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Jacob chooses Judah to be the leader of the future generations, not only due to his natural leadership skills but also due to his character traits.

Reuben loses the double portion allotted to the first born because of his mistakes. He was not a bad person but just failed in understanding what was the correct thing to do. He meant well but did not do well.

Both the 1st & 2nd Temples were destroyed due to baseless hatred of Jews for their fellow Jews. The 3rd will be built due to baseless love of Jew for their fellow Jew.

We learn that the reason that the 1st Temple was destroyed that the Jews did the ritual correctly but did not understand that the reason for the ritual was to teach us how to behave.

Joseph wants the Jews to be far away from the center of Egyptian culture. He knew the dangers of living in that culture and that it would be dangerous for them spiritually.

When Joseph tells his brothers not to worry about what they did since it was God’s plan that he be sold into Egyptian slavery it leads to the question does man have free will.

The brothers should have realized that something was amiss by the hints that Joseph dropped until he revealed himself to them. They missed the hints. This teaches us to pay attention to the details.

Joseph wants to know if his brothers are truly repentant for what they did to him. The way to test them is to put them into the same position and see if they would behave differently.

Judah becomes the leader of the brothers due to his taking on personal responsibility for the safety of all of them. That is the true meaning of leadership.

The story of Hanukah is that the anti-Jewish forces did not want to kill the Jews but that they should not live as Jews. By us living as Jews is our ultimate victory and their ultimate defeat.