“The wine steward spoke to Pharaoh, saying, “My sins I recall today.”” (Beraishis 41:9)
With Pharaoh’s dream wreaking havoc in the royal court, and none of the soothsayers or interpreters able to calm him, the wine steward finally steps up. He makes a declaration before Pharaoh: “I regret having to recall my sins, but when Pharaoh got angry at his servants and put us in jail, there was an Ivri slave boy who interpreted our dreams.”
There are a number of unusual things in this verse. First of all, the use of the word “Vayedaber,” he spoke, which is harsher than the word “Vayomer,” he said. Then the word ‘es’ Paroh, meaning “with” instead of the word ‘el’ meaning “to” Pharoah.
And which sins was he recalling? All he said was that Pharaoh got mad, which at this point is almost insulting and a sin in its own right. Some explain the sin he referred to was his failure to step forward immediately, when Pharaoh was in pain, and inform him about Yosef and his ability to interpret dreams.
We’d like to offer an approach based on a Rashi in last week’s parsha, Parshas Vayeishev. There, the Masoretic text shows two dots over the letters aleph and taf, making up the word ‘es,’ when the brothers went to pasture the flocks. Rashi says the dots indicate their main goal was not for the benefit of the sheep, but to indulge themselves.
Taking a cue from this, we can explain the use of the word ‘es’ here (instead of ‘el’) to indicate that the wine steward was not as interested in easing Pharaoh’s mind, as in using this as an opportunity to get ahead in his career. In this light, the rest of it falls into place.
When he spoke up, it was with authority so Pharaoh would heed his words. Couched in false humility, that the recollection of his past slights against Pharaoh caused him personal mortification and discomfort to Pharaoh, along with the intimation that he was forced to do this unthinkable act out of concern for Pharaoh’s present pain, the wine steward speaks.
He downplays Yosef’s stature so it seems like this is a last-ditch effort to help the Egyptian monarch, while also whitewashing his own failure to repay kindness with kindness by not remembering Yosef when he himself was freed. He even recalls Pharoah’s seemingly baseless anger in a way that sounds genuine but is carefully crafted to make Pharaoh regret having been so hasty in how he treated this clearly loyal servant. For us looking at this piece of theater with the clue from the word ‘es,’ it’s almost laughably transparent.
We now see the self-centeredness of the butler and recognize how crude and base this behavior was. But this is not how a Jew acts. The Macabees fought a war they couldn’t win for a cause they couldn’t ignore. They were truly concerned with the “honor of the King,” Hashem, and could not remain silent. To paraphrase our mother Leah, “See the difference between my children and the children of other nations.” They focus on themselves, while we focus on our King.
Thomas Mann was a German writer, known for his novels, essays, short stories, and social commentary. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1929. One day, another writer met him and began fawning over him.
“Oh!” exclaimed the fellow author. “Herr Mann! Compared to your work, my work is nothing. It is mere scratching pen on paper. Compared to your genius I am but a mere hack!” Mann smiled and humbly nodded his appreciation.
When the person walked away, Mann turned to a companion and commented, “He shouldn’t make himself so small... he’s not that big.”
©2025 – J. Gewirtz
