Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bereshit
- Vayeshev
Chazal say her name was Zulaicha. Her husband
Potifar, who bought Yosef from the Ishamelites,
was a eunuch (perhaps castrated by the angel
Michael when he cast his eyes on the handsome
Yosef). Zulaicha lusted for Yosef & waited until
an Egyptian holiday took everyone out of the
house, so that the two of them were alone. Yosef
wavers (note the back-and-forth shalshelet trop
note on the word "va’y’maen, and he refused.").
At the last moment, Yosef has a vision of father
Yakov who warns Yosef that his name will be
missing from the stones of the breastplate if he
succumbs to Zulaicha’s advances. He flees,
leaving his "beged, clothes" behind (note "beged"
can also mean "ba-gad, betrayal"). Yosef is then
thrown into prison rather than executed (Potifar
suspects his wife’s claim of rape is false). By
tradition, Zulaicha was the adopted mother of
Osnat, who would later marry Yosef, & so she
sensed that she and Yosef had some connection, but misread the "fine print."
Rabbis in Midrash
Lessons
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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
