“Is Chanukah a major holiday?” I’m asked more often than you’d think. Although its observance is more prevalent than other Jewish holidays, I understand the premise of the question since every Jewish holiday has a biblical record aside for Chanukah. However, reading this week’s parsha from an unusual angle provides a powerful understanding of the Chanukah story and most importantly, an empowering lesson we can apply here and now. Last week we learned of the domestic tension between Yosef and his brothers which culminated in their selling him as a slave and staging his death. This week we learn of his stratospheric rise to power as viceroy to prepare Egypt for an impending seven-year famine. People from far and near flocked to Egypt to purchase food, including his brothers who were then living in the Land of Canaan (eventually Israel). Here is where we will start analyzing the story from the brothers’ perspective, without the benefit of knowing their brother Yosef was playing a successful charade on them. Ten Jews arrived in a foreign land and were immediately arrested and charged with espionage. The monarch of the world’s superpower himself grilled them extensively on the most intimate details of their family history and insisted they were spies bent on destroying Egypt. None of their explanations were accepted and the unreasonable strongman demanded one brother be sent to fetch their youngest brother Binyomin, while he kept the rest as hostages. To prove his point, all ten were held in prison for three days at his mercy. The brothers were caught between a rock and a hard spot. Accused of a crime they never committed and forced to prove their innocence by doing the impossible, since Yaakov would never allow Binyomin to make the trip. They were dealing with a brilliant and shrewd foe and their options were bleak. By now, perhaps a level of Stockholm Syndrom would set in and the desperate prisoners would think their fate depended on them proving they were not spies. Not at all! They declared the Egyptian viceroy’s claims were a sham and the fact they were “hanging off a cliff” was divinely ordained to inspire them to repentance for their sin of selling their brother 21 years earlier - an event completely unrelated to Egypt. Three days in prison did not change their minds and eventually, the unreasonable strongman, who in their view was a heathen, admitted “I fear G-d” and set nine of them free, keeping only one of them hostage. A huge victory when viewed in context, and their attitude shaped the Jewish narrative going forward. In every generation, when foreign influences seek to hijack Jewish life, we never lose sight of the truth. When the ancient Greeks insisted we conform to the new trends and drop Shabbat, kosher, circumcision, and ritual purity, we scorned their efforts and revolted. Not by raising an army of trained warriors, but by going into battle with the slogan “Who is like You among the mighty, O G-d!” - the acronym of which spells out Maccabee. The same held true at every juncture in our history - we never allowed our enemies to dictate our attitude. While in the past, our enemies faded away into history and we remained to tell the story, the Chanukah lights teach us that eventually, the greatest threats to Jewish survival, namely the forces of assimilation and religious apathy, will be defeated by transforming them into allies, just as flames transform darkness into light. As long as we never lose sight of the truth.