Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bereshit
- Miketz
Our rabbis have commented that the miraculous deliverance of Joseph from his prison cell and his rise to power was, to a certain extent, due to the time that had passed, and with the heavenly intervention in human events. It suddenly became the time when Joseph should be set free and achieve greatness and dominion. That is why the Torah reading, with this unbelievable mysterious story, now begins to unfold after time has elapsed and when the correct moment for the divine will to be activated in human affairs.
In dealing with business and commerce, we are all aware of the axiom that "timing is everything." Well, that is not only true in matters of finance and business but it also a basic axiom of life and of human history. What can be accomplished at a certain time becomes impossible to achieve either earlier or later. The examples regarding this truism are various and innumerable. It is the circumstances that the passage of time create that fashions the milieu in which events can take place, and individuals can rise to greatness or be defeated.
The timing of heaven and God's guidance in human affairs is always mysterious, inexplicable, and irrational to us ordinary mortals. However, in retrospect, one sees the perfection involved, and the exquisite nature of the timing that governs human events. King Solomon taught us in Kohelet that there is a time for everything to occur, and that everything has its time.
Among the many fallacies of human thought is the idea that we not only control the occurrence of events, but, somehow, we also have the power to decide when those events should take place. It should be obvious to all that we do not control time. In fact, unfortunately, we allow time to control us, our behavior, our schedules and even our goals. It never enters our minds that somehow time is really beyond the boundaries of our powers of control, and beyond even our most fervent wishes and desires.
In truth, most of our lives are almost predetermined: when we are born, and the circumstances of the present world in which we live. It takes a famine of epic proportions to propel Joseph to greatness, political stature, and governmental power. Heaven will use those times and circumstances to reunite the family of Jacob, and to begin the story of Jewish exile and redemption. Everything that happens from then on, in the family of Jacob, will be a product of the times and the society in which they find themselves. They will go into exile on schedule and will also be redeemed at the right time. But being human, they will not all be aware of the schedule itself.
Rabbis in Midrash
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Hosha'ana Rabba FLYDUBAI & HOSHANA RABBA- ANI VAHU HOSHIA NA- I & HIM SAVE US
"Ani vaHu Hoshia Na", "I and Him, Save Us". We don't just pray to Him, but we also pray to and for ourselves that we should emulate and educate our children to have that instinctive altruism with which He created the world. President Trump seemed amused about Yaniv Hayon, our PLUMBER who confidently worked with G-d like Superman (he learned from a pilot on a TV show!) to save 174 lives on the Dubai hijacking, but we in Israel are totally accustomed already 78 years to our plumbers, teachers, garbage-men, rabbis, farmers & doctors being Hashem's shlichim! This is what Zionism is about.
Moreshet Shaul Hashem Is your Shadow – part I
Based on Siach Shaul, Pirkei Machshava V’Hadracha p. 420 – an address from 1941
P'ninat Mishpat A Non-Contractor in Changing Times – part I
(based on ruling 85128 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts)
Moreshet Shaul Our King on Rosh Hashana, Our Father on Yom Kippur.
Based on Aroch Siach, p. 221 (Rav Shaul Yisraeli)
