Maghen Abraham - Thoughts From Mayer Sasson

2025 words and times 5

"And it came to pass at the end of two full years…"(41,1)

In the end of Parshat Miketz the Sages of the Authorized Tradition counted not only the number of verses in this Portion, as is done by every Parsha, but also the number of words in it: 2025. Many Jewish sages wonder about this: Why did the Sages of Tradition note the number of words specifically in this Parsha, something that we did not see in the other Parshas of the Torah?

Rabbi Baruch Epstein connects this matter with the fact that in most years the Portion of Miketz is read on the Shabbat of Chanukah. During all days of Chanukah we add an additional candle above the number of candles lit the previous night. The word candle "נר" in numerology is 250 and the total number of candles lit – 8 - times 250 for the word candle comes to 2000. If we add the number 25 – for Chanukah falls on the 25th day of Kislev – we reach the number 2025, which is the number of words in the Parsha of Miketz which is counted out for this Parsha.

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"…and Binyamin's portion was time times as much as all their portions. And they drank and were intoxicated with him. (43,1)

On the words "and they drank and were intoxicated with him" the Jewish Sages say: It is natural for Yosef to have been in an exalted happy mood upon seeing the dreams of his youth being fulfilled and he therefore drank wine with his brothers.

But what was the happiness of the brothers, suspected of being spies, to drink to intoxication at Yosef's table?

The answer lies at the beginning of the verse before us where the holy Torah says that Yosef gave presents to each of his eleven brothers – but to Binyamin, the son of his mother Rachel, he gave a present five times bigger than that given to his brothers.

Yosef thought about this before he did it, to test his brothers to see if they still had within them the trait of jealousy that they had in the past towards him in the episode of the Striped Shirt. When the brothers sat around Yosef's table they felt that this bad trait had been totally uprooted from their hearts and that they did not feel a drop of jealousy towards their younger brother Binyamin who received five times as much in presents. This aroused an inner happiness in their hearts and as a result they came to "they drank and were intoxicated with him".

SHABBAT SHALOM!!!