Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you’ll get neither.
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“They took him and they cast him into the pit; and the pit was empty, it had no water in it.” (Beraishis 37:24)
Rashi, quotes the Midrash, that though there was no water in it (as throwing Yosef into a pit of water would have been an act of murder) it did have snakes and scorpions in it. But if they were not trying to actively murder him, why would they throw him into a pit with these venomous creatures?
The simple answer is that though they were able to tell the pit had no water in it, perhaps by dropping a stone and listening for a splash, they could not see the bottom of the pit and therefore did not know the snakes and scorpions were in it. This is supported by the Gemara in Shabbos (22a).
There, R’ Noson bar Manyumi in the name of R’ Tanchum offers two expositions. The first is that a Chanuka lamp which is place higher than 20 cubits from the ground, is invalid, and the eye does not generally see thing so high up. The second is what we have just quoted, that the pit into which Yosef was thrown did not have water but did have snakes.
The correlation between the two is that the pit would have been at least 20 cubits deep, and then, again, the eye wouldn’t be able to see what was down there. Just as too high is unseen, so is too low. What is especially interesting, though, is that this verse gives us a hint in the Torah to the holiday of Chanuka, and the miracles upon which it was established would not take place for more than 1500 years!
But this is not the only hint to Chanuka in the Torah. There are numerous of them, with several in the parshios around Chanuka time. The 25th word in the Torah is ‘ohr,’ light, which hints to the light of Chanuka on the 25th of Kislev. When the Jews traveled forty-two journeys in the Wilderness, the 25th encampment was a place called ‘Chashmona,’ and the Maccabis were called ‘Chashmona’im,’ the Hasmoneans.
There are more allusions, but let us ask ourselves why the Torah offers so many hints to Chanuka, while allusions to Purim are fewer and more obscure?
Chanuka was a time when the world sought to dim our eyes and our souls by getting us to reject Hashem and His Torah. They wanted us to see ourselves as just another race of human animals, and that’s what Yehuda and his brothers were railing against. They pushed for purity and were rewarded with the miraculous oil which burned for eight nights, long enough to make more pure oil.
The Torah hints to the message that if we want to purify ourselves and establish a deep connection and dedication to Hashem, He will work wonders to enable us to do so. And that is something worth mentioning over and over again.
The Bluzhover Rebbe’s Miracle
The Bluzhover Rebbe z”l retold the miraculous story of a terrible game the Nazis w‰MY enjoyed. They forced the Jewish concentration camp inmates to dig a pit twenty feet across. They then had to jump to the other side. If any of them made it, they could live for another day. The ones that fell into the pit were shot and buried there.
Many took running jumps; a futile effort. The Bluzhover Rebbe walked up to the edge of the pit with a few of his Chasidim, closed his eyes and proclaimed, “We are jumping!” When he opened his eyes, he found himself on the other side of the pit. Next to him, he saw one of his closest Chasidim.
Amazed, the Rebbe said to him, “I know how I made it across. I was holding onto the kapoteh (cloak) of my saintly father and grandfathers. Their holy merit carried me. But how did you make it across?”
The disciple replied with simple faith – “Rebbe, I held on to YOUR kapoteh!”
©2024 – J. Gewirtz
