All right, good afternoon, everybody. It's so wonderful to be here. Parsha Review Podcast. So this week's Parsha is Miketz. Miketz always coincides with Shabbos Hanukkah. Whenever Hanukkah falls, whenever Shabbos Hanukkah happens, Parsha Miketz is read. And we're going to try to find today a connection, a very strong connection as to why this is the case. Let's begin with this week's Parsha where we talk about Pharaoh. Pharaoh has a dream. And what is that dream? That dream is It's after two years that Joseph was in prison and Pharaoh was dreaming and he beheld that he was standing over the river. He sees coming from the river seven cows, beautiful of appearance, robust of flesh, and they were grazing in the marshland. And then seven cows that came behind them from the river, they were ugly in appearance, and they were gaunt in flesh. And they stood next to the cows on the bank. And they ate. So what happens? The seven weak, frail, gaunt cows eat the seven healthy ones. And Pharaoh wakes up. He's like, Like, in a panic. And he goes back to sleep. And he has another dream. What was the second dream? That Pharaoh has? There were seven ears of grain, who were sprouting up on a single stalk. They were healthy and they were good. And they were seven very thin ears of grain. caught them and scorched by the east winds. Some that were growing after them. And they swallowed up the thin ones swallowed up the health. The ears. And those that were filled. Paro awakens and he says, Behold, it was Adrian. And it was in the morning. And his spirit was very agitated. And he calls for all of the necromancers. For all of the dream interpreters. And all of the wise men. And he tells them his dreams. And there's nobody who can decipher the meaning of these dreams. Everybody tries to figure it out. Nobody can Nobody comes up with anything that is pleasing to Pharaoh. Okay. What happens, eventually they call Joseph, one of the, remember the wine, the butler? The butler says, oh, oh, oh. When I was in prison, there was a nice Jewish boy there, and he interpreted my dream accurately. Me and the baker. One of us was saved. The butler was saved. Right? The butler was saved. The baker was saved. Remember which one? The butler was saved. The baker was saved. The baker was killed. The butler was saved. And it was accurate exactly the way Joseph interpreted it. He said, maybe we call him from prison. He's a nice Jewish boy. So they call him from prison, and indeed Joseph gives the interpretation, and Pharaoh then places him as the viceroy of his empire, and the second in command is a nice little Jewish boy. Can I ask? Of course we ask questions, right? That's what the Torah is about. You ask questions. What is such a big deal about this dream that the Torah commits so much ink to it? There's so much dedicated to explaining these dreams. It's repeated multiple times. Because he repeats it to Joseph and he repeats it to Joseph. What's going on over here? It's just a dream. Has anybody here had a dream? You make a big deal about it? I'm sure that Pharaoh had many, many a dream. In his lifetime. Comes this dream and he can't sleep. He comes to this dream and now he's like all better. He's out of shape. Oh, I got to find a solution to this. I got to get an answer. Sir, I got to figure this out. What is bothering Pharaoh so much? He here says, oh, I need to get an interpretation. He's not pleased until he gets a good interpretation of the dream. You think it's just a dream. If it's just a dream, I'll say this, tell us something. It's really remarkable to learn from this. What was bothering Pharaoh is that in his whole life, he always saw that the many overcame the few, the strong overcame the weak, the beautiful always overcame the ugly. Who got the job? The better looking person. Who got the raise? The person who was stronger. Who was the one who got the... Every single thing was always given to the more powerful. And here he was all turned over on his head. He was afraid also. He was afraid. If this is true in a dream, perhaps me being the strongest king in the world, I'll be taken away as well. To him, the entire image of what goes on in the world was seen in his dream. It doesn't make sense that suddenly It's going to be the opposite. Let the weak prosper. Let the few are the ones who succeed. And this bothered Pharaoh. Pharaoh was not comfortable with this. And this he needed to interpret. Our sages tell us it's very, very important for this message to be in our Torah. Because this is the story of the Jewish people. This is the story. The Jewish people are always the few. The Jewish people are always the weak. The Jewish people are always the one who are persecuted. I have over here printed out. Because in the past I've talked about it just as that document. But I have it here. Nine pages. Nine pages. For the last two thousand years there hasn't been ten years without an attack on a Bondi beach type on the Jewish people. There hasn't been ten years. years without an October seventh. There hasn't been ten years without a bombing in Argentina of the JCCC. There hasn't been ten years without a persecution, an expulsion, a forced conversion, a stake burning, Jewish enslavement, Judaism outlawed, Jews burned alive in Rome, massacre in Hungary, massacre in northern France and Germany. This is back in year A thousand ninety-six. You think it was only Germany in nineteen thirty? Thirty-nine. Oh! Eleven forty. Massacres in Germany. Blood libel in England. Jews burned alive in Rhine Valley. Massacres in Würzburg. In Germany, Jews burned alive in eleven forty-seven. Massacres in all over France. Expulsion in France. Property confiscation In England, mob attacks in London and York. Jews burned alive in Norfolk. In France, Jews burned alive. You go on and on and on and on. Public hankings. In England in twelve fifty-five. You know about this, right? A hundred thousand Jews slaughtered in Franconia. In Bavaria, in Austria, in year twelve ninety-eight. We're always the few. We're always the small. We're always weak. But I ask you, what was the miracle of Hanukkah? We say this most beautiful prayer every single Amidah throughout the eight days of Hanukkah. We say the special prayer in the grace after meals as well throughout the entire Hanukkah. And we say in the days. of Matis Yehuda, son of Yochanan, the high priest. What did they want? What did the Greek kingdom want? They wanted the Jewish people to forget your Torah. They wanted to force them to stray from the laws that you willed, Hashem. That's what they wanted, to remove us. No Judaism, no Shabbos, no Tefillin, no Bris. You stood up for them when they were facing challenges. You fought their fights. You judged their claim. You avenged their wrong. Listen to this. You delivered this Strong into the hands of the weak. And the many into the hands of the few. And the impure into the hands of the pure. And the wicked into the hands of the righteous. And the malicious into the hands of the diligent students of your Torah. Then it continues. Our sages are telling us, and this is no coincidence, that Parshas indicates always coincides with Hanukkah. Because exactly what we see here in this week's Parsha, exactly what we see going on in Pharaoh's dream, that he's in such turmoil. What in the world is going on here? Why are the weak cows eating up the strong cows? That's not the way it works in our world. Why are the weak ears of grain eating and devouring the strong ears of grain? These are not the rules of nature. The rules... of nature are the strong overcome the weak. The many overcome the few. That's the way it works. And if we turn our attention for a moment, the last seventy-five years, seventy-seven years of the state of Israel, Israel is a very tiny state. Perhaps the size of New Jersey at best. surrounded by enemies all around. If you look at all the enemy territory, it's more than the entire United States against the little losers. Can you imagine that? And what happens? The many are taken by the few. And those who are mighty are taken by the weak. What we need to open our eyes and see are the miracles that Hashem is performing for us not only only then like we say the second blessing in the when we light the menorah in those days and these days too it's happening now in front of our eyes we are able to see unbelievable revelations we are able to see the hand of Hashem protecting us where we have the mighty Iranian Revolutionary Guard throwing hundreds of missiles at Israel, ballistic missiles. When you have Hezbollah, when you have Syria, not a friend of Israel, Jordan, not either a friend of Israel. They're pragmatic peace people. They just want, we just don't want war. So just like we prefer I mean, peace, even though we don't like you. Egypt is no friend either. And you look at all the other countries. So you have Lebanon, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Yemen. Not a lot of friendly neighbors there. And look at Israel, in all of its pride and glory, continues to flourish. Continues to produce the greatest wine. in the world. It's an amazing vision for us to see with our own eyes how the dream of Pharaoh is the reality of the Jewish existence. The dream of Pharaoh, the disturbing dream of Pharaoh is disturbing for all world leaders. It's disturbing to them because this is not the way nature works. What we see from this, the Jews don't follow the laws of nature. It doesn't apply. It applies to everyone else. It doesn't apply to us. And we see this throughout our history. We see throughout our history how the Jewish people have always, always thrived after persecution. The Jewish people lived near water. They were merchants that were able to carry their goods. goods in their pockets. Oh, is that an expulsion coming? Are those, are those, do we hear chariots? Do we hear horses? Do we hear... Let's get out of here. Get on the boat and go to the next, go to the next place. You look at where the Jewish people live, they never lived inland. It's a very odd thing that in the United States, Jews do live inland. Texas, not in Texas, right next to Galveston. If you look up the Galveston line, you'll see. It was a way for Jews to get in here. And this was a hundred years ago. A very, very flourishing Shomer Shabbos Jewish community. You have in the Galveston Seminary, you have dozens of great rabbis that are buried there that were students of Habakkuk. We have to understand that we are heroes. on a mission. We're here to accomplish. We're not here to become politicians. We're not here to fight physical wars. We're here to fight spiritual wars. We're here to overcome our Yetzirah. We're here to strengthen our relationship with God. That is the purpose of the call. What's the bottom line? We say this at the end of that prayer. We say, And for your people, you work the great victory and salvation as this very day. Your children came to the Holy of Holies of your house. cleanse your temple, purify the site of your holiness, and kindle lights in the courtyard of your sanctuary. Don't you think that after all of this, let's keep a low profile? Keep the menorah off. Turn the lights off. No. We don't hide our menorah. We don't hide our high necklaces and our magandavi. We don't hide it. We light it bright. For the world to see. Because we're not not here to fight others. We're here to shine light to the world. That's our job. Our job is to uplift. Our job is to uplift the experience for the entire world. We are the chosen nation. You know why? Because we chose God. God offered the Torah to all the nations and we were the only ones to accept it. Don't be angry at us that we have the Torah. The nations of the world are jealous. We don't stick it in their face. We have to be a good example. That's our responsibility. And then what does it say? As a result of this, they establish these eight days of Hanukkah to express thanks and praise to your great name. This is our job. This is our responsibility. Give thanks. These days are to give praise and to thank Hashem every day, all day. The special time to give this praise and thanks is Hanukkah. Hanukkah, just say thank you. All day, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for the light. Thank you for the success. Thank you for the challenge and thank you for the dark. Because if you don't have that, you don't appreciate that. If you don't have the challenge, you don't feel the sweetness of the success. If you don't have the darkness, you don't feel the joy of the light. My dear friends, the greatest light of all is Shabbos. I just want to share a short thing as a side note. It's a beautiful halacha. The halacha says that what's if a person only has enough money for either Shabbos light, candles, or for menorah light? Which one takes precedence? You only have money for one. Which do you do? Allah says, Shabbos candles comes first. Why? Because Shabbos candles is Shalom Bias. It's for peace in the home. Peace in the home takes precedence over everything. Allah says that what's if your wife is not home? She's shopping for Hanukkah gifts. But it's late. It's late. We have to light the menorah. What do we do? We wait for you. Why do you wait for your wife? Shalom Bayis comes first. Peace in the home comes first. It's a constant theme that we see. It's such a beautiful halacha. Peace in the home comes first. And it's not related at all to what we talk about. We can connect it. We probably can connect it. We can connect everything to Torah. My dear friends, have a magnificent Shabbat. We have a question here. that we always have in cases.