Shalom ‘Aléchem! 

In this week’s Torah Portion, Parashat Miqqétz (B’réshith 41:1-44:17), we are taught that after Yosef interprets Pharaoh’s two dreams and reveal that a seven-year period of plenty will be followed with a seven-year period of famine; Pharaoh, being amazed by the wisdom that Yosef possesses, puts the young man in charge of all of Egypt to safeguard the country from being decimated during the famine that was sure to come. 

While the famine began to surge over the face of the world, B’réshith 42:1 tells us, “Now Jacob saw that there was corn in Egypt”. 
Rabbi Johanan reread the words of Genesis 42:1, “Now Jacob saw that there was CORN(שֶׁבֶר‎, shever) in Egypt,” to read, “Now Jacob saw that there was HOPE (שֵׂבֶר‎, sever) in Egypt.” Rabbi Johanan taught that Genesis 42:1 corresponds with Tehillim 146:5, which declares, “Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose HOPE (שִׂבְרוֹ‎, sivro) is in the Lord his God” (Genesis Rabbah 91:1). 

What does this all mean? Rashi (Rabbi Sh’lomo ben Yitzhaq), referring to the Midrash in Genesis Rabbah 91:6, declares that Ya’akov did not literally “see” that there was corn in Egypt – after all, how could he have seen it when we was living all the way in Cana’an, but rather he “heard” that corn was in Egypt, as it is written, “Behold, I have heard that there is corn in Egypt (B’réshith 42:2). What then is the meaning of Ya’akov  saying that he “saw” corn in Egypt? Rashi quotes the Midrash as saying Ya’akov saw with the divine “mirror” that he still had HOPE (שֶׂבֶר) in Egypt, regardless of the famine that ravaged the entire world- INCLUDING Egypt. This is fascinating. How so?

What’s unique is that the word Egypt “מִצְרַיִם” (Mitz’rayim) is related to the noun מָצוֹר (Matzor) implying “distress” (D’varim 28:53) or an act of being “sieged” (Yechezqel 4:2,7). מָצוֹר is directly related to the root word צוּר (Tzur) “to cramp”, that is, “to confine”, “to beset”, “to besiege”, “to bind (up)”, “to enclose”, “to lay siege”. 

When Rabbi Johanan reread the words of Genesis 42:1, “Now Jacob saw that there was CORN(שֶׁבֶר‎, shever) in Egypt,” to read, “Now Jacob saw that there was HOPE (שֵׂבֶר‎, sever) in Egypt”, teaching that this, in turn, refers to Tehillim 146:5, which declares, “Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose HOPE (שִׂבְרוֹ‎, sivro) is in the Lord his God”; what the Rabbi was revealing is a very important lesson everyone of us must learn to follow in our lives, daily. 

Every now and again, we will find ourselves in our own spiritual  מִצְרַיִם, that is, our own spiritual place of “confinement” and “restriction” where we feel “besieged” by all kinds of spiritual impediments where our own personal “famines” constrict us. But in the midst of this, we are reminded by the Midrash  to “see” and acknowledge, by faith, that right in the midst of our “famine”, HaShem has provided an ABUNDANCE of שֶׂבֶר (HOPE) through His providential שֶׁבֶר‎ (CORN) right in the midst of what appears to be our moment of being destitute. 

Though Ya’akov “dwelt in the land of his father’s sojournings, in the land of Canaan” (B’réshith 37:1), he was able to “see”, by faith, that שֶׂבֶר (HOPE) thrived in the midst of the famine in the land of  מִצְרַיִם because his hope שִׂבְרוֹ‎ was in the Lord his God (Tehillim 146:5) and not in the apparent horror of the famine in the land of מִצְרַיִם (CONFINEMENT).

May we, by G-d’s help, follow such an example of faithfulness, in our daily lives – “seeing”, by faith, G-d’s providential abundance of HOPE in the midst of every adversarial circumstance of our lives, fulfilling the beautiful exhortation: “Rejoice in the L-rd always – again I will say, rejoice” (Philippians 4:4). Amén. 

Shabbat Shalom u’mevorach!

D’var By Ranford Jackson