Protocols of the Elders of Zion: Lifted Right out of Pharoahs Playbook? And Happy new year.

This weeks marks a major shift in the reading of the weekly Torah portion. One era has ended and a new one is ushered in. The brief period of calm, for a family reunited, settled into a new life in the bucolic surroundings of Goshen on the outskirts of Egypt, is shattered. The selective memory of a culture, deeply enriched by its Jewish presence, reared its ugly head. “A new king arose who didn’t know Joseph” — was code, for a collective choice of fear over trust. Instead of pride in the prosperity of its refugees, there was suspicion, couched in imagined threats to the “integrity” of Egyptian life. As a result, the myriad ways that prosperity was beneficial, even central, to a society that had teetered on the brink of collapse, was overshadowed by a myopic paranoia. A sinister paradigm that could well be viewed as histories rough draft of the “protocols of the elders of zion.

The transition from Genesis to Exodus this year coincides with our shift from 2018 to 2019. Though we have already celebrated our Rosh Hashana, The Jewish new year, we celebrate and mark the Gregorian cycle as well. We do so with gratitude for the blessings of living in our Diaspora, our Goshen. We are mindful today of the blessing of living in the midst of a society that rewards hard work and celebrates the contribution of each citizen. We have so much to be grateful for, being part of the melting pot of the “American Dream” whose founding fathers crafted an ethos that would never allow for the cultural amnesia of the Pharaohs.

Much love, Shabbat Shalom, and Happy New Year!

Rabbi Yossi