In one televised version of Joseph and The Technicolor Dreamcoat, Donny Osmond played Joseph. The irony of a quintessential American non-Jew playing the role of the ancient Jewish patriarch who assumed a fully Egyptian visage, was likely lost on the millions who enjoyed the performance. Our Joseph story is distinctly not a universal story, it is particular to Jewish history. It is the story of the court Jew, subject to the whims of the powerful, forced into captivity, saved by his ingenuity and wisdom, able to rise to a position of power because of his unique skills. It is the Jew who must always look over his/her shoulder out of fear that one vengeful or resentful adversary could take away all that has been achieved. Even as this Jew assimilates into the majority society (Joseph even marries an Egyptian princess) he/she remains distinct and different.
This week we are fully into the Torah’s Joseph narrative. Reading it through the lens of a diaspora Jew juxtaposed as it always is over the celebration of Hanukkah opens the door for a host of reflections about how we are both a part of our culture and how we preserve our distinctiveness.
On this last day of Hanukkah, the story of the Maccabees is a story of uniqueness and particularity. The battle was fought to preserve Jewish identity. Shabbat, Kashrut, Torah study, and Circumcision were the cornerstones of Maccabean ideology. They rebelled against their own brethren who would have given it all up to become fully Greek. And yet, the last Maccabean queen was Salome Alexandra, her name reveals the extent of her assimilation into Greek culture.
As we usher in the Christmas season, we as Jews often feel most apart; Christmas symbols surround us and perhaps overwhelm us. The story of Joseph in Egypt and the Maccabees in Hellenized Israel reminds us that the challenge to maintain our uniquely Jewish identity while floating in a sea borne of another culture is as old as Judaism itself.
— Rabbi Ron Stern