This Shabbat:

Friday Candle Lighting: 4:26 pm
Shabbat Ends: 5:14 pm

Torah Message:

Scharfer!

“Now let Pharaoh seek out a wise and discerning man…” (41:33)

Yerushalmis are noted for being scharfers, meaning that they have quick and incisive minds.

Last Erev Rosh Hashana I was leaving the mikveh through the turnstile, and just as soon as I got to the other side I realized that I had left my tzizit in the changing room and to get back inside was going to cost me another twenty shekels. While I was thinking about what to do, a skinny Yerushalmi was just about to enter the turnstile. I explained to him what had happened and asked if I could squeeze through together with him. “Sure!” he replied. As we were going round the turnstile I said too him, “It’s lucky you’re thin.” He said, “No, it’s because you don’t have your tzizis on!”

“Now let Pharaoh seek out a wise and discerning man…”

Seeing as Yosef had been brought to Pharaoh to interpret his dream, why was Yosef giving Pharaoh advice on how to run the country?

The Mishna says that “On Pesach the world is judged regarding the produce of the field.” Pharaoh’s dream happened on the night of Rosh Hashana, as it says, “On Rosh Hashana, Yosef got out of prison.”

Ostensibly we could ask: If G-d wanted to reveal to Pharaoh that years of famine were approaching, why wasn’t his dream on the first night of Pesach, the time of judgment for the produce of the land?

“Now let Pharaoh seek out a wise and discerning man…”

This is the subtext of this verse: If you ask why should Pharaoh have a dream “Now”about good and bad sheaves of wheat, a subject relevant to Pesach, the answer is: “Let Pharaoh seek out a wise and discerning man and set him over the land of Egypt.”This is because Rosh Hashana is certainly the time for dreams about the fate of man, as taught in Mishna Rosh Hashana: “On Rosh Hashana all those who come to the world pass before Him like sheep.”

Scharf!

· Source Kehilas Moshe in Mayana shel Torah