By Moshe Feiglin
"And when the days of weeping for him passed, Joseph spoke to the house of Pharaoh saying, 'If I have found favor in your eyes, speak into the ears of Pharaoh to say: My father made me swear, saying, "Behold I am going to die. Bury me in my grave that I dug for myself in the land of Canaan, there you shall bury me.'" (From this week's Torah portion, Vayechi, Genesis 50:4-5).
Wait a minute - isn't Joseph the viceroy of all Egypt? Didn't Pharaoh promise him that he would be second-in-command and the next-to-final- word in the Egyptian kingdom? Why does Joseph have to lobby Pharaoh's close aides to convince them to bring his request before the king? Why are the palace ministers closer to the king than he is? After all, this is the original Pharaoh - the "good" one - not the Pharaoh who enslaved the Jews as related in next week's Torah portion.
Some sages in Europe predicted the German atrocities while the Jews there were still enjoying their host country's wealth of culture, philosophers, musicians and poets. Pharaoh was also a "good" king and the bottom line is that he kept his promise to Joseph. But in case anybody thinks that Joseph was an equal among equals, the above verse is proof - and a reminder to our fellow Jews in the U.S., England, France and all the other democracies - that their good standing in their host countries is ephemeral. Even after years of assimilation, the Jew will always be different. From the time that G-d chose us from amongst the nations, we will never find permanent rest in foreign countries.
Pharaoh promised. So did Napoleon. But the reality of anti-Semitism is stronger than all their promises. We can build flourishing communities at the summit of a sleeping volcano. But it just may erupt sooner than we expect.
Shabbat Shalom
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