The Moses Legacy - Adam Palmer [10]
Daniel swallowed and put the egg down before answering. ‘Well, it all started with Joseph’s brothers. You remember Joseph, the son of Jacob – the boy with eleven brothers.’
May nodded.
‘Didn’t he have a coat of many colours?’ asked Shari.
‘That’s right. His daddy gave him a coat of many colours, but that made all his brothers jealous. And also he told them about his dreams that they were all bowing down to him and that made them even more jealous and angry.’
‘So what did they do?’
‘Well, they were so mad with him that one day they sold him to some people as a slave. And then those people sold him to some Egyptians and then he ended up in prison in Egypt.’
‘So did he get out of the prison?’ asked Shari.
‘Well, hold on. Not so fast. When he was in the prison, two of the other prisoners had dreams. And they told Joseph about them and he told them what the dreams meant.’
‘What did they mean?’ Shari pressed him.
‘They predicted the future. He told one of them that he’d be let out of prison and would get his old job back – working as a servant for the pharaoh. And it came true.’
‘What about the other one?’ asked May.
‘Oh, I don’t remember. It’s not important.’ He didn’t want to upset them with the gory details about the baker being hanged and the birds pecking at his flesh.
His sister Julia and mother Helen were bringing in the boiled and fried fishcakes – Danny’s contribution to the meal. Realizing that the Passover seider is not the ideal time for sticking to a diet, Danny took one of each, embellishing the flavour with the horseradish and beetroot sauce that was the traditional accompaniment to the dish. The twins decided to steer clear of the boiled ones altogether and to give the hot sauce a miss. Instead they picked up the fishcakes in their fingers and ate them the way children do.
‘You didn’t tell us how Joseph got out of prison,’ said May.
No peace for the wicked, thought Danny.
‘Ah yes, of course. Well, one day the pharaoh had a dream and in his dream there were seven fat cows and seven thin cows, and the seven thin cows ate the seven fat cows…’
The twins started laughing.
‘It was just a dream,’ Daniel explained to this young pair of sceptics. ‘Anyway, after eating the fat cows, the thin cows didn’t get fat. They stayed just as thin as they were before.’
‘But how could they eat the fat cows and not get fat?’ Shari asked.
Daniel smiled wryly. If he knew the answer to that one, he’d be a billionaire.
‘That’s exactly what the pharaoh wanted to know. So he asked all his advisers what the dream meant and none of them knew. Then the servant who had been in jail told him that there was a man in prison who could interpret dreams. So Pharaoh had Joseph brought to him and Joseph told him what the dream meant.’
‘And what did it mean?’ Shari asked impatiently.
‘It meant that for seven years there would be lots of food. All the crops would grow and they would have more food than they knew what to do with.’
‘Why didn’t they sell it to other people?’ Shari probed.
‘Because they would all have too much food. It wasn’t just in Egypt. All the other countries would have lots of food. But then, Joseph said, after the first seven years there would be another seven years in which there wasn’t enough food. There would be famine and the people would starve.’
‘So why didn’t they save some of the food?’ Shari said.
‘That’s exactly what they did. And that was because Joseph told Pharaoh to do that. He said they should build storehouses for the grain and save it. Then, at the end of the seven years, they would have enough grain not only to feed themselves but also to sell to the people in other countries. And the king was so pleased with Joseph that he made him prime minister.’
The twins started laughing again. Their mirth gave Daniel a chance to tuck into the chicken soup with matzoball dumplings that his sister had just placed before him.
‘And what about his brothers?’ asked May, who was very finicky about details and didn’t like loose ends.
‘Well,