Miketz – A thought for the week by Mike Lewis

This week, in the Sedra Miketz, we see Joseph becoming the Vizier of Egypt

In England we had Pitt who became Prime Minister. In Egypt, Joseph, who had been thrown in a pit also becomes a Prime Minister., Disraeli, born a Jew, but converted by his father, rose to be Prime Minister. Joseph who became the Egyptian Vizier was renamed Tzavnat Paneach and married to an Egyptian priestess.

Disraeli, despite his conversion, was described in The Times as having “some of the best blood in Jewry”. Bismarck, at the Congress of Berlin, called him the old Jew It was rumoured that on his deathbed he murmured the Shema.

After he had brought his family safely to Egypt Joseph made the sons of Israel swear, saying, “God will surely take care of you, and you shall carry my bones up from here.”  He died at the age of one hundred and ten years; and was embalmed and placed in a coffin in Egypt” When we came out of Egypt we took Joseph’s bones and buried his remains in the plot of land which Jacob had bought in Shechem.

Perhaps, in the end, it is not who we may become but who we are and how we are remembered that is important.