Yosef And The Battle For True Beauty
Parshas MiKeitz and the story of Yosef always fall out around Chanukah. This is not coincidental; the commentators discuss Yosef’s connection to Chanukah at great length. An obvious connection between Yosef and the Greeks is their association with beauty. Yosef is the only male in the Torah who is referred to as “beautiful” (B’reishis 39:6), and the Greeks originate from Yefes, whose name literally means “beauty.” In a similar vein, the Gemara (Megillah 9b) states that despite the general prohibition of translating the Torah into other languages, it is permissible to translate the Torah into Greek, due to the beauty of the language. What is the meaning behind this connection of Yosef and the Greeks?