“Search Space” Parashat Mikketz – Chanukah 5786
I recently moved to a new position at work which required moving to a different site. It is kind of disorienting. Every so often I will be walking down the hall and I’ll find the face of a passer-by familiar. If I’m lucky, he’ll be struck with the same pang of recognition and we’ll slow down and stare at each other as we pass by.
Sometimes, we’ll stop and he’ll say, “Hey, Ari, how have you been?!” and I’ll reply, “Hey, You[1], I’m well, thank you! What have you been up to these years?!” Turns out we both worked on David’s Sling or Iron Dome or Popeye or some other program. This has happened many times over the past few weeks but, strangely, it has never happened with my brother. Whenever I see him, no matter how long it has been since we last met, we always manage to recognize each other.
Joseph’s brothers, convinced that he is trying to destroy the Jewish People, sell him to the Ishmaelites, who are headed to Egypt, and Joseph ends up enslaved to Potiphar, the Egyptian Royal Executioner. After a short stint in jail for a crime he did not commit, Joseph interprets Pharaoh’s dreams and is crowned Grand Vizier, second in charge only to Pharaoh and directly responsible for the Egyptian food supply chain during a famine that he predicted.
The same famine hits the Land of Israel and when Jacob and his family run out of food, he sends his sons to Egypt to purchase grain. Joseph is personally overseeing the distribution of grain and he eventually ends up face-to-face with his brothers. But here is the thing – apparently they suffer from the same syndrome described in the previous paragraph [Bereishit 42:8]: “Joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him.” How does this happen? How can one not recognize his own brother? A cadre of medieval commentators led by Rashi[2] suggest that Joseph was unrecognizable to his brothers because he had grown a beard in the thirteen years since they last saw him. He could recognize them because they already had beards when they threw him into the pit. The problem with the medieval solution is that Joseph was only a year or two younger than some of his brothers.
Let’s consider two alternative explanations, both of which hinge on the concept of “search space,” a term that will become central to our discussion. First, the Rashbam[3] offers a fascinating perspective. He suggests that Joseph’s brothers did not sell him. A group of Ishmaelites extricated Joseph from the pit and sold him to some Midianites. When the brothers returned to the pit and found it empty, they assumed Joseph was dead. If this is the case, then the brothers had never actually seen Joseph in the context of slavery or Egyptian nobility. They had no reason to suspect that the powerful Egyptian standing before them was their long-lost brother. Joseph simply wasn’t in their “search space.” He was outside the set of possibilities they were considering.
Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch[4] takes a similar approach. He points out that the brothers believed the Ishmaelites were taking Joseph back to the Transjordan, to Gilead. In their minds, Joseph was somewhere in the east, perhaps enslaved, perhaps dead, but certainly not in Egypt. Egypt was not on their mental map. So when they encountered the viceroy of Egypt, the thought that he could be Joseph never even crossed their minds. Again, Joseph was outside their search space. This concept of “search space” is crucial. Leveraging the explanations of the Rashbam and Rabbi Hirsch, the brothers are not suffering from poor eyesight or faulty memory. They are suffering from a failure of imagination. Joseph is not in their search space, so they cannot recognize him, no matter how many clues he drops or how familiar his face or his voice might seem.
Let’s take this idea and move it into the world of technology, specifically into the realm of Automatic Target Recognition (ATR) in air defense systems. Imagine an air defense system tasked with identifying and intercepting incoming threats. The system is programmed with a “search space” – a set of known target types: aircraft, helicopters, cruise missiles, certain types of drones. The system uses sensors and algorithms to compare incoming objects to its database. If the object matches something in the search space, the system can classify it and respond appropriately.
But what happens when a new kind of threat appears? Suppose an adversary develops a novel drone, one that looks and behaves differently from anything the system has seen before. The system’s algorithms might not recognize it as a threat at all. It might classify it as a bird, or as atmospheric clutter, or simply as “unknown.” The new drone is outside the system’s search space. As a result, the system is blind to the threat, not because its sensors are faulty, but because its imagination – its search space – is too limited.
This is not a hypothetical scenario. In recent conflicts, we have seen exactly this problem. In 1991, the vaunted PATRIOT air defense system that was designed to intercept manned aircraft struggled to deal with Iraqi ballistic missiles fired on Israel. These missiles were not in the search space, so the system could plan an appropriate intercept trajectory. The result is operational surprise and, sometimes, disaster. The lesson is clear: If you want to recognize a threat, you have to be willing to expand your search space. You have to be open to the possibility that something new, something unexpected, might appear on your radar.
The story of Joseph and his brothers is, in many ways, a story about the limits of human imagination. The brothers could not recognize Joseph because they could not imagine that he could be standing before them as the viceroy of Egypt. Their search space was too narrow. Chanukah, too, is a story about expanding the search space. The Greeks defiled the Holy Temple (Beit HaMikdash) and when the Maccabees recaptured it, they found only a single cruse of pure oil, enough to last for one day. They lit the menorah anyway, and the oil burned for eight days, until new oil could be prepared. This is the miracle of Chanukah.
But the miracle of the oil is only half the story. The real miracle, as our Sages teach us, is that the Jewish people were able to see the Hand of G-d not only in the supernatural, but also in the natural. The military victory over the Greeks was, on the surface, a natural event. A small band of fighters who knew how to use the local hilly topography defeated a mighty empire. But after the miracle of the oil, the Jewish people were able to expand their search space. They were able to see that the military victory, too, was a miracle. They were able to recognize G-d’s Hand in places they had never thought to look before.
This is the challenge of Chanukah, and of Jewish life in general. We are called upon to expand our search space, to be open to the possibility of miracles, to recognize the Divine in the everyday. Just as the air defense system must be constantly updated to recognize new threats, so too must we constantly update our spiritual search space to recognize new opportunities for holiness, new manifestations of G-d’s presence in our lives.
Let’s return to Joseph and his brothers one last time. When Joseph finally reveals himself, the brothers are stunned into silence. Their search space has been shattered. The impossible has become possible. In that moment, they are forced to confront a new reality, one that they could never have imagined. So too, in our own lives, we are often confronted with situations that lie outside our search space. We encounter challenges, opportunities, and miracles that we never expected. The question is: Will we recognize them? Will we be open to the possibility that G-d is present, even when we least expect it? Will we have the courage to recognize the truth, even when it takes us by surprise?
Shabbat Shalom and Chanukah Sameach.
Ari Sacher, Moreshet, 5786
Please daven for a Refu’a Shelema for Rachel bat Malka, Iris bat Chana, Shlomo ben Esther, Sheindel Devora bat Rina, Esther Sharon bat Chana Raizel, Meir ben Drora, and Hodayah Emunah bat Shoshana Rachel.
[1] I’m just terrible with names.
[2] Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki, known by his acronym “Rashi,” was the most eminent of the medieval commentators. He lived in northern France in the 11th century.
[3] Rabbi Shmuel ben Meir, known by his acronym “Rashbam”, was the grandson of Rashi, and lived in France in the twelfth century.
[4] Rabbi Hirsch lived in Frankfurt am Main in the 19th century.
