Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Vayigash: The Self’s Response to Tragedy

Since last Friday, when all of us were forced to think about a nightmare broadcast live from Newtown, Connecticut, I have been thinking a great deal about what it means for us to learn from a tragedy, and how we can “do” good, even if we cannot “find” good, in moments of communal despair.   In truth, the way in which we do good in the face of tragedy is by allowing the tragedy to call us to action, whether through comforting those in mourning, reflecting on how we can make our community safer, or speaking out against societal ills at the root of the inciting event.    The possibilities of acting in the face of tragedy is alluded to in this week’s parasha, where Judah’s approach of Joseph signals Judah’s desire to reshape himself after a tragedy of his own making.

Parshat Vayigash opens with an impassioned plea by Judah, who steps forward as Benjamin is about to be jailed by the mysterious Egyptian official the brothers do not know is Joseph.   The Torah records the following encounter between Judah and Joseph:

“And Judah drew close to him [Joseph] and said: “Pardon your servant, my lord, let me speak a word to my lord. Do not be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself.  My lord asked his servants, ‘Do you have a father or a brother?’  And we answered, ‘We have an aged father, and there is a young son born to him in his old age. His brother is dead, and he is the only one of his mother’s sons left, and his father loves him’...“Your servant my father said to us, ‘You know that my wife bore me two sons. One of them went away from me, and I said, “He has surely been torn to pieces.” And I have not seen him since.  If you take this one from me too and harm comes to him, you will bring my gray head down to the grave in misery’” (Bereishit 44:18-20, 27-28).

In this passage, Judah passionately tells Joseph of the family’s struggles, and is vulnerable enough to tell Joseph, the mysterious Egyptian official, “Do not let me see the misery that would come on my father” (Bereishit 44:34), a striking change in character and tone for Judah, the brother who reasoned it would be better to sell Joseph into slavery than kill him.   Given Judah’s dramatic appeal, our commentators focus a great deal on what we can learn from Judah’s “drawing close” to Joseph and making this plea.

In a commentary by the Sefat Emet, Judah’s approach of Joseph is more than a plea from a desperate to one he believes is a complete stranger; it is the transformative act of an individual in their relationship to God and the brother he presumes is still dead.   The Sefat Emet writes:

“And Judah drew close to him”: that is, to Joseph.  But also, to himself, his true self.   And also, to God.   The meaning is that although Judah said nothing new in his speech and had no real claim to make on Joseph, yet since he clarified the truth of the matter, salvation came to him, as we find in the idea that “Truth springs up from the earth”” (Sefat Emet on Bereishit 44:18).

According to the Sefat Emet, in standing up for Benjamin, Judah reveals himself to Joseph as a changed man, for Judah’s own understanding of responsibility and guilt changed since that fateful day when Joseph was thrown into the pit and sold into slavery by his brothers.

Commenting on the psychological implications about the above commentary in her book The Murmuring Deep, Aviva Zornberg writes that both Judah decision to plead before Joseph and the specific words contained in that plea reveal Judah’s unconscious transformation as a human being.   She writes:

“With startling simplicity, Sefat Emet unfolds Judah’s achievement: with his words, he accesses not only Joseph but equally his true self and God.  He approaches the other who is the capricious ruler, his innermost self, and the invisible, silent God.  He does this by a specific kind of truth-telling-one that begets the truth in the very process of speaking-that restores his relationship with the enigmatic others of his life.   I would call this a psychoanalytic form of testimony.  A movement-Vayigash-brings him in contact with lost parts of his world.  The midrash tells that Truth is shattered into a thousand pieces when God throws it down to earth.  Judah’s speech testifies to the fragments of truth that he unconsciously composes in the very anguish of brokenness” (Aviva Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep, xiii).   

Faced with the fear that his father might lose another son, and that he, once again, will feel responsible for a trauma placed upon his family, Judah is unable to restrain himself, and speaks before this mysterious man, who turns out to be Joseph, with profound honesty.   

As I watched communities across the United States attempt to grapple with the events in Newtown, what I found was that this horrific tragedy evoked emotions and events in people that we normally keep hidden, until the real world breaks our silence.  We are worried about the safety or our children, of the role of guns and violence in our culture, and of the far too many instances when we hear about this violent acts in communities across the United States, yet many times we do not fully recognize how much these concerns affect us until we stare face-to-face with yet another tragedy.   However, Judah’s approach of Joseph in Parshat Vayigash reminds us that even if we did not seek nor invite this tragedy, we can allow this tragedy in Connecticut to call us to fix that which we know is broken, and whose repair might stem the tide of future tragedies.   May we answer the call, and act.

Shabbat Shalom.

Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Mikketz: Facing Our Mistakes

When I was a student, I received one piece of advice from a teacher about studying that was simultaneously the most important piece of advice I received about studying, yet was also the most frustrating.  The piece of advice was this: When you are studying, always focus the most on what you understand the least.   On the one hand, I found this advice incredibly frustrating, because as a learner who loved to have the right answer, it was incredibly disheartening to spend all my studying time learning concepts where I would make mistakes or misunderstand the material.  On the other hand, what I came to realize was that immersing ourselves in our shortcomings as a learner is the only means by which we grow as a learner, for you can only see the fruits of your labor when given the opportunity to succeed in areas in which you previously failed, a lesson that we also learn in this week’s parasha.

The second half of Parshat Mikketz describes the encounter when Joseph, now at the heights of Egyptian society, sees his brothers come before him to beg for food because of the famine in Canaan.  However, in the moment when the brothers approach Joseph, we learn that Joseph recognizes the brothers, but the brothers do not recognize him.   The Torah then tells us the following:

“Joseph recognized his brothers but they did not recognize him.   Then Joseph remembered the dreams which he had dreamed of them and said to them, “You are spies!  To see the nakedness of the land have you come”” (Genesis 42:8-9).

Based on these verses, we see Joseph question his brother’s loyalty to Egypt, and are left to ask several questions.  First, upon seeing his brothers, why does Joseph not simply reveal him to them immediately?  Second, even if Joseph chooses to remain concealed to his brothers, why Joseph choose to intentionally make the situation more difficult for them?   Finally, Do should we read this passage as Joseph’s revenge, plain and simple, and if so, what does that say about Joseph?

Commenting upon similar questions, the medieval commentator Isaac Abravanel is flabbergasted as to how Joseph could engage in this kind of deceit of both his brothers and his father.   Although Joseph did not go down to Egypt of his own accord, surely, Abravanel reasons, it would seem reasonable that Joseph should not sink to the level of his brothers’ previous acts.   Abravanel writes:

“Why did Joseph denounce his brothers?  Surely it was criminal of him to take vengeance and bear a grudge like a viper.  Though they had meant evil God had turned it to good.   What justification then had he for taking vengeance after twenty years?  How could he ignore their plight in a strange land and that of their families suffering famine and waiting for them, particularly his aged father gnawed by worry and care?   How could he not have pity on him and how could he bear to inflict on him further pain through the imprisonment of Simeon?” (Abravanel on Genesis 42:8).

According to Abravanel, Joseph’s actions in Parshat Mikketz can seem antithetical to what it means to be a righteous person, and it falls on our commentators to think about what other lessons we might learn from Joseph’s plan.

In her paper on the this week’s parasha, Nehama Leibowitz argues that Joseph did not tell his brothers or father about his true identity because Joseph recognizes that the brother’s appearing before Joseph was the opportunity for Joseph’s childhood dream to come to fruition, and thus Joseph needed to keep events progressing in such a way as to provide the opportunity for the brothers to show contrition.  She writes:

“[Joseph] He had to arrange for his older brother, Benjamin, the son of his mother Rachel, and like him, the beloved of his father to be brought into a similar situation.   This time the brothers would find themselves really faced by a valid excuse for leaving their brother to his fate.  For how could they fight the whole Egyptian empire?   If, in spite of that, they would refuse to go back to their father without Benjamin and would be willing to sacrifice their lives....” (Nehama Leibowitz, New Studies in Bereshit, 461).   

According to Leibowitz, when the brothers bow down to Joseph, who they believe is a the mysterious Egyptian bureaucrat, the opportunity is placed before Joseph to see if the brothers have truly repented and changed since Joseph was a boy.   To support her reading of Parshat Mikketz, Leibowitz cites one of Maimonides’ texts on teshuvah, which states the following:

“What constitutes complete repentance?  He who was confronted by the identical thing wherein he transgressed and it lies within his power to commit the transgression but he nevertheless abstained and did not succumb out of repentance, and not out of fear or weakness” (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkhot Teshuvah 2:1).

Maimonides argues that the only way to know if someone has truly returned from their state of sin is to construct a scenario where a person could repeat the same mistake, but, of their own free will, chooses to go down a different path.  Thus, Leibowitz argues that Joseph’s intention was to lead his brothers to have the opportunity to make the same mistake with Benjamin that they made with Joseph, yet this time, as we learn in Parshat Vayiggash, the brothers indeed have learned their lesson.   

No person thinks that it is “fun” to correct mistakes on an assignment, receive constructive criticism from teachers, parents, or friends, or engage in a true 360 degree self-reflection.   However, what Parshat Mikketz reminds us it that the reward of immersing ourselves in our mistakes, and then rising above them, is far greater than simply remaining in our comfort zone, and never attempting to improve in areas in which we previously fell short.  May we have the merit of teaching our children and students about the importance of honestly evaluating their mistakes, so that they might ultimately become better learners and human beings.   

Shabbat Shalom, v’Hag Urim Sameah!

Divrei Rav Josh- Parshat Vayeshev: The Messenger of Success

While we can read the Joseph narrative explores many  themes about growth and development, the early events in Joseph’s life are particularly important for teaching us about the difference between being successful and being a successful person.    In his Torah commentary on Parshat Vayeshev, Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson writes that Joseph’s conduct reveals that while this a young man possesses great gifts, Joseph has not learned how to live out those gifts with humility.   Artson writes:

“Joseph has the potential to fill his life with friendship, family and love. Yet his need to be preeminent, his need to belittle the gifts and experiences of this family in order to glorify his own talents, isolate him from his own kin. We get a clue about the extent of Joseph's pride from the very start” (Rabbi Bradley Shavit Artson, “From Pride Comes Loneliness,” The American Jewish University Torah Commentary).

As Artson reminds us, Joseph’s downfall as a child begins not only with the transparent favoritism shown to him by Jacob, but also through the way in which Joseph gleefully reminded his brothers of that favored status.  

In the beginning of Parshat Vayeshev, after we learn of Joseph’s favored status in the eyes of Jacob, we learn about Joseph’s dreams, each of which alludes to Joseph’s eventual ascendancy over his brothers.   Yet rather than keep these dreams to himself, Joseph shares the information with his brothers.   The Torah records the following encounter:

“Joseph dreamt a dream which he told to his brothers, and they hated him even more.   He said to them, “Hear, if you please, this dream which I dreamt: Behold!--we were binding sheaves in the middle of the field, when behold!--my sheaf arose and also remained standing; then behold!--your sheaves gathered around and bowed down to my sheaf.   His brothers said to him, “Would you then reign over us?  Would you then dominate us?”  And they hated him even more, because of his dreams and because of his talk” (Bereishit 37:5-8).

When we read Joseph’s description of the dream, one wonders what precisely triggered such a powerful response from his brothers.  On the one hand, the content of the dream is certainly cause for concern from the brothers, yet one could argue that Joseph is merely sharing an unconscious experience with his brothers, and thus Joseph does not warrant this fratricidal wrath.   However, our rabbinic commentators will remind us that it was both the message and the messenger that ultimately led to the brother’s hatred of Joseph, and will teach us an essential lesson about how we engage with others.

In particular, our rabbinic commentators focus on the Torah’s statement that the brothers hated Joseph not merely “because of his dreams,” but also “because of his talk.”  In his commentary, the Ramban writes the following:

“And they hated him even more, because of his dreams and because of his talk”: The explanation of because of his dreams and because of his talk is that they hated him for the dreams and also for the relating [of the dream], which he related to them like a braggart, as it says, “Hear, if you please, this dream which I dreamt” (Ramban on Bereishit 37:8).

According to the Ramban, not only did Joseph recount dreams that were, in and of themselves, likely to arouse hatred from his brothers, but Joseph recounted those dreams in a manner that poured salt on the wound already made by mentioning the dream at all.   Since we know that Joseph’s brothers were already smarting from the favoritism Jacob showed Joseph on a regular basis, the manner in which Joseph recounted the dream was as damaging as the dream itself.   

Taking a psychological approach, Rabbi Shlomo Ephraim of Luntschitz, known as the Keli Yakar, writes that Joseph’s transparent eagerness to share a dream with such an uncomfortable message revealed something about Joseph’s character to his brothers.    The Keli Yakar writes:

“They [Joseph’s brothers] hated him for his dreams and his words.  It is common knowledge that a person dreams of that which he spoke about during the day.   The brothers assumed he spoke about his constant thoughts of ruling over them and therefore, naturally dreamed about it at night.  This aroused their anger even more” (Keli Yakar on Bereishit 37:8).

According to the Keli Yakar, the brothers assumed that because Joseph had a dream about ruling over them, naturally one could conclude that Joseph must speak about ruling over his brothers during the daytime, for a person’s dreams are merely a reflection of their thoughts and actions during the day.  As a result, Joseph choosing the share his dreams led the brothers to attribute the most sinister intentions and motivations to their favored brother.   

When I read Parshat Vayeshev, and I see the way in which Joseph struggles as a boy to actualize his gifts without trampling upon the feelings of others, I think about what it means to teach our children about success.   On the one hand, each of us has the responsibility to help our children recognize their unique gifts, and maximize their potential to thrive.   On the other hand, we also have the responsibility to teach our children that being successful means nothing if they cannot accept their success with humility, not use success as a means to belittle others, and realize that our success is most valuable when others consider it well-deserved.  By learning from Joseph’s mistakes, may we teach our children that the message and the messenger teaches us a great deal about how to be a successful person.  

Shabbat Shalom!