Vayigash -- 5776

It would be funny if it weren’t heart-breaking.

Judah, the ringleader of Jacob’s villainous sons, recounts his family’s story to the grand Vizier of Egypt.  He bemoans his long-lost brother Joseph who “was torn by a beast!  And I have not seen him since” (Genesis 44:28).  Unbeknownst to him, Judah is in fact speaking to that brother, unrecognizable thanks to his Egyptian finery and the passage of time.  Judah cannot see what’s right before his eyes.

So it is with Jacob, too.  Although “the famine in the land was severe” (Genesis 43:1) and Jacob feared starvation, he instructed his sons to “take some of the choice products of the land in [their] baggage, and carry them down as a gift for the man – some balm and some honey, gum, ladanum, pistachio nuts, and almonds” (34:11).  When they move to Egypt, the Torah recounts, “they took along their livestock and the wealth that they had amassed in the land of Canaan” (Genesis 46:6).  Was Jacob’s clan prosperous or was it starving?  Perhaps they were wealthy but believed themselves poor.

So it is with many of us.  We live in a bountiful world and a nation of opportunity.  But we focus so much on what we don’t have that we can’t see what we do.

This is especially true during the Holiday Season.  These days more than ever, the media pound us into believing we need what they want to sell us.  It’s hard to feel sufficient with so much energy focused on making us feel deficient.

So let us return to the message of Hanukkah, even though the Festival is past.  Recall the small jug of oil that was sufficient to meet all the needs.  Remember the single match that lights candle after candle.  We are enough – no, we are grand – just as we are.