By Avi Siegel, December 27, 2025
Shabbat Shalom!
I want to start with some gratitude for sharing this moment with each of you. This community has been a fabric of my life since I can remember and stepping back onto the bima as a darshan is a gift I appreciate (even if it is only once a year 🙂).
I would like to spend our time doing 3 things: first I will attempt some time travel and bring us to a poignant moment in our lives, then I want to wrestle with our text from this morning, and finally I want to leave you with a few real life examples of potential paradigms for how we address those challenges presented. Sounds good. O and of course I will do it all in 11 minutes 55 seconds or less…otherwise kiddush is free.
If you will indulge me, we are going to have two thought experiments. The first is what is called free association, meaning that I will give you a prompt and I want you to just let your mind fill in the blank with whatever it does. There is no correct answer and I will give you a cheat, you don’t even have to agree with what your mind says but hold on to it. The second is memory recall where once again listening to the prompt I want you to try as best you can to recall a true moment in your life that fills in the blank. Afterwards, I will ask for a few people’s responses so those that want to share get ready. Lastly, If you would like to close your eyes to help focus your thoughts feel free to do so but not necessary. Alright here we go.
Your first prompt is when I ask you to think about how Jews are viewed by non-jews in this country (and/or the world) today in almost the year 2026 what do you think? Repeat and then pause…take four answers
Now I want each of you to think of the moment when you made a meaningful connection with someone who is not Jewish. From work, life, family. It could have been yesterday a year ago, decade, lifetime. Think of someone who left that impression on you in all the best ways. pause…take 4 answers
Now with that in mind let’s dive into the parsha. Vayigash continues the incredible story of Joseph and his rise to prominence in Egypt. The beginning has the nail biting ending to the brothers story and final reveal of Joseph’s true identity to his brothers. In another drash, I would go into one of my favorite ideas of being a soul healer but that will have to wait until next time. The parsha concludes with the family moving from Canaan to Egypt and Joseph buying most of Egypt’s land in exchange for food. I may not be an economist but there is something interesting about the Torah’s description of what appears to be a simple supply and demand opportunity.
If you open up the Chumash to page I want to read Bereshit Chapter 47 verses 11-12
“So Joseph settled his father and his brothers, giving them holdings in the choicest part of the land of Egypt, in the region of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded. Joseph sustained his father, and his brothers, and all his father’s household with bread, down to the little ones.”
I’ll come back to the nepotism in a moment but let’s keep going. Moving beyond the family versus 14-20 state.
“Joseph gathered all the money that was to be found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, as payment for the rations that were being procured, and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s palace.” Then when the money ran out he took livestock, then when the livestock ran out he took their persons and farmland.
Recap — Joseph treats his family (pit throwing murderous ones) with the best parts of land and plenty of food. However Joseph treats the Egyptians by taking their every last penny (economically smart). Don’t get me wrong, I live in the real world and have learned that curating favorable relationships will get you favorable results. AND I have always believed that our ancient texts try to help us see a better possible world. So let’s go to the sages. One of my favorite commentators Rav Ovadiah ben Jacob Sforno looks at that last part of verse 12 – לחם לפי הטף (Bread according to their young). He says even though Joseph was in a position to allocate generous rations to the members of his family, he did not show them any preference and treated them on the basis of need, each family according to the number of souls. In a time when the general population suffers shortage even those who have ample are to limit themselves. Ok so maybe the cursory reading missed this virtue of restraint that Joseph was really showing.
Let’s add another layer to it. This time Ramban looks at verse 19 “קְנֵֽה־אֹתָ֥נוּ וְאֶת־אַדְמָתֵ֖נוּ” BUY US AND OUR LAND. say the Egyptians. “Us” being their bodies as servants for Pharaoh. After doing so, Joseph responds in Verse 20 “הֵן קָנִיתִי אֶתְכֶם הַיּוֹם וְאֶת אַדְמַתְכֶם לְפַרְעֹה” “And Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh”; Ramban is explaining that even though the Egyptians sold every man’s field, it does not say that he bought their bodies, only the land. The reason for it is that the Egyptians told Joseph that he should purchase them as servants to perform the king’s business as he pleases. But Joseph wanted to buy only the land, and he made a condition with them that they work on it forever, thus becoming Pharaoh’s family tenants. Once again we see Joseph in a new light that the way he is treating others is not how it seems superficially.
So what is the point of the story? I want to answer that with three short anecdotes from my past month of work in New Jersey.
- We received a call from a woman in Vernon Township (which is as far north as you can go in Sussex county before crossing over to New York state and has a very small enclave of Israelis) saying she was organizing a town Hanukkah Lighting and if we wanted to participate. Being that it was two hours away, I didn’t jump at the chance but I asked her what was taking place. She told me that she convinced the town council (none of whom are Jewish) to let her have a public lighting of the Menorah just like they do for Christmas. That night she would light, recite, and say thank you — Tolerance
- As part of our ongoing combating antisemitism work, I train high school upperclassmen to give presentations in non Jewish school spaces. Last week I brought 4 of them to meet with a room full of non-Jewish high school students to explain Judaism, share in its rituals, and counter stereotypes. The workshop provided the space for questions to be asked and answered that normally were kept silent. They started the conversation —Dialogue
- We established a new cohort initiative that brings together teens from Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, Latter-day Saint, Catholic, Sikh, Presbyterian, and Baptist communities. Over Hanukkah they decided to put on a Celebration of Light. The program began reflections on what “light” means in different religious traditions. Continued with a joint community service project, where the teens delivered six carloads of coats and toys that they had collected to families facing need this holiday season. The program ended with the non-Jewish teens lighting a menorah and dedicating it to those who lost their lives at Bondi beach. — Allyship
Rabbi Jonathan Saks z”l shared five years ago in his book Morality: Restoring the Common Good in Divided Times, the concern that society has changed over the last half century that has left Americans, and others in the liberal West, so divided and deeply unhappy. He pointed to the 1960s as the starting point for the shift in what he described as a “We-to-I” orientation whereby everybody follows their bliss and doesn’t worry about the still unknown, long-term consequences. Among the many problems liberal Western societies now face: broken families, loneliness, drug use, teen depression, growing economic inequality, media that reinforces individuals’ pre-existing biases, universities’ embrace of safe spaces, public shaming, and a polarized political atmosphere that dehumanizes those who don’t fully agree with us there is an antidote. Sacks posits that “we must recover that sense of shared morality that binds us to one another . . . There is no liberty without morality, no freedom without responsibility, no viable ‘I’ without the sustaining ‘We.”
From Yaakov’s understanding that even in the direst straits of need, people should still be treated humanly to today’s society that unfortunately as you shared with me looks to Jews with skepticism at best and malicious content at worst. I presented three distinct ways that we can engage with others, it is up to you to determine if the model fits your life. May we be blessed with the strength to engage with others, the security to know we can, and the wisdom to see why it makes for a better society.
Shabbat Shalom