Yosef’s Rise to Power

Yosef’s rise to power from being a slave, to becoming the viceroy to Pharoah, was truly remarkable.

The Alshich pointed out that Yosef had some good old Jewish, “Chutzpah.” He was thirty years old and had been in prison for over a decade. He interprets Pharoah’s dream and then tells him what he must do in order to benefit from the message of the dream.

The Divine plan was that Pharoah would listen to his advice, and appoint him to be the one to implement it. He changed his name to Tzofnat Pineach, so that he would not be associated with his past, and he even demanded that the general population bow to Yosef.

Pharoah did not object when he demanded that all Egyptian males be circumcised. Yosef did this, according to the Alshich, to weaken the decadence of Egypt.

We are also told that there were Egyptians that also attempted to store grain during the seven good years. Miraculously, their grain rotted, so that everyone was forced to go to Yosef.

Eventually, much of the world came to Yosef, and he turned Egypt into the superpower of the world. This is what was meant by “the servants of Pharoah.” The entire country’s population, were servants of Pharoah.

If one would take a step back and observe Yosef’s meteoric rise, he would recognize that this does not happen by chance. Similarly, we need to take a step back and recognize that the incredible achievements of Israel against her enemies, is not by chance. The sooner we recognize “the hand of G-d,” the better off we will be.