In Rav Avigdor Miller's dvar Torah Parshas Vayeishev-Chanukah 5 – The Chanukah Battle, we start off by receiving a fully detailed scene of what happened when Yosef HaTzaddik tried to escape the clutches of Potifar's wife.
Based on the Midrash, here's the illustrative description (page 4):
Based on the Midrash, here's the illustrative description (page 4):
So now this poor innocent woman is standing on the street shouting to everybody,
pointing at this dirty fellow who had tried to violate her...
...Potiphar rushed home from work and when she told him the story, all the details about what this wicked Ivri had tried to do, he became full of rage; he seized Yosef and began pummeling him.
And after a good beating, he grabbed Yosef by the ear and she grabbed him by the other ear, and they dragged him to the police station, to come before the judges to be sentenced...
...She and her husband are dragging Yosef through the streets by his ears.
Potiphar was an important official and his servant was well known so this disturbance certainly drew a crowd.
Women and children were staring from the windows; the men were rushing out of their houses to the streets to see what was going on...
And our sages tell us that as Yosef was being dragged through the streets, Potiphar
and his wife were heaping contumely upon his head.
She was shouting accusations, and Potiphar was gnashing his teeth.
“Look what we did for him. We elevated him. We made him the majordomo, the manager of our house, and that's how he tried to pay us back? By acting so lowly?!”
And the Egyptians who witnessed this spectacle, they were looking on and shaking their heads.
“Well, that’s what you get for taking him as a slave in your house. What else could you expect from a Hebrew? Only a dirty Ivri could be that wicked and do such an uncivilized thing.”
Ivri means a Hebrew but for the Egyptians it meant a hated nation, a corrupt people.
And they were kicking Yosef and spitting at him, insulting him as he was being dragged through the street.
At the same time he endured all this, Yosef HaTzaddik kept repeated the same verse (Tehillim 39:9): "The reproach of low people should not come upon me."
Potiphera's wife had pursued Yosef. The Egyptian people were steeped in immorality.
Yet now all the hypocrites came to fore with appalled, offended, pearl-clutching sensibilities.
As if!
Yet Rav Miller notes this as characteristic of Jew-haters.
Dirty people will call a Jew "dirty Jew."
Greedy, power-hungry people will accuse Jews of loving money over all else.
Cold-hearted, hostile people accuse Jews of being the same.
Rav Miller references a letter Pope Gregory wrote to King Louis of France, declaring that “Jews commit the most terrible crimes that are too horrid to speak about.”
Oho, Catholic Church!
Not sure exactly which King Louis & Pope Gregory corresponded here, but we all know about the Catholic Church.
Yeah, there are some decent and sincere people there. In modern times, some proved instrumental in saving Jews during the Holocaust AND returning Jewish children to the Jewish people.
But historically, the Church has shown itself as a bastion of corruption & immorality & bloodshed.
Talk about pot calling the kettle black.
As noted within the PDF, Protestants complained about Jews trying to kill Christians at every opportunity. That was not true of the Jews, but of the Christians themselves.
Nazis accused the Jews of trying to murder & corrupt society...while the biggest murderers & corrupters of society were the Nazis themselves.
The list goes on.
Here's an interesting note on page 6 from Rav Miller:
Potiphera's wife had pursued Yosef. The Egyptian people were steeped in immorality.
Yet now all the hypocrites came to fore with appalled, offended, pearl-clutching sensibilities.
As if!
Yet Rav Miller notes this as characteristic of Jew-haters.
Dirty people will call a Jew "dirty Jew."
Greedy, power-hungry people will accuse Jews of loving money over all else.
Cold-hearted, hostile people accuse Jews of being the same.
Rav Miller references a letter Pope Gregory wrote to King Louis of France, declaring that “Jews commit the most terrible crimes that are too horrid to speak about.”
Oho, Catholic Church!
Not sure exactly which King Louis & Pope Gregory corresponded here, but we all know about the Catholic Church.
Yeah, there are some decent and sincere people there. In modern times, some proved instrumental in saving Jews during the Holocaust AND returning Jewish children to the Jewish people.
But historically, the Church has shown itself as a bastion of corruption & immorality & bloodshed.
Talk about pot calling the kettle black.
As noted within the PDF, Protestants complained about Jews trying to kill Christians at every opportunity. That was not true of the Jews, but of the Christians themselves.
Nazis accused the Jews of trying to murder & corrupt society...while the biggest murderers & corrupters of society were the Nazis themselves.
The list goes on.
Here's an interesting note on page 6 from Rav Miller:
There is extensive literature on this subject only that you can't get it.
It's very hard to buy these books that speak about the crimes of the church.
There's a powerful organization that sees to it that this literature is not available and therefore to get books, real works that reveal the deeds of the papacy is almost impossible.
One historical work I wanted to see when I was writing one of my books but it was very hard to get my hands on.
There's one copy in the public library in the main branch and you can't take it out.
That's what an organization can accomplish.
Look Who's Talking
Rav Miller notes how a person can feel ashamed if someone speaks publicly in Yiddish—even as Italians & all sorts of other ethnic groups freely speak their language without a care.
Some Jews feel ashamed or uncomfortable with traditional Jewish garb. Even seeing another Jew in Chassidic garb makes them uncomfortable.
Yet scores of non-Jews go about wearing purposely ripped clothes or pants sagging to an extreme, or other extremely undignified or vulgar styles.
Some even feel proud of their ugly, demeaning style.
Many belief systems entered the heads of frum Jews.
At one time, Jews felt attracted to the Egyptian mentality. Later on, many internalized Greek & Roman philosophies—including their music, literature, and attitudes.
Today, many frum people seek to harmonize atheistic & hedonistic ideas with Torah Judaism.
Some do so purposefully while some do so automatically.
Rav Miller elucidates how evolution crept into the Orthodox Jewish community on pages 10-11.
On pages 11-12, Rav Miller mentions books of Jew-hatred from the time of the Greeks until an old edition of Roget's thesaurus.
On pages 13-14, the rav offers examples of Jewish self-hatred.
Some Jews feel ashamed or uncomfortable with traditional Jewish garb. Even seeing another Jew in Chassidic garb makes them uncomfortable.
Yet scores of non-Jews go about wearing purposely ripped clothes or pants sagging to an extreme, or other extremely undignified or vulgar styles.
Some even feel proud of their ugly, demeaning style.
Many belief systems entered the heads of frum Jews.
At one time, Jews felt attracted to the Egyptian mentality. Later on, many internalized Greek & Roman philosophies—including their music, literature, and attitudes.
Today, many frum people seek to harmonize atheistic & hedonistic ideas with Torah Judaism.
Some do so purposefully while some do so automatically.
Rav Miller elucidates how evolution crept into the Orthodox Jewish community on pages 10-11.
On pages 11-12, Rav Miller mentions books of Jew-hatred from the time of the Greeks until an old edition of Roget's thesaurus.
On pages 13-14, the rav offers examples of Jewish self-hatred.
Fighting the Jewish Inferiority Complex
On pages 14-19, Rav Miller describes the seeds of the Chanukah saga...and it all started out with a massive Jewish Inferiority Complex, which even infected knowledgeable Jews who should've known better.
In a nutshell, everything went into a slide all because of what Yosef HaTzaddik initially experienced at the hands of the despicable hypocritical Egyptians: cherpat naval.
In other words: being despised by lowlife hypocrites.
And here is the main lesson & goal of Chanukah for us today (page 18):
In a nutshell, everything went into a slide all because of what Yosef HaTzaddik initially experienced at the hands of the despicable hypocritical Egyptians: cherpat naval.
In other words: being despised by lowlife hypocrites.
And here is the main lesson & goal of Chanukah for us today (page 18):
On Chanukah we’re expected to grow great in combating the yetzer hora that caused the trouble of Chanukah.
It means we have to begin falling in love with the Am Yisroel – that’s what Chanukah is trying to teach us.
And if we don’t get busy studying the emes of the Torah, then sooner or later the yetzer hora will win out and we’re going to fall into that error of the ancient Misyavnim [Hellenists].
On pages 19-20, Rav Miller describes his experience with one way to do this: reading Shir HaShirim.
It's true that if you pay attention to the words & understand that it's Hashem speaking to you personally with the uncompromising love expressed within, it's an incredibly powerful experience.
Saying Shir HaShirim for 40 days is also a good segulah to meet your zivug. My husband & I got engaged on Day 39. (He was saying it too, but not sure which day he was up to at that point.)
A synopsis of the real Chanukah story appears on pages 20-25.
Throughout pages 25-31, Rav Miller emphasizes the importance of appreciating the goodness of the frum community.
He acknowledges we are not perfect.
And he goes into detail on those pages.
By the way, thinking of yourself with self-worth helps you act that way. People tend to act to expectation.
Having grown up in a mostly non-Jewish secular society with the Conservative & Reform movements, I always noticed that frum Jews are THE most self-critical.
No other group ever criticizes themselves like frum Jews.
This includes all the frum Jews who constantly say, "We're in denial about this-and-such! Our community refuse to acknowledge/deal with this-and-such!"
No other community does that as far as I've ever seen.
Even the activist frum Jews who ARE doing their best deal with [fill in the blank], still go around decrying themselves by saying "we frum Jews aren't doing enough!"
It may be true they're not doing enough & that so much more needs to be done.
Yes, it's true!
But it drives me crazy when these same frum self-critics refuse to see through the self-propaganda of the non-Jewish/secular society, which portrays itself as having its act together, but really doesn't.
(I think this results from working exclusively with the frum community while studying articles, books, lectures, and podcasts from the non-frum/non-Jewish. You see all the problems in the frum community while the non-Jewish/non-frum community paints a picture of what they want. And let's not pretend their material has nothing to do with making a bestselling book or course, right? Sure, they focus on problems in their society, but with a coat of paint over it. Also, nowadays, many non-Jews lack the values to understand what is a problem & what isn't, and what is a solution & what is not.)
Their supposed resources & solutions are not as effective as they like to claim.
I have personal experience in this with them.
Yes, all their organizations and so forth manage to help some people.
They aren't completely useless.
But the reason why Western society as a whole is plummeting in every area results from a lot of stuff being mostly talk with very little action, or simply ineffective.
They can advertise & promote as much as they want, just like a pig can advertise & promote its kosher sign of a cloven hoof as much as it wants.
But inside, its digestive system acts like that of every other treif beast.
It's true that if you pay attention to the words & understand that it's Hashem speaking to you personally with the uncompromising love expressed within, it's an incredibly powerful experience.
Saying Shir HaShirim for 40 days is also a good segulah to meet your zivug. My husband & I got engaged on Day 39. (He was saying it too, but not sure which day he was up to at that point.)
A synopsis of the real Chanukah story appears on pages 20-25.
Throughout pages 25-31, Rav Miller emphasizes the importance of appreciating the goodness of the frum community.
He acknowledges we are not perfect.
And he goes into detail on those pages.
By the way, thinking of yourself with self-worth helps you act that way. People tend to act to expectation.
Having grown up in a mostly non-Jewish secular society with the Conservative & Reform movements, I always noticed that frum Jews are THE most self-critical.
No other group ever criticizes themselves like frum Jews.
This includes all the frum Jews who constantly say, "We're in denial about this-and-such! Our community refuse to acknowledge/deal with this-and-such!"
No other community does that as far as I've ever seen.
Even the activist frum Jews who ARE doing their best deal with [fill in the blank], still go around decrying themselves by saying "we frum Jews aren't doing enough!"
It may be true they're not doing enough & that so much more needs to be done.
Yes, it's true!
But it drives me crazy when these same frum self-critics refuse to see through the self-propaganda of the non-Jewish/secular society, which portrays itself as having its act together, but really doesn't.
(I think this results from working exclusively with the frum community while studying articles, books, lectures, and podcasts from the non-frum/non-Jewish. You see all the problems in the frum community while the non-Jewish/non-frum community paints a picture of what they want. And let's not pretend their material has nothing to do with making a bestselling book or course, right? Sure, they focus on problems in their society, but with a coat of paint over it. Also, nowadays, many non-Jews lack the values to understand what is a problem & what isn't, and what is a solution & what is not.)
Their supposed resources & solutions are not as effective as they like to claim.
I have personal experience in this with them.
Yes, all their organizations and so forth manage to help some people.
They aren't completely useless.
But the reason why Western society as a whole is plummeting in every area results from a lot of stuff being mostly talk with very little action, or simply ineffective.
They can advertise & promote as much as they want, just like a pig can advertise & promote its kosher sign of a cloven hoof as much as it wants.
But inside, its digestive system acts like that of every other treif beast.
Credit for all material & quotes goes to Toras Avigdor.
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