Shalom Mishpacha,
With the beautiful holiday of Hanukkah now over, I hope this finds everyone in happiness and health, filled with light and ready to keep shining into the coming months. As we continue reading sefer Bereishit (Genesis), we come to parshat Vayigash.
We left off last week (with baited breath!) with Yoseph's pronouncement that he was keeping Binyamin as a slave for ‘stealing’ his wine cup. The other 11 brothers still do not know this Egyptian Viceroy whom they have come to ask for food during a famine is their long lost brother.
Yehuda steps forward to challenge the decision and offers himself as a slave instead of Benyamin. Yoseph can no longer hold back his emotions and he will relay the words to his brothers that echo through the generations to the present day: “Anee Yoseph! I am Joseph!”
The brothers are shocked and they are ashamed. In a moment, they realize all they had done, remembering how they threw him into a pit and then sold him into slavery. Yoseph HaTzaddik, the righteous one, comforts his brothers by assuring them that it was not by their hand that he descended to mitzrayim, Egypt, but by Hashem’s.
He tells them he was placed right where he needed to be, to be able to save them from famine. Yoseph then offers to bring the extended family to mitzrayim and they accept. Yaakov is initially numb and disbelieving of the news, but becomes very excited to see his son.
The Torah then recounts the 70 members of Jacob's family that went down to Egypt and we have the powerful scene of Yaakov reuniting with his son Yoseph and his meeting with Pharaoh.
There are so many beautiful lessons here about the ability one can have to forgive others and to seeing beyond past misdeeds allowing for a brighter future and for both to rise above what may have occurred. Yoseph strengthens all of his descendants – each of us – with this potential power to tap into. Who could have shown such restraint, such love, such kedushah (holiness)?
Forgiving others and seeing beyond the harm they may have done to us continues to be a struggle for many. Neither letting go nor apologizing are easy, but such actions can go quite a distance in repairing relationships.
Of course, once all the pieces come together in the brothers’ minds in that moment, they are fearful of reprisal for what they had done. Yoseph, once again living up to the name for which he is known in our tradition – HaTzaddik – immediately puts his brothers at ease and ‘lets them off the hook’, so to speak, by telling them that Hashem brought him to Egypt to be able to sustain the family of Israel (and the world).
Of course, once all the pieces come together in the brothers’ minds in that moment, they are fearful of reprisal for what they had done. Yoseph, once again living up to the name for which he is known in our tradition – HaTzaddik – immediately puts his brothers at ease and ‘lets them off the hook’, so to speak, by telling them that Hashem brought him to Egypt to be able to sustain the family of Israel (and the world).
Yoseph teaches us so much about chessed (kindness), as well as bitachon (trust) and emunah (faith), as he not only demonstrates deep kindness for his brothers, but also places the events that took place within the larger picture of life: accepting that all happens for a reason and was, in the end, for the best for everyone.
For this lesson alone, we can forever be indebted to Yoseph and our Torah. But we can go deeper. There are also beautiful lessons about the importance of the achdut (unity) of the Jewish people, and that unity co-exists with diversity in Klal Yisrael. The strength of the brothers reuniting, and then once Yaakov joins them, of the whole family reuniting, is almost palpable as you read the Torah this week.
I think we have all experienced that somehow, seemingly paradoxically, relationships can be strengthened, that we can sometimes come closer, after being apart. Then, the critical importance of the unity of our people is a point that is driven home at the end of the parsha as well, but is easily missed. At the end of the parsha the Torah states: "And all the souls of Yaakov's house that came to Egypt -- seventy."
The Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Yisrael Meir Kagan, a great tzaddik, of our more recent history) points out that the Hebrew word for "souls" is "nefashot"; yet, in this verse, a singular form "nefesh" is used, alluding to the fact that “in heaven the souls of Israel are like one, and this was demonstrated at that point in our history.”
The division that we read over the last few weeks between the brothers, between the tribes of Israel, was but a precursor to a strong unity that was to come. This moment, and the foundation that was being built, reaches down to each of us today.
This unity among us, as Rabbi Shimon Finkelman reminds us, does not lessen the truth of that fact that while each Jewish soul is an integral part of this one whole, it is also unique and special. He brings a comparison to a person’s body that is indeed a single unit, but still comprised of many individual parts, each with its own unique and special function.
The Chofetz Chaim translates the importance of this unity into practical terms: “if another Jew refuses to do a favor that you have asked of him or her, or even if he or she has caused you heartache or has shamed you in some way, do not seek revenge or bear a grudge, for who is oneself and whois one's fellow'? Both stem from the same source, as it is written and who is like Your nation, Israel, one nation on earth? (Divrei HaYamim - Chronicles)”.
Rabbi Shimon Finkelman argues that when a person has an inflammation in his or her foot, one cannot say that the rest of his or her body feels fine and is not bound up in that pain. Similarly, the souls of the Jewish people are bound up with one another.
When the soul of one Jewish person is hurting, all Jews (even though one may not know him or her personally) feel the pain; or perhaps, our Torah is teaching us, we should feel that pain. The Jewish people are like one soul; we thus must strive to ensure the unity of all Jews.
At this time in history, this lesson remains critical. Although we descended to Egypt as one so long ago, today the Yiddishe Mishpacha is in many ways fractured. Perhaps the time has come to truly realize and internalize that whether or not we pray the same way or resemble one another in every way, we are one.
One people, and one family... And a family comes together and survives through rising above some factors of disunity and through chessed and forgiveness, as Yoseph taught us. Family remains together and thrives as a unit through patience and tolerance, and with love. There can be diversity in a unified whole.
The colourful mosaic of the Jewish people’s tapestry need not divide us. Together our strength is greater and only together do we move closer to fulfilling our collective purpose.
We may each spell Hanukkah differently, but the light it teaches us to shine forth, comes from the same source... and together, it is unbelievably bright.
Shabbat Shalom
- Evan D. Green
Partner and International Project/Programme Manager
Le Groupe-conseil Baastel ltee
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