Why does it say?מקץ שנתים ימים  The word ימים is extra? Rav Moshe Shternbach explains that יוסף took each day and asked himself what he is supposed to do to serve ה׳ best.

What can we learn from Paroah’s dream?  The שפת אמת says that פרעה’s dreams of seven years of famine and seven years of plenty is a מוסר for us that we are going to have good and bad times, and we need to take the inspiration of the good times and put them into the bad times. Rav Eliezer Ginsburg says that from פרעה having one dream that basically lead to all the following events of גלות and גאולה showing us that even from one dream ה׳ can change the whole world.

Rav Binyomin Jacobs asked why wasn’t פרעה scared that יוסף would overthrow him? Because יוסף kept on saying that it was ה׳ that controlled everything.  Similarly, Rav Leibel Jacobs asks: how did פרעה give יוסף so much power? Because יוסף kept saying it was ה׳, so he knew יוסף would never try to take over.  Another idea related to Yosef recognizing that everything belongs to Hashem:  Why does יוסף bring the people to “the” house and not to “my” house? Rav Eliezer Ginsburg says because he realized that everything belongs to ה׳. (other explanations are offered to this question too:  the רל״ג explains because he was in גלות so he knew that his real house is in ארץ ישראל; another פשט is that his real house was the house of תורה.)  Another example:  the תורת אבות says that when יוסף said to פרעה that he had one dream and it was ה׳, it means that ה׳ is really doing everything and this is what should be told to פרעה.

Rav Moshe explains that יוסף asked the brothers how his father was doing and if he was still alive because he wanted to know whether he was physically ok and also whether he was still spiritually alive. The רל״ג explained that really by calling him a זקן he was asking whether he was alive spiritually, so asking is he alive was really meant to say is he alive with simcha.

The כתב סופר says that it was השגחת ה׳ that פרעה called יוסף by a different name because if he was called יוסף then the brothers would get suspicious.

Rabbi Gluck explains that מקץ always falls out around זאת חנוכה because מקץ stands for ממון צום קול, which are תשובה תפילה צדקה because the אריזל says that the גזר דין of יו״כ is sealed on חנוכה. Also, the gematria of זאת is the same as ממון צום קול.

Rav Frand said that יוסף named his son מנשה because he forgot the house of his father. The reason he wanted to forget his house was because if he always had it on his mind he would be depressed and not be able to move on.