Mazal Tov to Shifi Bendet and Darren Gandel and families on the occasion of their engagement.

Mazal Tov to Andrew Strum on his appointment as a judge.

Times: Shabbat starts on Friday at 8:10 pm and ends on Saturday night at 9:16 pm. The weekly Torah portion is Mikeitz, and Rosh Chodesh Tevet. Rosh Chodesh is also on Sunday, and Chanukah continues until Sunday night/Monday.

Chanukah in the CBD: Look out for the Chanukah decals displayed all around town! Pillar of Light is on at Fed Square every night of Chanukah. Also check out the East Melbourne Shule events.

Mincha in the CBD: We will seek to resume mincha at L2/430 Lt Collins on summer schedule (1.45pm) once there is demand. Join the the WhatsApp group to stay across the latest details.

Study: The Weekly Shiur continues in hybrid in-person and Zoom, on Wednesday at 1.20pm at Warlows Legal, 2/430 Lt Collins, and the lunch part is back! Current topic: greatness of Torah learning and pure supply chains. Details here.

Thought of the Week with thanks to Annette Charak. Joseph’s early life held great promise: a “shapely and beautiful” youth, favoured by his father, self-important in the face of his brothers. But when the Torah portion of Miketz opens, that childhood could not be more distant. Joseph is languishing in prison, rejected by his family in the worst way imaginable, falsely accused by Potiphar’s wife, and apparently forgotten.

But through his gift to divine the meaning of dreams, Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams, promising seven ‘fat’ years followed by seven ‘lean’ years. And he is released from prison, becoming Pharaoh’s right-hand man.

The seven ‘fat’ years are good years for Joseph personally, following his own lean years. He builds a family. He calls his first-born son Menashe, saying “God has made me forget completely my hardship and my parental home.” According to Professor Uriel Simon, Joseph is referring not to “informative forgetting”, but to “emotional forgetting”, since he “certainly still remembers his treatment at his brothers’ hands”. However, in his new, more fortunate circumstances, the memory is no longer painful. And this “emotional forgetting”, the letting go of his pain, is a prelude to Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers, a central theme in the Joseph saga.