Miketz. Stockpile Your Blessings!

Pharaoh’s Dreams are the stuff of nightmares: Fat healthy cows are swallowed by ghoulish, sickly cows; Nutritious ears of wheat are consumed by sick, withered, blight ridden grain. No wonder that Pharaoh awakes frightened and disturbed.

We all know the truth – bad times will arrive, sooner or later, in greater or lesser measure.

“We all know the truth – bad times will arrive, sooner or later, in greater or lesser measure. The greeting that is sometimes extended to mourners, “שלא תדעו עוד צער” - “May you know no sorrow!” is an empty phrase; we will all know pain and sorrow! There is no escape from that.

Joseph’s advice to the King of Egypt is not merely a specific mode of resolving the famine crisis that struck the Middle East in ancient times, but rather, a worthy approach to grapple with any tragedy that may befall us, whenever it should happen – to try to stockpile the abundance and the plenty. To preserve and store the good for the days in which the bad will come. To charge the batteries of blessing and to fill the storehouses of joy.”

(Rabbi Ilay Ofran – Rav of Kibbutz Yavne , Clinical Psychologist www.929.org.il/pack/פרשת-מקץ/post/1210)

If I may add one dimension to this idea, I would say that Joseph�