Vayeishev - 7th Portion

Join me as we learn for Shabas the seventh Torah reading of Paresv chapter 40 verse one. Yesterday we read as Yseph was in incarcerated because of the because he was framed by the wife of Potifar. The Torah told us that even while he was in prison, he was in charge of the people in the prison and he was successful in everything he did. Today's Torah reading tells us about the episodes of Yoseph while in prison. Chapter 40 verse one. And it was after the follow the events that we just learned about the Egyptian king's uh cupbearer sinned and offended their master who was Pharaoh the and the baker to their master the king of after these following events. So Rashi explains as follows. What does this mean? This is coming after the story of the wife of Potifar because one event led to the other. He caused the wife of Potif. She then caused the wife the the which was Yoseph. And she then embarrassed him in front of everybody. Meaning that the wife of said that this woman that what he did against her and therefore she started getting people to say ill against Yseph. So therefore as not to elaborate and that people to take away from the uh evil that which she was trying to spread about the bad about these. Therefore, God tells us about the bad and the terrible things of the events of the sins of the butler and the baker to talk about them and not about him. Not only that that their peace and their blessing will come which he later on goes to interpret their dreams as we see later on comes because of Yoseph and Yoseph's eventual release from prison and led to him being the viceroy of Egypt also comes because of this event. So you see the event of the uh seduction of the wife of parro that led Yseph to be in prison and because of that they were talking negatively about Yoseph. This brought us to the events to talk about the butler and the baker being in prison and eventually to Yoseph's greatness that he has appointed the vice roy of Egypt they sinned. What was the sin they did? So Rashi explained the butler they found a fly in the cup that he would give to Pharaoh or that he would give him to drink from after he would come out of the bath house. They would give him something to drink. And this cup that he gave him to drink had in it a fly and the baker a little stone was found in the bread that he baked for the king. The the baker is the one that used to bake the bread of the king. Why doesn't he have to explain this? The only time you bake is usually you refer to as bread. verse two alph got upset at his at his two uh at his two servants. And therefore, who were the two servants? Alsie baker, the And he placed them weird. He placed them in prison and they were placed into the prison of the house of the chief butcher the same prisoner to the same prison where Yoseph was incarcerated. So Yakob placed them in prison where the butcher was in charge of that prison. That exact same prison is where Yseph was. Verse four. And the chief merch assigned Yseph to be in charge of them and to attend to them. And they were there in prison for a year. And he put them in charge to be together with them to attend to them. And they were days in the prison. Generally, when it just says the word days, it refers to 12 months and they were a year in prison. Verse eight, verse five. And they both had a dream. One night, the two of them, the Egyptian butler and baker, both had a dream. Each one had a dream on the same night. Each person, each one of them according to their interpretation of their dream, they dreamt the butler and the baker which were to the king of Egypt which were incarcerated in the prison there. That means these two butler the butler and the baker both had a dream and their dream with their interpretation as we're going to see Rashi explains this was not one dream that they both had. They both had a dream each one with his own dream. This is the simple interpretation says each one had a dream of the other guy's dream. He dreamt what the other guy dreamt and the interpretation of the therefore it says that's why the baker saw later on it says that the baker saw that Yseph interpreted the dream good how did he know it was a good interpretation because he was the one that dreamt the interpretation and therefore when he heard him say the interpretation for the b for the butler's dream he says that was correct because he knew that he saw the interpretation in his own dream each one dreamt something which was similar as well to the interpretation of what the dream would be of what will come to them as Yseph later on explains to them what their dreams are. Verse six and Yseph came to them in the morning and he saw and he saw and he saw that they were in a melancholy mood that they were sad. Verse six, what does the word mean? melancholing like we find that the king came back and he was like in a sad mood. He got upset got upset or in a sad mode despondent and he asked them the servants of that were together with him in custody in the house of his master lay saying why your face is so downcast today verse eight and they told We both had a dream. We each had a dream. We don't have an interpretation. There's no one to interpret it for us. So Yseph told them, "Surely the interpretations belong to God." Tell them to me. Tell me your dreams. Well, they had nothing to lose. So therefore, and the cuper told his dreams to in my dream, and there was a vine before me. Then he continues and on the vine, there were three branches and it seemed as if they were budding. Then it blossomed it and its clusters ripened into grapes. Rashi explains the detail of this dream and what is he telling us about the different clusters of grapes and how they happened. Verse [snorts] means long branches which are called vidits in old French. What does this mean? And it appeared to be blossoming. Was it blossoming? So it appeared to be blossoming means it appeared to me in my dream as if it was blossoming. And after it blossoms, what does it do? It produces a bud and from there it forms into small unripe grapes. Smadar is what we would call in old French espanir. After that then those un then what happens is they blossomed and they brought it into uh they ripen and they come into flowers as the says this is like a bud of a more advanced stage over here is now what we learned is what the translation of the word means nates it is a more advanced stage of the blasphemy of of the blossoming as it becomes as it's as it says in Yeshua blossoms it becomes a ripened grape we also find that later on in the book of Amid when it talks about the staff of the almond the Torah uses the terminology it produced blossoms and only then did it sprout some buds so Rashi is telling us what this word pyas means simply meaning blossoming the escat Not like the Tarum explains and I squeezed. We have the same terminology in the Mishna of verse 12. Verse 11. Verse 11. And he continues the dream. Pharaoh's cup was in my hand. Then what did I do? And I took the grapes and I squeezed them into the I squeezed their juice into Pharaoh's cup. And then I placed the cup on Pharaoh's hand. Verse 12. Now starts to explain the dream. This is the interpretation of your dream. These three branches symbolize three days. Rashi meaning this is a sign for the next three days. Rashi continues. There's a lot of midrashic explan explanations and interpretations that are here in the esoteric meanings of these dreams. Now continues with the dream and text 13 and its interpretation. another three days. In three days time, Pharaoh will take into account who you are and he will restore you to your original position and you will then place Pharaoh's cup in your hand like you always used to do that you were the one that served him his drinks. Verse 13, he'll take into account, he'll realize that you're missing and therefore say, "Okay, back to back to your original job when it'll count. of he's going to see all the different servants that he has that are there attending to him in his meal. He'll count you amongst them and he'll say, "I want him back to be able to bring the cups to be my butler. Your place, your stature, and your position that you were until now." 14. But Yseph continues,"I am so sure you're going to be back to your position and therefore you are going to have influence that you're going to be able to see Pharaoh all the time by the meal. Therefore, I ask of you. Therefore, I ask you should remember the same way I reme in mind that as things will be going well for you like things will be going good for you and you will do good for me. and he'll mention me to parro and he'll take me out of this building this prison verse 14 the same way that you will see that things are going good for you and you're going to keep in mind when things are going because things will be going well like my interpretation and you're going to hear and you're going to see that what I said is true therefore please remember me as well The word here means please now and he continues to say why am I stuck in this home? Because I was in fact kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews and here as well I did nothing wrong that they put me in this dungeon. Verse 16. Now that the baker saw that Yseph has interpreted the dreams well and remember we said before that the baker was the one that dreamt the interpretations as well according to one of the interpretations tells me too in my dream I likewise had a dream and in there there was there were three wicker baskets on my head so Rashi explains what does it mean a three wicker baskets because they're made like holes and woven one into the other and they have like holes in them. But where we are there's a lot of these kinds of baskets. It is customary that the people that sell bread, these are bread baskets and it's very common that they put their bread in such kind of baskets. Verse 17 from the top basket. There was all kinds of good baked goods baked goods and the birds were eating from them from the baskets that was above my headph And Yseph answered this is your interpretation. These three baskets means three days. In another three days in three days time will then pharaoh will then decapitate you and will hang your corpse on a gallows and the birds will eat your flesh. Not as exciting as the way he interpreted the dream for the butler. Verse 20. And it was the third day and it was the birthday of Pharaoh. And he made a feast for all his servants. And he appointed the mashkin the butler to back to his disposition as well as the baker amongst his servants amongst everybody else available to serve him. So Rash has to tell us what does this mean? Even though today everybody knows what aus is a birthday but this is the first time that a birthday is even mentioned in the Torah. And therefore, tells us the day of his birth. They call it a special day. The day of his birthday is the day that he was given birth. A child is not born on their own. There are other people that help out. For example, the midwife helps with her training is there to help the woman give birth. Therefore, a midwife is called one who gives birth causes birth. We find this all the other places as well born on the day that was b that you were born after was washed out was done through others. What this means is why is it called who led us given birth because that's the way the child though it's the day the child is born but he was given birth somebody else brought him into this world. Interestingly enough, the first time and the only time that a birthday party is mentioned in the Torah is concerning Pharaoh in this exact spot. It is for that reason that until the Reb came out with the concept of celebrating birthdays, it was something that was shunned and even discussed in many rabbitic commentators and responses of their lack of celebrating a birthday as something special and unique. And the Reb showed us that celebrating a birthday is a special time where we celebrate our purpose in the life and ourash of the reason why we were created. Verse 21 and a butler was given back his position was put back on his position to continue to be the butler for Pharaoh and he placed the cup on Pharaoh's hand. from the previous verse. And he put the butler and baker back. He counted them in together with the rest of his servants. He would count the names and mentioned the names of all his servants that he would like that would be there by his meal that they should serve him at his meal. And he mentioned those as well together with them. Like we find later on when we use the terminology to count to count the Jewish people. It also says lift up the heads which means to count them verse 22 and the baker was hunger was hanged as Yseph interpreted to them that the butler would be given back his position back to his original spot and the baker will be hanged. However, the butler did not remember Yoseph and he forgot about him. That day that he was back in his original position, he forgot already as moment he left the prison, he already forgot about Yseph. It didn't take long for him to forget who and what Yseph did for him. If you don't remember somebody, so then you forget about them. Not only that day did he forget about them but even later on he forgot them as well even after a length of time. And he continues because Yseph depended on the butler that he should remember him and because of that he thought he's going to get out of prisoner. He had to be imprisoned another two years. He was only meant to be there for 10 years. Now he's going to be there for another two years. As it says into chapter 40, lucky is the man who puts his trust in God and doesn't put it on the humans. And he did not put his trust on Egypt who is called and he just should have put his faith in God. One may ask, what did Yseph do wrong? Isn't a person supposed to do his due diligence? And this was the effort that he had at the time was to do the due diligence and ask the butler to remember. However, Yoseph who saw his life that it was all by divine providence that he was in Egypt by divine providence and he saw that everything that happened to him, God was making him successful should have had a greater intuition and recognized that he had a purpose while he was in prison and not put his dependency on the human being as well as from Yoseph who demanded a greater measure of faith as well. This concludes the seventh Torah reading of paras.