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Mikeitz/Chanuka

Dedicated לזכר נשמות Eli Schonbrun and Dani King  ע“ה

he posuk says, : but he [Yosef] acted like a stranger toward them [his brothers], and spokeויתנכר אליהם וידבר אתם קשות

them harshly. The בית יוסף asks; how is it that a tzadik like Yosef wouldn't have forgiven them right away? Why would h

have brought his father down, & make him suffer longer than he had to? Why put them through this whole charade? W

e just taking revenge? And he answers that all his actions were , in order for them to be forgiven for selling him. Whyלשם שמים

at necessary? Why couldn't he just forgive them without putting them through all the heartache?

he אוצרות התורה asks why the חשמונאים even had to go fight at all; being that it was all a miracle anyway. As Rashi says, there

ere 13 maccabes against 100's of thousands of Greek warriors. It was all a , so why did they even have to bother going outנס

ght?

here's a story told about the , that once in the dead of night he summoned the community leader to come to him withחתם סופר

elay, & on the way pick up two members of the board. When they arrived, he said to them, it has become known to me that th

uke has signed a decree that will spell out many calamities for the Jewish people. However, the decree is still on the dukes’s d

if he doesn't change his mind, he will send it out tomorrow. You need to go to his home now & get him to change his mind.o they headed out to go to the castle. As they came closer, they saw it was on the other side of the river, & at that late hour th

ere no boats going across. Finally, they found a fisherman sleeping in his boat & woke him up. He then begrudgingly took the

cross the river in a rickety, fishy, foul smelling boat. And with every turn they got soaked with the foul waters. As they got close

e castle, the guards started yelling, what are you doing here in the middle of the night? Leave now.

he commotion woke up the duke, & he asked what's going on here? The guard said three Jews are here. Once he was alread

e duke said to bring them in. They came in from the boat all wet & smelling like fish. He sat them down & told his butler to brin

em a hot drink. As the duke is asking them why they are here, he says drink your coffee why aren't you drinking?

he community leader, shaking with fright, says our rabbis' forbade us to drink milk that was not milked in front of a Jew. There

othing wrong with it, we just can't drink it. Asks the duke what kind of law is that? They answer that it’s to insure that its milk f

kosher animal & not from camel or donkey. The duke, incensed, says for this farfetched reason you won't drink my milk? Who

ven drinks camel milk anyway? Still they wouldn't drink it. The duke wouldn't drop the matter; he called in his butler to ask him

here the milk came from. He sheepishly answered that the duke’s goat where they normally got milk was sick so they couldn't

ilk from her, so they got from the neighbor. Where does the neighbor get milk from, asked the duke. The butler answered, he

camel that he gets his milk from...His answer shocked both the Jewish leaders & the duke, who was then in awe of the wisdo

e sages. He then asked why they were there, & they told him that their rabbi sent them to him so that he would abolish the

ecree. He promptly tore up the decree as he was so in awe of the sages of the Jewish people.

he leaders came back to the חתם סופר and told him what had transpired. However they told him that in actuality, they were sav

rough a miracle, for by natural means, coming to the duke in the middle of the night smelling like fish & not drinking what was

fered to them wouldn't normally get the desired result. It was really the חתם סופר 's prayers & beseeching 'ה that saved them.

other having them risk their life on a dangerous undertaking for no reason when it was his prayers that abolished the decree?

nswered that without their self sacrifice, his tefil los would be worthless. It was their risking their life that brought the tefil los up

at they were able to work.

o too by the ה' , it was the fact that they risked their lives to go fight thatחשמונאים went to battle for them. Once they showed thllingness to go fight for 'ה against all odds, 'ה fought for them. Maybe this is why Yosef couldn't just forgive the brothers, in ord

r them to be forgiven. They had to be prepared to risk their lives to get him back no matter how unrealistic it seemed, & show

ey really regretted selling him. Only then would they be forgiven. We could learn from here that even when a task seems

surmountable, all we have to do is sacrifice a little to give it our best shot & then 'ה will take it from there, making sure we

ucceed!

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