Creating a Unified Society: The Torah's Vision Beyond Competition

Rabbi Zweig begins by noting that Chanukah (חנוכה) celebrates the Jewish people's victory over Greek civilization and the Hellenistic values that infiltrated Jewish life, including the rise of the Sadducees who questioned rabbinic authority. Since Shabbos (שבת) Chanukah always falls on Parshas Mikeitz, he explores what element in the parsha reflects this victory over Greek values, particularly a value so deeply embedded in American culture that we fail to recognize it as fundamentally anti-Torah (תורה). The shiur focuses on Rashi (רש"י)'s commentary on Bereishis 41:2, where the Torah describes Pharaoh's dream of seven cows emerging from the Nile. The standard translation renders "yefos mar'eh" as "beautiful in appearance," meaning the cows themselves looked beautiful. However, Rashi offers a radically different interpretation: the phrase refers not to how the cows looked, but to how they looked at each other—they gazed kindly at one another, without begrudging each other's grazing. Rashi explains this is a sign for "yemei sova" (days of plenty), when people are not miserly toward one another.