Vayechi 1 - Yosef's Other Sons

Bereishis 48:5-6:
ועתה שני בניך הנולדים לך בארץ מצרים עד באי אליך מצרימה לי הם אפרים ומנשה כראובן ושמעון יהיו לי. ומולדתך אשר הולדת אחריהם לך יהיו על שם אחיהם יקראו בנחלתם

"And now, your two sons who were born to you in the land of Egypt until I came to you to Egypt are mine; Ephraim and Menashe are like Reuven and Shim'on to me. But your offspring that you bore after them should be yours; upon the name of their brothers they shall be called for their inheritance."

This verse strongly implies that Yosef had other sons besides the two that we know about, despite there being no mention of them within Tanach or divrei Chazal.

R' Yehuda Herzl Henkin, in Shu"T Bnei Vanim 4, ma'amar 19, notes this curiosity. Based on Devarim 25:6 (the parsha of Yibbum), he suggests that על שם, upon the name of, refers to one person replacing another in the context of an inheritance, and thus Ya'akov was instructing Yosef that Ephraim and Menashe have a share in Ya'akov's possessions with their uncles, while their younger brothers would inherit their shares of Yosef's possessions. Ya'akov's possessions were primarily in movable objects that he had brought down to Egypt, while Yosef, who had risen to power in Egypt, also had significant real estate holdings. R' Henkin suggests that Ya'akov made this strange stipulation in order to ensure that Ephraim and Menashe's descendants would not hesitate to leave Egypt at the Exodus because of their land holdings; Yosef's other children, on the other hand, assimilated into Egyptian society, and did not leave Egypt.

He makes three suggestions regarding why Ya'akov felt that Ephraim and Menashe would be less likely to assimilate into Egyptian society than their younger brothers, so that this stipulation would strengthen a positive trend rather than fruitlessly opposing a negative one:

1) Yosef had to take more precautions in the upbringing of his elder sons because of the lack of other suitable role models, which was not the case by Yosef's younger sons. However, the younger sons still assimilated because of their residence in the capital of Egypt, rather than in Goshen where they would be in close contact with these role models.

2) When Ephraim and Menashe were born, Yosef felt like a foreigner within Egypt (as shown by the names that he gave them), and he passed on this feeling of alienation to his elder sons, but once his family came, he felt more comfortable in the land.

3) Yosef's experiences in revealing himself to his brothers and seeing his father for the first time in twenty-two years left a mark on his elder sons, who witnessed these events, thereby giving them a greater heartfelt connection to the family.

Vayigash - Couple of notes

1) In 45:6, Yosef says that there have already been 2 years of famine, and will still be 5 more years of no plowing or harvesting. Why is plowing significant? Granted, there will be no harvest during the famine, and therefore no reason to plow, but why is this a significant enough point to mention explicitly? The passuk reminds me of Shmos 34:21, which singles out plowing and harvesting as being two melachos of Shabbos (Rashi there quotes Rosh Hashanah 9a which expounds the passuk to teach either the prohibitions of plowing on erev Shmittah for the Shmittah year or harvesting in Motzaei Shmittah from Shmittah or the heter of harvesting for a mitzvah (i.e., the omer) during Shmittah), but I'm not sure how one would use this. Alternatively, perhaps Yosef is telling them that not only do they not have any profit to be obtained from staying in Israel (i.e., harvesting), they also do not have the excuse of non-profitable precursors (i.e., plowing) to cause them to stay in Canaan, and thus should stay in Egypt with him.

1a) Did Yaakov and his sons engage in agriculture, that would make the desistance from agriculture significant? We are only told that they were sheep-breeders - unless everyone back then also engaged in subsistence farming?

2) According to Rashi on 45:23, which says that the "good of Egypt" that Yosef sent his father was either aged wine or grisin shel pol (pounded beans), what is their value? Nachalas David (cited in Sifsei Chachamim) notes (based on Nedarim 66a) that aged wine is good for the intestines, and thus would be of interest to the elderly who are in poor health. Divrei David (ibid.) similarly notes that the Yerushalmi in Yoma states that they would not allow the kohen gadol to eat grisin shel pol on erev yom kippur because of their soporific effect (which creates a concern of seminal emission). Hence, grisin shel pol would be of interest to the elderly, who have difficulty falling asleep.

Miketz - Binyamin

A leftover thought:

Rashi on 43:30, quoting Sotah 36b, notes that Binyamin named all of his ten sons after ideas related to Yosef. Amongst the names are Bela, because Yosef was swallowed up amongst the nations, and Ard, because Yosef went down to amongst the nations. These names imply that Binyamin knew that Yosef was still alive. Rashi makes a similar comment on 37:35 regarding Yitzchak. Perhaps Binyamin (also?) had Ruach HaKodesh on this matter?

Menorah-dic Chanukiyos

The Shulchan Aruch OCh 673:1 (citing the Tur b'shem Rabbeinu Yerucham) states that some have the practice to add an extra candle next to the neiros chanukah so that if he uses the resultant light, he will be using the light of the extra candle, rather than the light of the neiros chanukah which are prohibited to derive benefit from (As long as there's one source of light, additional sources of light are not considered to add additional benefit - the same reason that one is allowed to benefit from a light that a non-Jew turned on on Shabbos in a room that already had at least a small source of light inside it, while if the room had previously been entirely dark, the new light is prohibited to benefit from, even if the non-Jew turned it on - for the Jew's benefit - of his own volition). The Rema notes that we use the Shamash, which we had previously used to light the other neiros, for this purpose - which has the additional benefit of more obviously not being an extra candle of the mitzvah.

The Shulchan Aruch continues that this extra candle should be slightly distanced from the other candles. The Levush and Gra (cited in the Mishnah Brurah) explain that the reason is so that it is clear how many candles are being used for the mitzvah of that night, while Mahari Weil (ibid.) gives an addition reason that it is so that if he wants to use the light, it will be clear that he's using the light of the extra candle, rather than one of the candles of the mitzvah.

This being the case, I don't understand the fascination with using chanukiyos that look like polydactyl menoros. If the extra candle is in the middle of the other candles, how is one to distinguish between them? Granted, if the central lamp of the menorah is much higher than those of the branches, I can see that this may be enough of a distinction (the Rema quotes the Mordechai saying that this is a good idea, at any rate, so that he will specifically use that candle for his personal needs), but in most of the pseudomenoric chanukiyos that I've seen, the center lamp is raised up over the other lamps by less than 1 cm. Perhaps the fact that the extra candle was used as the shamash is enough of a distinction, as per the previously cited Rema, being that when he lit the candles, the right number was in place? Tzarich iyyun.

Gelled Oil Chanukiyos

By now, everyone's probably aware of the fact that certain brands of the pre-filled gelled oil chanukiyos that come from overseas have lamps that are made of plastic, not glass, so that when they are lit, there is a danger of the lamps melting and creating a fire hazard. However, I'd like to address a different question - what exactly is the fuel inside the lamp made of? The Yeshiva World (12/4/07) describes another scandal that hit this year when one of the products on the market was tested and was found to have 18% wax, while claiming to be 100% olive oil, which is stated by the Mishnah Brurah to be the optimal choice of oil. Olive oil is a liquid at room temperature. If a substance is solid at room temperature, it is not pure olive oil. This being the case, what exactly is inside the gelled oil chanukiyos?

A solidified oil is called an oleogel. One method of producing oleogels is through ozonation, by which ozone gas is bubbled through the oil for a period of time. The ozone reacts with the oil molecules, causing them to form a different compound altogether, which is solid at room temperature (Ozonated olive oil has a very long history of use in alternative medicine, so I'm not sure how much of the science that I find using Google is accurate). It would seem that the addition of a gas to the oil at room temperature that does not cause any visible change to the oil besides in its phase would not constitute a halachic change in nature, so that the gelled oil would still halachically be olive oil. R' Shmuel Wosner (Shevet HaLevi 143) discusses whether the change of phase is halachically problematic, and concludes that although congealed olive oil would be invalid for lighting the Menorah in the Beis HaMikdash, it would be entirely valid to use for the Neiros Chanukah.

A second method of producing oleogels is by adding a gelificant agent such as ethylcellulose to the oil (at 1-10%). This does not induce a chemical reaction in the oil, but rather serves to bind together the oil molecules into a gel. The presence of this foreign substance would mean that the fuel is no longer 100% olive oil. Even if the amount of gelificant added is less than 1-in-60, I would think that it would still not be m'vutal because it would constitute a davar ha-ma'amid (similar to rennet in cheese).

An oleogel produced in either of these manners would be 100% kosher (being that even wax candles are kosher), but if one is looking to use 100% pure olive oil, it would seem like an oleogel produced in the latter manner would not satisfy the hiddur, while an oleogel produced using ozonation would. I don't know which method is actually used in the industry - I would assume ozonation, unless my reasoning is off, but considering the other issues that have come up with ready-to-light chanukiyos, nothing would surprise me.

Chanukah 2 - Ashkenazim and Sefardim

The Ba'er Heiteiv notes that neiros Chanukah is one of the only cases in which Ashkenazim follow the Rambam (who says that every member of a household should light their own neiros), while Sefardim follow Tosefos (who says that each household should only light one set).

Update, 12/13: R' Gil Student has an interesting post on this topic in which he deals with the historical setting of the statement of the Ri in Tosefos, suggesting that the innovative interpretation of the Ri was not seen as overly radical because it was made at a time when the common practice was to fulfill the mitzvah in the simple mehadrin method, with each person in the household lighting one candle. The divergence between the Rambam/rov poskim and the Ri only became a practical issue when the minhag became to follow the mehadrin min ha-mehadrin method involving an increasing number of candles. Ayein sham.