy was aroused, so he quickly left the room and wept in a different one, where his brothers could not see. He washed his face, came out, and ordered that the food be served.
Yosef arranged all of his brothers according to their ages, from youngest to oldest, and they were amazed by this because how did he know their birth order? According to Rashi, Yosef first knocked on his silver goblet before announcing where everyone needed to sit, so that it looked as though his silver goblet was magically helping him to divine the correct answers.
He gave Binyomin a portion of food that was five times larger than anyone else’s. This was a test once again to see what the brothers would do and whether they would be jealous.
TRANSITION
Yosef told the man in charge of his household to fill up his brothers’ sacks with food and also to put each brother’s money back into his sack. He also told the man to put his special silver magical divining goblet into Binyomin’s sack.
The brothers left the city, but then Yosef ordered the man in charge of his household to make an accusation. The man chased after the brothers and ordered them to stop. He said that they had stolen the viceroy’s magical goblet! The brothers were upset and said they had not done so. This scene echoes the one in which Lavan came after Yaakov and his family in search of his Terafim and Yaakov said he did not have it, not knowing that Rachel had taken it. Yaakov declared then that the one who had the Terafim would die, and indeed, Rachel died on the way back to their home which is why she was buried on the road.
In this instance, the brothers said that if any of them had the goblet, that brother should die, and the others would be the viceroy’s slaves. They only said this because they were sure they had not stolen anything.
The head of Yosef’s household changed their statement, saying that the one with whom the goblet was found would have to be a slave but the other brothers would be free to continue on their way home.
The head of Yosef’s household searched all their bags, starting with the oldest and ending with the youngest. He found the goblet in Binyomin’s bag.
The brothers tore their clothes in mourning and went back to Yosef’s house. Now all eleven brothers, including Binyomin, fell on their faces before Yosef. Yosef asked them why they had done this. Didn’t they know someone like him practices divination?
Yehuda spoke and said, “What shall we say to my master? What shall we speak and how shall we prove we are not guilty? For God has found the sin in us - we are your servants, us and the one with whom the goblet was found.” Yehuda understood that God was holding him and his brothers accountable for what they had done to Yosef.
But Yosef said, “I will not do this. The man in whose possession the goblet was found must remain as a slave. The rest of you can go up in peace to your father.”
This was the moment of truth. Would the brothers be willing to abandon Binyomin just like they had abandoned Yosef? Would they assume Binyomin had stolen the goblet just like his mother Rachel had taken Lavan’s terafim? Or would they have learned by now to stand up for and defend their brother?
TRANSITION
So here’s what we learned today!
Yosef’s humility and connection to God is what eventually brought him to a high position. It was the fact that he had the spirit of God within him that convinced Pharaoh to appoint him as overseer of food storage. So too it is important for us to be humble and to remember to give credit to God for our gifts and talents.
The very first rags to riches story, before Cindrella and all the fairy tales, is Yosef in the Torah!
Even when Yosef was happy, he didn’t forget his roots and where he had come from. The names he named his children, Menashe and Ephraim, demonstrate this. It’s important for us as well to remember where we come from as well as where we are going, because every part of our life’s journey helps us become who we are meant to be.
When Yosef meets his brothers again, he does not reveal who he is. He does this in order to test them, especially their connection to Binyomin, the last remaining son of Rachel. Yosef wants to know whether the brothers have changed. Will they suspect Binyomin of terrible things and let him suffer bad consequences because the goblet was found in his sack? Or have they learned the true meaning of brotherhood, such that they will now defend Binyomin instead of allowing him to get hurt?
If you have any questions or comments on this week’s episode, please email me at parsha4kids@gmail.com. That’s parsha the number 4 kids at gmail.com. Good Shabbos!