Financial hardship is likely to cause people to ignore one another – but it can also have the opposite effect of bringing people together.
Parashat Miketz begins by describing Pharaoh’s unusual dreams, for which he desperately sought a satisfying interpretation. The Torah writes that Pharaoh first saw seven robust cows that grazed “ba-achu” (41:2). Most commentators interpret this word as a reference to a meadow. Targum Onkelos, for example, translates the word as “be-achva” (“in the meadow”). The Ramban, however, raises the possibility of explaining this term to mean “together.” The seven cows stood in a large area of pasture and were thus able to graze comfortably all together.
This also appears to be the interpretation followed by a number of Midrashic texts, which noted the symbolic significance of this particular aspect of Pharaoh’s dream. The Tanchuma Yashan (Miketz 3) comments, “When good years arrive, people become brothers to one another.” We similarly read inBereishit Rabba (89), “At the time when the years are prosperous, people become brothers to each other.” According to these sources, the word “ba-achu” is derived from the familiar word ach (brother), and refers to a sense of friendship and “fraternity” that existed among the robust cows in Pharaoh’s dream. This quality symbolized the aura of friendship, cooperation and sharing that characterizes periods of peace and prosperity – such as the seven years of plenty which the seven large cows in the king’s dream represented.
Conversely, Chazal detected in the Torah’s description of the second set of cows – the lean, emaciated cows which foretold the years of food shortage – an allusion to the tension and tight fists that characterize years of economic hardship. The Torah introduces the seven lean cows with the term “parot acheirot” (“other cows” – 41:3), regarding which the Midrash (Tanchuma Yashan, ibid.) comments, “When bad years arrive, people become ‘others’ [strangers] to their fellows… What are ‘acheirot’? They see each other and turn their faces away from them.” The term “acheirot” is viewed here as a subtle expression of emotional distance and alienation. During times of financial crisis, people are preoccupied with their own needs, seeking provisions for themselves and their families, such that they cannot give attention to other people.
This aspect of the years of shortage is elaborated upon further by the Midrash Ha-gadol:
At the time when calamity befalls the earth, all people become “others” and foreigners to one another. How? A person comes from a distant place and enters the city. His friend sits in the street, and when he sees him, he turns his face behind him and pretends as though he does not see him and he never met him. What caused this? The hunger and calamity in the world.
In periods of prosperity people enjoy the luxury and serenity to foster and maintain social relationships. But in times of shortage, people’s money, time and attention are all exclusively focused on obtaining their bare necessities. They do not have the ability or the interest to share their lives with others, as they are compelled to obsessively restrict themselves to their bare physical survival.
It is interesting to note that Chazal found an allusion to this aspect of financial hardship specifically here, in reference to the drought that struck during Yosef’s time. In a certain sense, Yosef achieved the precise opposite result during this period of shortage – he succeeded in bringing all countries in the region together. Yosef stored countless stockpiles of grain during the years of plenty, such that Egypt was the only country with provisions during the seven-year drought. As the Torah describes, all the surrounding nations came to Egypt to purchase provisions. While ordinarily shortage has the effect of the “other,” of people withdrawing into themselves and ignoring everybody around them, the drought in Yosef’s time had the effect of bringing all the nations together to Egypt. Yosef created a reality where a food shortage would yield the precise opposite result than that which we would have expected; instead of causing nations to separate from one another, he brought them together.
Financial hardship is likely to cause people to ignore one another – but it can also have the opposite effect of bringing people together. In such periods, empathetic people share what they have even if they have little, and wise people work together to pool resources and develop effective strategies for handling the crisis and weathering the storm. Even in times depicted by the seven lean cows, it is possible for people to “graze” together, to establish and enhance relationships and join forces to find solutions.