Not even a postcard – Mikketz
As a student I travelled across the world to study in London. I had little money and could not afford a phone call home. I wrote letters; the postal service was then reliable.
On the ship I read and re-read the Chumash – and I encountered the part which we read this week. It tells how the brothers of Joseph came to Egypt to buy corn and did not recognise as their brother the court official they had to deal with.
I got worried. Would my brothers recognise me after what might be a long absence?
I was more fortunate than Joseph because letters to and fro were possible. But without a postal system, Joseph couldn’t send home a postcard. Was there no other means of international communication? The rabbis had their ideas.
I applied the problem to myself and wondered what to do. My face was bound to mature and my voice to become more English, but would my brothers recognise me?
What I decided was that if we were separated by the world, at least we could keep one another in our thoughts, and we could try to imagine what the others were doing. In my case the answer would have been, “He’s studying, he’s living with books, he’s becoming a rabbi!”