| Pondering the Pasuk Shemot: To "Know" Him Is To Love Him |
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| Written by Heshie HaGibbor |
 And a new king arose over Egypt (Mitzrayim), who did not know Joseph (Yoseif). (Exodus 1:8). Wait a minute. Joseph was the Viceroy of Mitzrayim. He was the one who shaped
the financial infrastructure of Mitzrayim and made it into THE world power of the time. How could a king not know the history of his own country?! How could anyone in Mitzrayim not know who Yoseif was?! Rashi quotes the opinions of Rav and Shmuel: Rav says this was actually a new king. Shmuel says he made new laws. Rashi add another possibility - that he acted as if he didn’t know Yoseif (Joseph). To really understand what happened here, we have to go back a ways – all the way back to Parshas Vayishlach. Yakov (Jacob) is about to meet up with his brother Esav (Esau) who had sworn to kill him. He divides his camp into two, send gifts, prays, and then he moves his entire family across the river Yabok Genesis 32:23. He then spends the night alone on the other side of the river and ends up wrestling with an angel. Why is that river called Yabok? In truth, the river should have been named after Yakov But there seems to be a letter missing – the letter ayin). Why? The missing ayin is telling us something important. The numerical value of ayin is 70. The letter ayin is missing from the name of the river because the 70 souls were on the other side. Yakov stayed the night alone. The missing ayin is letting us know that the 70 souls are about to go down to Mitzrayim. It’s a remez – a hint. Let’s follow along and see where that ayin shows up again. Fast forward. Yoseif is sold by his brothers to a band of Arabs, who, in turn, sell him to “Potiphar, the eunuch of Pharaoh, the Chamberlain of the Butchers(Genesis 37:36). Potiphar takes Yoseif in as his house Master, and gives him the run of the house, except for the bread he ate, which alludes to his wife. The next part of the story is well known. Potphar’s wife has eyes for Yoseif, and tries to seduce him. He refuses and runs out of her house. She grabs his shirt, and runs out after him screaming that he tried to rape her. Potiphar comes home from work, and when he hears his wife’s story, he has Yoseif thrown into prison. Yoseif interprets dreams for two prisoners, and his interpretations come true. Then Pharaoh has two dreams, and the surviving dreamer from prison tells Pharaoh about the Jewish fellow in prison who interprets dreams. Pharaoh summons Yoseif and Yoseif interprets Pharaoh’s dreams as one dream, and Pharaoh appoints Yoseif as the Viceroy of Mitzrayim – the number two man in all of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh himself. Pharaoh gives Yoseif a new name – Tsafnas Paaneach , and he also gives Yoseif a wife . Who? None other than the daughter of Potiphar. . . . But, wait a minute, his name is no longer Potiphar, it has magically morphed into Poti Phera, two names. And this Poti Phera, is now moving up in the Egyptian world. He is no longer the chief butcher, he is now the Kohein On ( High Priest of On). (Genesis 41:45). What did this guy do to deserve to have a letter added to his name? Nothing is mentioned about that. But his name went from Potiphar, the Eunuch of Pharaoh, Master Butcher (Genesis 39:1) to Poti Phera, Chief (or Priest) of On (Genesis 41:48). Follow the bouncing Ayin. First it was missing from the name of the River Yabok (יַבֹּק) to give us a hint that the Shivim Nefesh (the 70 souls) were about to begin their journey down to Mitzrayim. Now that same Ayin is added to Potipher’s name which changes it to Poti Phera. He now has two names instead of one. Poti and Phera. And the second name is Phera , pay-reish-ayin. What’s missing from his new name? Mr. Potiphar was Master Butcher, and now he is moving up politically to become Kohein On , High Priest of On. Rather ambitious, don’t you think? But Caesar was ambitious. Ant. Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Cæsar, not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them, The good is oft interred with their bones; So let it be with Cæsar. The noble Brutus Hath told you Cæsar was ambitious; He got the extra Ayin, the Ayin that tells us that the entrance of the Shivim Nefesh (the seventy souls) into slavery is imminent. So what letter is he missing? Remember, he started life as Potiphar and then, suddenly , out of nowhere, he becomes Poti Phera Look at his second name Phera Does it look familiar? Pay-reish-ayin . Almost looks like Pharaoh pay-reish-ayin-hei, doesn’t it. The only letter he needs now to complete his rise to power is a Hei ( ה ) at the end of his name Our friend, the Master Butcher, now the High Priest of On, is slowly working his way up to becoming the next Pharaoh ( פַּרְעֹה ). All he needs is a Hei ( ה ) ! Do you know why he was called Sris Pharaoh, the eunuch of Pharaoh? Because he had eyes for Yoseif. He wanted to have relations with Yoseif. So God made something happen that caused Potiphar to lose his apparatus, and he became a eunuch, to protect Yoseif. Let me ask you, If you had eyes for someone and God made you into a eunuch because of that desire, how would you feel about that guy, about the object of your desire? I would be pretty angry at this Yoseif guy, wouldn’t you? But Potiphar had to contain his anger because Yosief was Pharaoh’s favorite boy. He made Mitrayim into the world power by his economic seven year plans (2 of them). So Potiphar couldn’t do anything with that anger all those years except to stifle it and let it cook and fester. And he had to make nice to Yoseif because of Yoseif’s high position in the Egyptian government. Biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment when he would have his revenge. Slowly working his way up to be the next Pharaoh. Oh, sweet revenge. Backtrack to Parshas Bereishis, (Genesis 4:1). “And Adam knew Chava, his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Kayin. “ The word to know (יָדַע ) means to have relations with. Now come back now full circle to where we began. And a new king arose over Egypt (Mitzrayim), who did not know Joseph (Yoseif). (Exodus 1:8). This new king was Potiphar, who had eyes for Yoseif, and was made a eunuch by God to prevent him from accomplishing his desires vis-à-vis Yoseif. He has all this fury raging in him. After all, it was because of Yoseif that he lost his manhood. Now we can understand the pasuk better. And a new king arose over Egypt (Mitzrayim), who did not know Yoseif (Joseph). He was not allowed to “KNOW” Yoseif in a carnal way, nor anybody else, for that matter, after having lost his manhood because of Yosief. Now that he becomes the new king over Miztrayim “who did not know Yoseif,” he unleashes his pent up fury and decides to take his anger out on Yoseif’s people, the B’nei Yisrael. Can you blame the poor guy for being so angry, for wanting such huge revenge? How would you feel if, God forbid, that happened to you? In the end result, it’s all the Hand of God controlling events, watching over our every move, whether in Eretz Yisroel (Israel) or in Galus (the Diaspora). Whether helping you find a parking spot, or having a bomb that wouldn’t light on flight 253 on December 25th. Protecting us at all times in ways we can never begin to fathom . . . only sometimes, afterwards, later on, when we look back at events of our lives. And if we look hard enough, and carefully enough, with a God consciousness, we can see the Hand of God in our lives. . . Watching. . . . and waiting . . . .with anticipation . . .. . to see when we are going to finally get it . . . and walk straight back into Gan Eden. . . right past the Flaming Magical Mystery Sword . . . .to reclaim our birth right. I bless us all, that we have the foresight to notice these bouncing ayins as they appear and disappear, and other signs of God’s continued presence in this world, even when our vision is not so clear, when we get overwhelmed, distraught, depressed or down and out. Remember always that God is the only constant. Everything else is temporary. Copyright© 2010, Heshie Klein, MD This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it 
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