This weekly blog series, published on Fridays, features insights from WRJ leaders on the Torah portions from a women's perspective. Enhance your Torah learning and understanding by adding Voices to your reading list.
Parashat Miketz is one of the great dream stories in the Torah. Joseph, falsely imprisoned, goes from prisoner to a position of power in Pharaoh’s court because of his ability to interpret dreams. In interpreting dreams, Joseph was connecting the reality of what was to his vision of what could be. I imagine that Carrie O. Simon might have dreamed of all that the National Federation of Temple Sisterhoods (NFTS, now WRJ) could become when it first began in 1913. In that way, we are the Josephs of our day as we interpret the dreams of just what WRJ might be like in the next one hundred years.
This week’s torah portion, Vayeishev, is filled with life lessons. We not only read the story of Joseph, but also the story of Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law. Tamar’s tragedy is evident. She has lost her husband, and she has no offspring to give her life purpose and to secure her status as a widow. Judah and Tamar are in-laws who have reached a crisis point in their relationship. At first, Judah supports Tamar’s right to marry into her husband’s extended family. However, when Onan also dies, Judah blames Tamar. Judah’s abiding sense of loss and resentment block his reconciliation with Tamar. Thus, Tamar finds it difficult to move on.
How many times have you heard the saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same?” As we age, we experience its veracity more and more. So it is with an oft neglected tale in this week’s Torah portion Vayishlach; the silent story of Dinah.