After two years’ time, Pharaoh dreamed that he was standing by the Nile River, when out of the Nile there came up seven cows, fair to look at and sturdy, and they grazed in the reed grass. But presently, seven other cows came up from the Nile close behind them, ugly and lean, and stood beside the cows on the bank of the Nile. And the ugly lean cows ate up the seven fair sturdy cows.
(Breysheet/Genesis 41:1 – 4)
The Torah portion Miketz, is always read on Shabbat Hanukkah and its story is often bypassed in favor of Hannukah teaching and its content is rolled into the Joseph narratives that occur over four Torah portions. That said, I believe that this Torah portion which relates the dream of the seven lean cows that devour the seven sturdy ones, is quite appropriate since Hanukkah is the story of the Maccabees, an heroic saga which tells how in 168 B.C.E. the powerful Syrian king Antiochus attacked geographically tiny Judea. Many assumed that the outnumbered Jews would be vanquished quickly but as it turned out, despite their weak disadvantage, the Jews prevailed.
For this reason, on all the days of Hanukkah we joyously recite the prayer Al Ha-nissim which reads: “You, delivered the strong into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure”. This memorable truth is also proclaimed in the famous words of the prophet Zechariah which were chosen as the special Haftarah for Hanukkah: “Not by might, nor by power, but by My spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.” (Zechariah 6:6)
Our teacher, Rabbi Pinchas of Koretz(1), explores this idea.
Oftentimes apparent weakness denotes strength that is to come. At the moment of birth, no living creature is as weak and helpless as man, yet man grows up to be the master of all life. The horse secures his rest through sleep while standing; the cattle rest while kneeling; yet man is so weak that he must lie his entire body down. However, after lying in this vulnerable position, he awakens with renewed and superior strength. A Jew fasts on Yom Kippur and on other days. In so doing, he creates a situation of weakness in order to attain the inner and outer strength that follows. We thus behold that there is frequently weakness before strength.
Shabbat Shalom –
Rabbi David M. Eligberg
1 Rabbi Pinchas Shapiro of Koretz (1726 – 10 September 1791) was a Lithuanian Hasidic rabbi and theologian who was a disciple of the Baal Shem Tov. The author of several works, the passage above comes to me as a quotation in Nofet Tzufim, pp. 5 – 7. Warsaw, Poland, 1929.
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