Winter Resources from Matir Asurim

Kislev => Tevet => Sh’vat

Kislev Seasonal Thoughts from Matir Asurim

A Certain Place / Joseph and Power

Tevet Divrei Matir Asurim 5784 Excerpts

Narrowest Point: Midnight Special / Joseph & Psalm 30 / The Pit / Family, Power and Relationship

Looking Ahead: Tu B’shvat Resources

A Tu B'Shvat Mailing for Jews Across and Beyond Bars, Matir Asurim 5783/2023 cover image shows two open hands holding an archway of tree-related fruits
Abundance Is Yours, AmyB@twinprojects108

Download (PDF)

Image description: A Tu B’Shvat Mailing for Jews Across and Beyond Bars, Matir Asurim 5783/2023 cover image shows two open hands holding an archway of tree-related fruits. Artwork: Abundance Is Yours, AmyB@twinprojects108

Divrei Matir Asurim Tevet 5784 Excerpts

The Narrowest Point of Light

by Adam Gottlieb

Every year, as we approach the winter solstice in the Northern hemisphere, we read in the weekly Torah portion about Joseph’s journey through darkness and oppression as he spends years incarcerated in the dungeon of Pharaoh. During this time when his faith, patience, and will to live are being tested, Joseph is ultimately saved by his strong connection to the language and symbolism of the dreaming realm. There is much wisdom to be gleaned here from contemplating connections between the symbolism in the story and the seasonal passages in which we read it. 

The winter solstice is the longest night of the year, the point at which the darkness of night is at its widest and the light of day is at its narrowest as we experience the physical rhythms of the earth’s orbit around the sun. It is, in a sense, the “midnight of the year.” Jewish tradition brings our attention even deeper into the interplay of light and darkness by fixing our Festival of Lights — Chanukah — to the new moon that falls closest to the winter solstice, calling us to bring more and more light into the world as the darkness grows deeper and deeper. 

Again and again, the themes that we see playing out in the lives of individuals in the book of Genesis set patterns that we see reflected and repeated in the collective life of the people of Israel during the book of Exodus. In the case of Joseph, we witness one man’s descent into Mitzrayim, literally “the narrow place” (as Egypt is referred to in the Hebrew Bible): We witness his passage through the depths of suffering during his time spent in “the pit,” and then his ultimate redemption and rebirth into freedom. A freedom made possible by his understanding of the language of dreams, which is the language of imagination and possibility in the face of limiting situations.

For Joseph as an individual, as for the Hebrew people as a whole, passage through the narrowest, darkest, and most limiting experience of oppression ultimately creates the conditions for a new, transformed life to emerge. This is built on the foundation of a deep understanding of life’s true value and meaning. We see in Nature how darkness is the place from which life emerges in myriad forms:

  • seeds sprouting,
  • infants forming,
  • life itself originating in the depths of the waters.

Our bodies are built to sleep in the dark time of night, and therein to find our dreams, which reveal to us new possibilities and ways of seeing the world. If we utilize the power of darkness, we can face our traumas and transmute our suffering into resilience, our confusion into clarity, and our fears into courage. We can emerge renewed, and our sense of freedom can become a beacon to others.

As the voices of those who escaped slavery traveling by night under the protection of darkness remind us in the old Black American spiritual:

When the sun comes back, and the first quail calls
Follow the drinkin’ gourd
For the old man is waiting, just to carry you to freedom
Follow the drinkin’ gourd

* * *

headlight on dark train tracks

Image description: headlight on dark train tracks, adapted from photo by Jaime Perez, Pixabay

Another “beacon” image is found in the song, “The Midnight Special.” A train would pass by late at night and and shine a light through the windows of the prison:

Let the Midnight Special
shine its light on me
let the Midnight Special
shine its ever loving light on me

NOTE: Lyrics for this prison song were first printed in 1905. Guitarist, singer, and song-writer Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter (1888-1949) learned and performed it while in prison in the US South and was the first to record the song in the 1930s. There are many versions, but the chorus remains the same.

I think we can think of this as a winter solstice song. I’ve written my own verses and lyrics to the song as a kind of meditation on the power of even the narrowest point of light.

“Midnight Special” (Gottlieb/Chicago version)

When you wake up in the morning,
where does your mind go first?
Do you remember what you’re dreaming? Do you bless or curse?
And in the middle of the night then,
do you ever hear a train?
Well if you listen at the window,
you’ll hear the whistle blow again

Let the Midnight Special
Shine its light on me
let the Midnight Special
shine its ever loving light on me

We drink coffee when we’re working
We drink tea to chill out
Reggae music keeps us floating
The blues keep us on the ground
That’s how we weather through Chicago,
The reason we survive at all
You get to blooming in the springtime
And digging deeper in the fall
Let the Midnight Special
Shine its light on me
let the Midnight Special
shine its ever loving light on me

Do you remember being children
and looking up into the sky
never doubting or forgetting
what it means to be alive
if even part of you is still there,
if any part of you survived
well, let the music come revive you
we’ll get our freedom by and by

Let the Midnight Special
Shine its light on me
let the Midnight Special
shine its ever loving light on me

May we embrace the power of darkness and narrowness to sharpen our focus on our innermost dreams, and allow our seasons of oppression to transform us so that our visions of freedom may burn ever more brightly when our hour of new possibilities arrives.

Dvar Torah and song lyrics licensed under Creative Commons: CC BY-SA

(attribute to author — Adam Gottlieb — and share with same license)

Bio Note (from 2023): I’m Adam Gottlieb, musician, poet, and teaching-artist from Chicago. In my work I focus on collective liberation as a universal sacred tradition. I’ve organized with a wide range of grassroots groups around issues such as housing justice, anti-gentrification, Indigenous sovereignty, public education, and police/prison abolition. I lead a fusion band, Adam Gottlieb & OneLove, and work as a cantorial artist for Tzedek Chicago, an international Jewish congregation based on core values of justice, equity and solidarity. In the Western Zodiac my birthday falls almost exactly on the cusp of Libra and Scorpio, and in the Chinese Zodiac I was born in the year of the snake. I am the proud dog-parent of a sixteen year old black pug named Nibby. 

Joseph and Psalm 30

Psalm 30 is full of ups and downs, including the famous line, “weeping comes at night, but joy comes in the morning. Joseph’s story, too, is full of ups and downs — favored child, then in a pit and sold into servitude; successful in the palace, then in prison and forgotten; up again, as second only to pharaoh; finally, begging his brothers to make sure his bones are “brought up” from Mitzrayim after he dies. The Joseph story and Psalm 30 also share language:

Psalm 30

A Psalm; a Song at the Dedication of the House; of David.
2) I will extol You, YHVH, for You have raised me up, and not let my enemies rejoice over me.
3) YHVH, my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.
4) YHVH, You brought me up from Sheol, preserved me from going down to the pit [bor]
5) O you faithful of YHVH, sing to God, praise God’s holy name
6) For God is angry but a moment, and when God is pleased there is life.
One may lie down weeping at nightfall; but at dawn there are shouts of joy.
7) When I was untroubled, I thought, “I shall never be shaken,”
8) for You, YHVH, when You were pleased, made [me] firm as a mighty mountain.
When You hid Your face, I was terrified [nivhal]
9) I called to You, YHVH, to my Sovereign I made appeal [etchanan]
10) “What is to be gained from my death [mah betzah b’dami] from my descent into the Pit?
Can dust praise You? Can it declare Your faithfulness?
11) Hear, YHVH and have mercy on me; YHVH, be my help!”
12) You turned my lament into dancing,
You undid my sackcloth [pitachta saki] and girded me with joy,
13) that [my] whole being might sing hymns to You endlessly;
YHVH, my God, I will praise You forever.
— translation adapted from Jewish Publication Society

Verse 4 — the pit, bor— echoes Gen 37: 23-24:

(23) When Joseph came up to his brothers, they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the ornamented tunic that he was wearing, (24) and took him and cast him into the pit [ha-bor]. The pit was empty; there was no water in it.

Verse 8 — terror, nivhal— echoes Gen 45:3

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumbfounded were they [nivhalu] on account of him.

Verse 9 — appealed, etchanan— echoes Gen 42:21

They said to one another, “Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anguish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded [v’hitchannu] with us. That is why this distress has come upon us.”

Verse 10 — what is gained from my death (literally: blood), mah betzah b’dami — echoes Gen 37:26

Then Judah said to his brothers, “What do we gain [mah betzah] by killing our brother and covering up his blood [damo]?

Verse 12 — undid my sackcloth, pitachta saki— echoes Gen 42:27

As one of them was opening his sack [va-yiftach ha-echad et-sako] to give feed to his ass at the night encampment, he saw his money right there at the mouth of his bag.

Joseph and Zelda Reread the Pit

As the Book of Genesis closes, Jacob dies and the brothers return to Canaan to bury their father (Gen 50:13). An ancient midrash adds that, on the journey, Joseph notices, by the side of the road, the pit where his brothers threw him decades before.

Watching Joseph look into the pit, the brothers worry. They do not believe Joseph has forgiven their past deeds and continue to fear he will take revenge. While the brothers are fretting, though, Joseph’s thoughts are quite different.

Joseph recognizes the pit as the source of all that happened to him later: his servitude and incarceration in Mitzrayim, eventual rise to power, marriage and children. Most importantly to the Genesis story, he believes that his experience, beginning with this pit, was God’s way of helping the whole family when famine strikes their homeland. Joseph recites a blessing: “Blessed is The One Who performed a miracle for me in this place.” (Midrash Tanchuma, Vayechi 17)

The teacher Avivah Zornberg writes:

[Joseph] has gone to the trouble of returning to that place of his terror in order to bring closure to the old narrative. He makes the blessing for a personal miracle, claiming the site of his trauma as the site of redemption. By this act, he rereads the pit as a space of rebirth, transforming pain into hope. The grave has become a womb.
— The Murmuring Deep, p.319

What Zornberg describes is powerful and hopeful.And, maybe this kind of re-reading of our past stories is needed for reconciliation.However, this seems to be asking a lot of Joseph,who was once a victim of his brothers’ mean schemes.

The years seem to have given Joseph a different perspective…. one that is not focused on blame. The brothers do not seem to share this view, though: They are still feeling guilty and still worried that Joseph, who now has much more power than they do, will retaliate.

….Of course, Genesis is not a soap opera or a novel. And it’s not a psychology or a self-help book. But it can be helpful to consider these stories, along with commentary from over the centuries, to see what might reflect on our own stories…. and vice versa….

The Israeli poet known as Zelda(1914-1984)also shared thoughts about the pit and the past:

…The past is not a piece of
jewelry sealed in a crystal box
nor is it a snake preserved
in a bottle of formaldehyde—
The past trembles within the present

when the present falls
into a pit the past goes
with it —
when the past looks
toward heaven all of life
is upraised, even the distant past.


– Zelda, from “In That Strange Night”

“When the present falls into a pit, the past goes with it.” A little like Psalm 30’s reflection on struggles, past and present.

NOTE: The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious. Penguin/Random House, 2011.

Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg is a contemporary scholar who teaches and writes about Torah. She often includes literary and psychological insights. Zornberg was born in Scotland and has lived in Jerusalem since 1980.

NOTE: Zelda Schneersohn Mishkovsky (1914-1984) was born in Russia and moved to pre-State Palestine as a child. This poem, translated by Edward Feld, appears in the Selichot [forgiveness] prayers of Machzor Lev Shalem, high holiday prayerbook of the Conservative movement. (NY: Rabbinical Assembly, 2010).

Joseph, Power, and Relationship

Joseph’s Power

As already discussed, Joseph experiences lots of ups and downs: personally, with his family of origin, and in his engagements with Mitzrayim, biblical Egypt: arriving as property and ending as a high-ranking, powerful official.

His power has a huge impact on his own family and the nation they eventually become. Through his service to Pharaoh, Joseph reunites with his brothers and their families. He arranges for the whole clan to settle in Mitzrayim during a famine; the family is invited to tend the crown’s cattle, and they thrive becoming a sort of not-quite-nation.

At the end of Genesis, the brothers are described as first sojourning, then settling, and finally, acquiring land — or, perhaps, being grabbed by the land. The rest of the Mitzrayim-ites also experience a kind of progression with regard to the land: at first they sell their cattle to Pharaoh due to the famine; then their land; finally, they offer themselves as avadim [serfs] in exchange for basic supplies (Gen 47:19).

In this way, Joseph engineers an enormous national economic shift. Commentaries over the centuries have seen this as a brilliant strategy for managing the crisis and/or a huge land- and resource-grab for the crown.

Joseph’s ups and downs are essential to the literary and religious themes of the story. There is one constant, however, that cannot be overlooked: Pharaoh is never down. His power remains unchanged.

Joseph’s Relationships

Joseph lived decades in Mitzrayim separated fromhis birth family. This is one reason midrash tells us that Joseph needed “the Torah of Exile,” explored a bit in Kislev Divrei Matir Asurim. Such a need is not mentioned for his brothers, perhaps because they arrive together, with their entire households.

We don’t learn many details about his brothers’ lives or what kind of relationships they had with Mitzrayim culture and people.Were they living completely separate lives? Or were they neighbors, maybe even family?

We do know Joseph’s career, how he dressed, what he ate, and a little about his wife — all Mitzrayim-ite. When Jacob dies, Joseph arranges embalming, a Mitzrayim-ite practice, and 40 days of mourning in the land where the clan had settled.

But Joseph also arranges for burial “back home” in Canaan. In essence, Joseph organizes an interfaith, intercultural memorials for Jacob. But this hint is one of the few clues as to how Jacob’s extended family and the existing culture interacted.

After Joseph

At the beginning of the Book of Exodus, we are told that there were two roads to Mitzrayim:

Now these are the names of the sons of Yisrael, who came into Mitzrayim with Jacob, every man his household: Reuben, Simeon, Levi, and Judah; Issachar, Zebulun, and Benjamin; Dan and Naphtali, Gad and Asher…And Joseph was in Mitzrayim already. — Exodus 1:1-5

Of course, Mitzrayim-itesmust have been already in the land for many generations. But we don’t learn much about them.

We don’t learn much about the brothers, either, in Genesis or here. Even Judah — whose name will become one name for the nation — only gets a main role in one chapter (Gen 38). Jacob’s death speech (Gen 49) mentions each brother, but it’s set in the story of Joseph’s leadership.

And, at the start of Exodus, the focus is still on Joseph: “And Joseph died, and all his kindred, and all that generation” (Ex 1:6). Immediately afterward, the Yisrael-ites increase and fill the land (Ex 1:7), with Yisrael-ite women birthing so quickly there is no time for the midwives to attend (Ex 1:19). One generation dies — or is it all about Joseph, the only one named in the verse? — and the Yisrael-ites are suddenly nameless, almost inhuman: a fertile pack spreading out across the land.

Next: “A new king arose who didn’t know Joseph” (Ex 1:8). Immediately after that, Pharaoh schemes to oppress the Yisrael-ites (Ex 1:9ff), and the brutal story of enslavement begins.

Fourteen chapters of Genesis tell about Joseph’s work in and for the government, about his access to power and how that protected his family. Before the tenth verse of Exodus, all that is gone… and worse, as the descendants of Joseph’s family are suddenly enemies of the state to be feared.

What can this story tell us about power? About how personal relationships relate, or don’t, to cross-cultural understanding?

What might we learn about different “roads” to one place and how those roads influence the experience there?

As we leave Genesis and move into Exodus, may we find new ways forward through our personal stories and the wider Torah tale.

Seasonal Thoughts

A Certain Place

Jacob is on the run. He arrives at ha–makom, “a certain place” or “the place.” Readers might recognize “The Place” as one of God’s names and notice it appearing five times in this short story. Jacob doesn’t know that, though. He only knows that he has just blown apart his family of origin and now depends on strangers among his mother’s people. And that the sun is setting. He stops, lays his head on a stone, and dreams a God-encounter.*

Awakening, Jacob says: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than a God-house, and that is the gate of heaven” (Gen 28:17).

Now Jacob recognizes “the place” and has learned:

  • Even stone pillows are a divine place.
  • The mess around us may not seem like a God-House, but it is, and all are welcome.
  • Any divine encounter can be a gateway to new possibility.

The past still needs repair. Challenges remain ahead. But growing awareness points beyond the current moment. Returning to this awareness can bring comfort on a lonely road and hope to a hard day or task. For Jacob. And for us.

*Gen 28:10-16: Jacob dreams of a sulam — a ladder or ramp or stairs — connecting Earth and Heaven, with malakhei elohim[“Messengers of God” or “angels”] going up and down. In his dream, YHVH promises shelter and protection for Jacob and his offspring. When he wakes up, Jacob says: “Truly, YHVH is present in this place, and I, I did not know!”

dvar Torah from V. Spatz for Matir Asurim, Kislev 5784

Joseph and Power

The biblical Joseph has a complicated, changing relationship to power. There are many religious readings of Joseph’s story. But his ups and downs themselves are worth considering.

Joseph is a younger child in the large family of Yisrael. Joseph is a dreamer and pest to his brothers, but he is his father’s pet. Then, he is

  • sold as a servant to Mitzrayim (biblical Egypt);
  • trusted in a high-powered Mitzrayim household;
  • falsely accused and imprisoned;
  • released from prison to use his dream interpreting for Pharaoh;
  • second-in-command to Pharaoh, ruler of all Mitzrayim.

Joseph uses his power to reunite with his brothers and their families. He helps his Yisrael-ite family settle in Mitzrayim and manage government cattle. Joseph stays in the palace with his Mitzrayim-ite wife and children.

Joseph predicts famine and plans to stockpile food. That plan forces most people to sell everything — including themselves — to Pharaoh. First animals. Then land. Finally, they trade themselves as avadim [servants or slaves] in ex- change for basic supplies (Gen 47:19). So, Joseph manages a huge, serious crisis. But he also helps the government grab land and resources. Joseph and the Yisrael-ites benefit from Pharaoh’s growing power. Then Genesis ends, and all that changes. Fast.

In the first chapter of Exodus, Joseph dies. Pharaoh worries that the Yisrael-ites are too strong and too many. The Yisrael-ites are treated harshly and must escape Mitzrayim. Older models of power won’t work any more. What will?

dvar Torah from V. Spatz for Matir Asurim, Kislev 5784