When most people are asked about a talent they are said to have, they’d usually launch some sort of pitch about the experience they’d had in this area. Especially when the person asking is the most powerful man in the country.
That’s what makes Yosef’s presentation to Pharaoh so remarkable. The man gets dragged from prison to interpret the king’s dreams. This is his moment. If he makes a good impression, he could walk away a free man, maybe even becoming Pharaoh’s official interpreter!
Pharaoh: I hear you interpret dreams
Yosef: G-D interprets all dreams (see Bereishis/Genesis 41:15-16)
Who mentions G-D in a sales pitch or job interview?!
And Pharaoh is so impressed that he hires him on the spot. Not as a dream interpreter, but as second in command over the whole country.
That, says Rabbi Chaim Shmulevitz , was how Yosef went from a lowly criminal to high powered ruler in a day. No speeches. No marketing. Just plain
This post is being written just days after the passing of Rabbi Aharon Yehudah Leib Shteinman OBM, one of the great leaders of world Jewry, at 104 years of age. The requests in his will were a reflection of the person he was. He stipulated that the funeral should not take place in front of more than ten men, that the coffin should be as simple as possible, that the orthodox Jewish media not publish any tributes to him, and that people refrain from calling him a ‘tzaddik’. Of course, all the other rabbis instructed everyone to disregard the requests.
He simply had no interest in any honour that he felt he didn’t deserve.
And that is the Torah’s main prerequisite for a leader. Humility.
*Based on the writings of Rabbi Yissochor Frand https://torah.org/torah-portion/ravfrand-5774-miketz/
Growing with the Parshah 