Shabbos Parashas Mikeitz-Chanukah - 5775

Shabbos Parashas Mikeitz-Chanukah - 5775 Rabbi Hal Miller

So Pharaoh sent and summoned Yosef, and they rushed him from the pit.

He shaved and changed his clothes, and he came to Pharaoh. [Bereishis 41:14]

Yosef was imprisoned. He was a convicted criminal. Even if he could get out of that, he was still a slave. The prospects were not good, and nothing positive was on the horizon. Was he wrong to ask the butler for help, or should he have just relied on a miracle occurring?

The Chashmonai were only a handful in number. Even after recruiting their army of Maccabees, they were only a handful in number. The Assyrian-Greeks who occupied Yerushalayim were overwhelming in strength. The prospects were not good and nothing positive was on the horizon. Were the Maccabees right to attack, blatantly relying on a miracle?

Hishtadlus versus emunah: where is the line drawn? Or is there even a line?

Was it a miracle that Yosef was freed from prison, or did he free himself?

Yosef interpreted the dreams of his two cellmates, the baker and the butler. When he predicted the release of the butler, he asked for help in gaining his own freedom.

Most of the commentators say that this was a sin on Yosef's part, that he should have known that G-d was about to free him without his asking the butler to get involved. But what about 'hishtadlus'? Rav Moshe Feinstein asks, "Certainly he had a right and even an obligation to make normal efforts to help free himself, while at the same time relying on Hashem to ensure that his efforts succeeded. What did Yosef do wrong in taking the obvious step of asking the butler to intercede with Pharaoh on his behalf?" He answers that Yosef was a special case, being a true tzaddik. There are multiple levels of emunah, faith, and at each level the person has a different responsibility for the balance between hishtadlus and emunah.

In Tehillim [40:5] we read, "Fortunate is the man who has placed his reliance upon Hashem and has not turned to the arrogant ones." We are all required to do this, but what exactly does that mean in each individual case? Rabbi Baruch HaLevi Epstein (the Torah Temimah) says, "There is a kind of man for whom all that is needed is trust in Hashem, but at the same time he carries out a natural action to help himself. But there is a higher level than that, and that is one where 'Hashem is his trust.' Such a person not only puts his faith in Hashem, but Hashem is his only faith. That was what Hashem demanded of Yosef."

Rabbeinu Bechaye tells us that the two years additional imprisonment for Yosef was due to his use of two expressions asking the butler for help. Some say that had

Yosef only asked once, he would have had only one year additional. He sees the flaw in Yosef's emunah as being his trust was placed exclusively in the butler to do something for him, rather than in G-d doing by whatever means He saw fit. Rav Chaim Soloveitchik says that had Yosef asked once, he would have received no punishment at all, as that would have been seen as hishtadlus. Asking twice not only used a second, non-emunah-based request, but changed the foundation of the first request from an emunah-based hishtadlus into a non-emunah-based request, thus he got two years.

On the other hand, the Chashmonai believed that G-d was about to free the Jews and

recover the Temple. They believed that their choice of what to do and how to do it had little impact on that result, thus they had only to do something in the realm of the

'natural', and G-d would fill in from there. To do nothing would have been just as wrong as to do something in the belief that the result was in human hands. To do something in the belief that all is in human hands merits punishment. Belief and action must be combined, in whatever combination makes sense for each person.