Making sense of the sedra: Miketz

From Joseph’s Egypt to Sydney’s shores, the Jewish story endures through light, leadership and renewal.

This year, Chanukah arrives at a moment of deep pain even as we harbour and celebrate enduring hope. The recent antisemitic attack on the Jewish community in Sydney, Australia, has shaken Jews across the world. Once again, a Jewish community gathered in faith was fatally targeted by hatred. Yet again, we respond not only with grief but are also called to respond with resilience.

Chanukah is not merely a festival of remembrance; it is a declaration of renewal: the very word Chanukah means rededication. It indicates to us that Jewish survival has never depended on numbers alone, but on conviction, continuity and courage. A group of Judean priests resisted the mighty and disciplined oppressing and occupying army of Alexander the Great’s military heirs and won the struggle. The miracle of their victory was divine intervention wedded to human resolve and the refusal to surrender a hallowed identity in the face of oppression.

This message is echoed powerfully in the reading this Shabbat of Miketz. In this Torah portion, Pharaoh dreams of abundance and catastrophe. It is the biblical Joseph who transforms vision into action, preparing a nation to survive crisis. Such vision is the hallmark of true leadership. Joseph cared for an entire nation in stocking their storehouses ahead of an oncoming famine. Joseph dedicated his life to Egypt – the same country and society that purchased Joseph as a slave, the same nation that saw him off to prison for a sinful offence he did not commit.

Throughout Hebrew history, from Egyptian enslavement to the Maccabean revolt, Jewish history has featured resistance to planned extinction. Today, the Jewish people have face renewed and repeated assaults yet respond with visibility and strength. The one major difference for Jews nowadays is that in 2000 years of enduring persecutions, there is a country called Israel that can stand in defence of all its citizens against global terror.

Chanukah teaches that light does not negotiate with darkness — it dispels it. One flame is enough to begin. Billions live in ignorance of what Jews and Torah stand for. Chanukah as a festival of light demands that we address ignorance; wilful and accidental ignorance of history, alike; that we educate on the Inquisition and the Holocaust; that we train advocates in the non-Jewish world to go out and increase knowledge and understanding – the first step towards a more peaceful world. As we light the menorah this year, may we renew our courage, unity, and faith. May the memory of those whose lives were cruelly taken be a blessing, and may their light never be extinguished through our own acts of resilience through Jewish continuity and persistence in our culture and traditions.

As the Haggadah declares: “In every generation they rise up to destroy us, but the Almighty will deliver us yet from their cruel grasp.”

Let us remember the dead and injured with each extra candle we light this week of Chanukah.

Rabbi Ariel Abel is a solicitor and army chaplain