At the End. Miketz.

According to the Torah's narrative omens, this is a favorable time to work with the residues of anger left by sibling abuse or parental neglect and bring the light of awareness to those darker, more hidden places often stored in our body, and in our unconscious ways of thinking about ourselves, our family and our world.

Wake up dreamer, you made it! Pulled from the pit where you were left forgotten for all those years. You prove your ability, and acquire the keys to the kingdom. You, or at least the Joseph dreamer part of yourself, that part that knows it is special without question. The part that dreamed itself into the world. The part that has clear vision, speaks through dreams and knows how to unlock the deeper meaning for others. That part that was cast out, hated or totally misunderstood, has been remembered and given the world. 

Or are you not quite there yet? Are you still feeling forgotten in jail, or sold to slavery, left for dead in a pit, or feeling yourself without a mother, sent without protection to your hateful siblings by your own loving father? This is a great time to check in and hold those dreaming places in ourselves and see where they might have gotten wounded or gone wrong, and pull down the additional Chanukah blessing of light to help make the necessary adjustments so that we move the built up resentment or pain out of our bodies and lives.

Additional awareness of the new moon in Tevet, and the coming the winter solstice all support this investigation and release. This lunar month, called Tevet is, according to kabbalistic thought, a month associated with the sense/feeling of (righteous) anger and seeing in the dark, making mediations on shifting anger especially fruitful. The winter solstice - the darkest time of year, according to indigenous wisdoms, offers the 'medicine' of  darkness, the 'medicine' that helps us appreciate the dark place out of which all life is formed. Both different aspects of cosmic invitations for doing the hard work of facing the parts we carry that we might want to just let evaporate or go away.

Try the exercise of situating yourself within the story. This week’s Torah narrative energies support an internal and external examination of the Joseph part of yourself or your family system. Identify with Joseph as he faces the brothers that cast him away.  Anger is not hard to imagine in this moment in time. 10 months into a global pandemic that separated us from each other and our way of life, there is a lot that feels like being in a collective pit at the moment. 

I 

Does your dreamer part get any relief when it learns the way Joseph dealt with his brothers that left him for dead -  now bowing at his feet? Is there catharsis in the way Joseph “played” them? Would you act differently, given the chance? Can you relate to his choices?

II

This is simultaneously a favorable time to find the non-dreamer parts of yourself and the world around you. The "brother" parts that once wanted to kill and silence and repress, that live with the consequence and guilt of their actions - on conscious and unconscious levels.  Try feeling your 'brother' parts that can never undo the action they did in their youth - and find a safe way for the narrative to help explore the residue of guilt for what we have to carry when we cast out the dreamer brother/part within or in our family or our world.

III

Try to sense into the meeting of the two parts. The way Joseph “played them” enabled their nearly complete tikun (self-adjustment) which you can see in each brother’s response to the unfolding situation. And as my teacher S.Y. Schneider reminded me, “And so it is that life, and the difficulties of life are HaShem (God) “playing us” to bring us into challenges, circumstances and tests that are perfectly designed to assure our teshuva (inner work) and as we struggle to find the most spiritually productive response.” 

Again, pull in the energies of the final Chanukah light cycle and the eternal light of shabbat to illuminate your way, and renew you in the memory of eternal light. 

Wishing everyone a safe and joyful passage into an elevated and elevating experience of individual and shared time. 

Happy Chanukah & Shabbat Shalom.

May all that is ready to be healed, now feel true.