Parashah of the week: Mikketz

“When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognised them, but he acted like a stranger toward them” Genesis 42:7

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V JACOB, IN time of famine and seeing that there is food available from Egypt, turns to his sons and asks “Lammah titra’u”? The Hebrew verb form is what is known as a hitpa’el or reflexive. So, Lammah titra’u, “Why are you looking at yourselves?” In other words, “Don’t just stand there; do something!”

Jacob sends ten of them to Egypt, where (unknown to them) their long-lost, presumed-dead brother Joseph is in fact the important vizier in charge of handing out foreign aid rations.

Once they arrive, our verse offers a hitpa’el-connoisseur’s delight: a “hitpa’el of pretence”. These look just like any other hitpa’el, but rather than “doing something to oneself” mean more “making oneself out to be something one is not”. So mityahadim at the end of the book of Esther would mean not that the people “made themselves Jewish” (converted) but rather, as a hitpa’el of pretence, “pretended to be Jewish”.

The hitpa’el of pretence in our verse is vayitnakker. Joseph, seeing his brothers for the first time in 20 years, immediately recognises them. Vayitnakker – not “he made himself a stranger” but “pretended to be a stranger”, hiding his true identity from his brothers.

But it’s this hitpa’el of pretence that makes me wonder if the ordinary hitpa’el and the hitpa’el of pretence are actually so different. Remember that they look and sound the same; it’s just their meaning that grammarians suggest might be different.

Perhaps the Hebrew language is on to a deeper truth here. Is there such a difference between Joseph making himself out to be a stranger and actually making himself a stranger? Is there always a difference between what we pretend to be, how we portray ourselves and what we become? Indeed, the Cambridge Dictionary’s word of the year is “manifesting” — the idea that you can think your dreams into reality.

It is also the message of the festival of Chanukah: that a small group of Maccabees who thought of themselves as strong enough to beat the mighty Greek army, against all the odds, were able to do just that, recapturing and rededicating the Temple.

I’m not suggesting that that’s all there is to it. As King Charles once complained, “People think they can all be pop stars, high court judges, brilliant TV personalities or infinitely more competent heads of state without ever putting in the necessary work or having natural ability.”

But a certain amount of self-belief is always a good start, just as a lack of it can be an obstacle to ever getting on the road to success.

Rabbi Paul Freedman