The Silver Goblet: Learning from Our Past Experiences
I'm writing to you in advance of the final Shabbat of 2024. I'm enjoying Chanukah so far and hope you are too. It's a holiday of hope and resilience, bravery, and illumination.
That said, I'll admit that as this secular New Year approaches, I have a "here we go again" feeling as we inch closer to next month's presidential inauguration. Bracing for tough times ahead has me thinking back to late 2016/early 2017, when we were in a similar place. Back then, I remember feeling like Kavana had spent our first decade figuring out how to build an intentional Jewish community, and that we were ready to pivot to being more outward-facing and striving for justice, equality, peace, and fairness in the world around us as so many of our core values came under attack during the first Trump administration. I wonder: what did we learn from the last time around that might inform how we tackle the present?
Ecclesiastes / Kohelet is partially right when he says, "There is nothing new under the sun!" (Kohelet 1:9). In so many ways, human civilization does seem to move in cycles, with ebbs and flows of ideas, patterns, and ideologies, like the waves of the ocean or swings of a pendulum. It's certainly true that if we look, we can find not only one but many historical antecedents for this moment in time.
Our sacred texts often do the same, with new stories echoing the ones that have come before. But, there is typically some twist or salient difference through which we can feel forward motion. Meaning comes not only through the repetition of events and motifs, but also through the change and growth we can perceive in the differences.
One interesting example of a text that works this way appears in this week's parasha, Miketz, which brings us a continuation of the Joseph narrative. Left in a pit by his jealous brothers, Joseph ended up enslaved in Egypt; through his divine gift of dream interpretation, he worked his way up to the position of Pharaoh’s right-hand man. Then, ten of his brothers come down to Egypt during a famine to procure food, and Joseph toys with them. First, he insists that they are spies and forces them to bring the youngest one, Benjamin*, along to prove that they are not. (*Benjamin is also the only brother with whom Joseph shares two parents; the rest are technically his half-brothers, all sons of Jacob.) And now, after dining with the eleven brothers and giving them a large quantity of the grain they were seeking, Joseph also instructs his house steward:
“Fill the men’s bags with food, as much as they can carry, and put each one’s money in the mouth of his bag. Put my silver goblet in the mouth of the bag of the youngest one, together with his money for the rations.” (Genesis 44:1-2)
It is this part of the story -- Joseph's planting of his silver goblet in Benjamin's bag, and then sending his guards after the brothers -- that I want to zoom in on.
As my colleague Rabbi Elliott Cosgrove points out, this story has an “internal rhyme” with an earlier Torah story about Rachel (Joseph and Benjamin’s mother). In that story from one generation prior, found in Genesis 31, Rachel actually does steal the household idols of her father Laban as she flees with her husband Jacob and the rest of his entourage. They are pursued by Laban, who doesn't find the idols hidden under her skirts; still, Jacob's pronouncement that "Anyone with whom the idols shall be found shall not live in the presence of our brothers" comes true, and in a tragic coda, Rachel dies soon after on the road. Cosgrove compares and contrasts the two stories, writing about both:
"The children of Jacob are on the move, and they are pursued by their former host. There is an accusation of stolen goods, and in response, a declaration that whosoever is found to be in possession of said objects, that person shall be punished. The parallels in literary structure, thematics, and even word choice are striking... Like mother, like son, the key difference of course being that Benjamin got caught and lived, while Rachel did not and died." (See his 2018 sermon "Hidden Goblets.")
Cosgrove goes on to argue that in setting Benjamin up with the silver goblet in his bag, Joseph was consciously drawing on this previous family story as a way of giving his brothers subtle clues to his identity.
The same story -- of Joseph having his silver goblet and money hidden inside Benjamin's bag -- also refers back to another closer antecedent: a previous moment in Joseph's own personal story when his brothers abandoned him, throwing him into a pit. Many commentators take note, but Torah scholar and translator Everett Fox articulates the pattern particularly crisply when he writes: “Only by recreating something of the original situation — the brothers are again in control of the life and death of a son of Rachel — can Joseph be sure that they have changed” (The Five Books of Moses, 202). Here, the purpose of the repetition is clear: Joseph's framing of Benjamin sets up a test, to determine whether his brothers are truly repentant for the wrong they have done to him.
If our story from Parashat Miketz is indeed a test, the brothers pass it: faced with a similar situation, they behave differently this time around. This week's Torah portion ends in medias res, on a cliff-hanger, but already it is clear from the end of this week's parasha that they plan to protect Benjamin. The final verses of the Torah portion, Gen. 44:13-17, read:
"He searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest; and the goblet turned up in Benjamin’s bag. At this they rent their clothes. Each reloaded his pack animal, and they returned to the city. When Judah and his brothers re-entered the house of Joseph, who was still there, they threw themselves on the ground before him. Joseph said to them, 'What is this deed that you have done? Do you not know that a man like me practices divination?' Judah replied, 'What can we say to my lord? How can we plead, how can we prove our innocence? God has uncovered the crime of your servants. Here we are, then, slaves of my lord, the rest of us as much as he in whose possession the goblet was found.' But he replied, 'Far be it from me to act thus! Only the one in whose possession the goblet was found shall be my slave; the rest of you go back in peace to your father.'"
Once the silver goblet is discovered in Benjamin's bag, the brothers act in unison this time around -- all rending their clothes (a sign of grief or distress), all returning to the city, asserting that they are all standing together with -- and in defense of -- Benjamin. It seems that they have successfully incorporated the lessons of their family's past events into their present.
Today, we can find countless scholarly articles and podcasts about resilience. So many of them make the point that one important key to resilience comes from reflecting on our past experiences, and asking questions such as: When have we experienced similar challenges in the past? In those situations, what has worked well for us / what have we done to make it through? What have we learned from our past experiences that might help us in the future?
These seem like great questions for us to mull over during the week of Chanukah! This holiday recalls a time when our Jewish ancestors lived through a regime that felt oppressive. They did not forget who they were or what they believed in. Even though they were small in number, by banding together, they found the power to stand up to the forces of the Syrian-Greek king Antiochus and the mighty Hellenized worldthat he represented. In their story, there is so much wisdom worth drawing on in our present moment in time. What might we learn from the Maccabees this year? And what lessons can we derive from our own past experiences of fighting for what we believe in, even against great odds?
Tonight, as we move into the Shabbat of Chanukah, the menorah should be lit first followed by the Shabbat candles, and then kiddush recited over a cup of wine. As I write, I'm imagining the image of a glowing menorah in the background, and a silver goblet / kiddush cup in the foreground, both reminding us of sacred stories from our history that emphasized the power of standing together. That certainly seems like a fitting image for the final Shabbat of this calendar year, and a powerful way to set ourselves up for 2025 to be a year of resilience.
Shabbat Shalom, Chag Urim Sameach (wishing us all a joyous Chanukah), and I look forward to seeing you in 2025!
Rabbi Rachel Nussbaum
