 Torah Thoughts
This week we read the Torah portion
"VaYigash" (Genesis 44:18-47:27).
It contains 106 verses and no commandments.
The end of last week’s portion was a real cliff-hanger.
Benjamin was arrested by the viceroy’s minions for stealing his “magical”
goblet that had been planted in Benjamin’s sack. The brothers returned,
dejected, to the palace.
Our portion opens with Judah’s impassioned monologue
before the viceroy. Judah
pleads with the mighty ruler to release Benjamin and save his aged father’s
life. Judah
begged the man to take him as a slave in the place of his younger brother.
Upon hearing Judah’s heartfelt words, the
viceroy could no longer contain his pent up emotions. He ordered his servants
to leave the room. With five simple Hebrew words, twenty-two years of
anguish, shame, pain, isolation and uncertainty were released into the
atmosphere. “I am Joseph. Does my father yet live?” Thus began Joseph’s
reconciliation with his brothers, his reunion with his father, and the
descent of the Children of Israel to Egypt, to fulfill the divine
promise to Abraham.
Judah’s
words had such a powerful effect on Joseph, precisely because they were what
he had been hoping to hear throughout the ordeal he imposed on his brothers.
Judah, the leader of the clan, destined to be the father
of the kings of Israel,
was the one who took charge in selling Joseph into slavery all those years
ago. Judah
was the one who could have influenced his brothers to release Joseph. Judah,
blinded by animosity, showed no compassion for his father, whose heart would
be broken by the loss of his beloved son, or for his brother who faced a
bleak future in a foreign land.
True repentance is manifested when one transcends the
challenge of a former failure under a similar set of circumstances.
Judah and his brothers found themselves in a situation
akin to that at the sale of Joseph. Their father’s favorite son was to be
torn from his family and delivered into slavery and an uncertain future. This
time, Judah
felt his father’s pain. Ignoring his own wellbeing, he offered himself as a
slave to save his brother and spare his father further suffering. He
demonstrated sincere Teshuva, repentance.
Teshuva literally means “return.” When one returns to
G-d, one returns to one’s mission and purpose of existence. Equilibrium is
restored to the universe. Sin upsets the cosmic balance and displaces the
individual from his orbit. Once Judah and his brothers restored order, the
rest of our history was able to unfold and the Jewish People could be born. Judah’s
descendants could take their rightful place as monarchs, and ultimately, his
long awaited scion, the Messiah, will bring the world to its fulfillment.
When we seem to be unable to go on with our lives, when
chaos reigns, it is an opportunity to examine ourselves and our lives and to
try to find the right point of “system restore”, the opportunity to “reboot”
and get back on track. We and the world depend on it.
Haftara
(Ezekiel 37:15-28) The prophet Ezekiel prophesied
regarding the destruction of the First
Temple. He also had
visions of the ultimate redemption and the return, not only of the tribes of
Judah and Benjamin that were to be exiled to Babylon, but also of the other
ten tribes, exiled almost two centuries earlier by the Assyrians.
G-d commanded the prophet to engrave “For Judah and the
Children of Israel his comrades” on one piece of wood, and “For Joseph and
the Children of Israel his comrades” on another. Ezekiel was then to hold the
two pieces of wood together in his hand. They were thus symbolically grafted
into one unit.
This was to be a symbol for the people of Judah, that
not only would G-d return them to their homeland after the exile, but the
northern “lost” ten tribes of Israel would return home and they would once
more become one nation under the sovereignty of the Davidic dynasty.
The Haftara echoes the opening scene of our Torah
portion. Judah
confronts Joseph, whom he mistakenly regards as a foreign antagonist. This
confrontation has the undercurrent of a clash of the Titans. Joseph and Judah
are the two most powerful sons of Jacob. Centuries later in Jewish history,
the descendants of Joseph lead ten tribes in secession from the kingdom of
the descendants of Judah.
In our Torah portion, when Joseph reveals his true
identity, there is a moving reconciliation between him and Judah and the
other brothers.
The prophet Ezekiel
sees a time when the true identity of all the Children of Israel will
be revealed. They will recognize their fraternal bond that transcends all the
pettiness that characterizes this dark, physical world of exile. The Children
of Israel
will then merit dwelling in their Land in peace and security as one nation
under G-d.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Baruch Price
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