VaYigash 5632 First Ma'amar

Many times we find ourselves in situations that appear bleak.  We search for a solution, a way out but fail to find one.  We are stuck.  What can we do?  Chazal[1] understand the story of Yehuda’s meeting with Yosef as just such a situation.  We can learn from Yehuda what to do.

Chazal base their understanding on a pasuk in Mishlei (6:1-3), “בני אם ערבת לרעך תקעת לזר כפיך: נוקשת באמרי פיך ... עשה זאת אפוא בני והנצל ... לך התרפס ורהב רעיך:/My son, if you have been a guarantor for your friend, if you have given your handshake to a stranger, you have been trapped by the words of your mouth … Do this, therefore, my son, and be rescued ... Go humble yourself before him, and placate your fellow.”

Chazal understand this pasuk metaphorically as referring to Yehuda.  He made himself a guarantor for Binyamin.  He promised his father that he would bring Binyamin back.  He was in a situation in which this looked like an impossible task.  The viceroy of the most powerful country in the world was about to take Binyamin for a slave.  What could he do?  The Midrash tells us, “Go humble yourself before Him …”  Humble yourself before God.

The Sfas Emes teaches that man was created in order to bring the entire Creation closer to God.  In the garden of Eden, this was obvious to Adam.  It was obvious that the purpose was to connect with God.  However, after his sin and banishment from Gan Eden, this fact became much less obvious.  It is not at all obvious to most of us.  In the words of the pasuk, “We have given our handshake to a stranger.”  This refers to the desire and lust to become involved in things that are not good, that distance us from God.  These desires color our perception.  We find this clearly in a pasuk in Iyov (34:11), “כי פועל אדם ישלם לו .../For He repays a man according to his deeds …”

A classic example of this was the sale of Yosef.  When the brothers sold Yosef, they distanced themselves from brotherly love.  As a result, when they met Yosef in Egypt, he seemed to them to be an enemy.  Yet, he was just Yosef, their brother.  They were living with a false perception resulting from their own actions.  There was no way they could see the truth – that Yosef was standing before them, not an enemy – until they fixed the underlying cause of this false perception.

The only thing to do, Chazal teach, is to acknowledge and accept God.  This is what Yehuda did.  The first pasuk of our parsha is, “ויגש אליו יהודה ויאמר בי אדוני .../Yehuda approached him and said, please my master …”  Chazal understand that this pasuk is referring not only to Yehuda approaching Yosef.  On a deeper level, it is referring to Yehuda approaching God.  Yehuda realized that the only way out of this terrible situation was to acknowledge God in it.  He did this to the extent that he was ready to sacrifice his own life to save Binyamin.

The result was, “ולא יכול יוסף להתאפק .../Yosef could not contain himself …”  The plain meaning is that Yosef was unable to continue the charade.  He was forced to reveal himself.  However, on a deeper level, Yosef represents the hidden spirituality within everything[2].  That spirituality is hidden in this world.  The physical that hides it seems to have a separate, autonomous existence, God forbid.  By acknowledging and accepting that this is not the case but rather that God is truly here with us and in every thing and every action, we merit a deeper perception of the truth.  “Yosef” is automatically revealed.

Yehuda had no idea from where salvation would come.  He just knew that he had to acknowledge God in the situation.  This is true for every single situation in which we find ourselves.  We give the physical world around us a reality that it does not deserve and then find ourselves in situations of our own making.  They are essentially self-created illusions. We no longer see the truth but rather a projection of what we think is the truth.

Chazal advise us to acknowledge God in everything and the truth will automatically be revealed to us.  May we merit it!

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[1] Breishis R. 93:1

[2] The Zohar teaches that Yosef is the “keeper of the covenant.”  He represents the bris which is hidden by the orlah.  He is the Tzadik Yesod Olam and the kabalists teach us that Yosef is represented by the sefira of Yesod which also represents the bris milah.

VaYigash 5631 Second Ma'amar

“ויאמר יוסף אל אחיו אני יוסף העוד אבי חי ולא יכלו אחיו לענות אתו כי נבהלו מפניו/Yosef said to his brothers, ‘I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?’ His brothers could not answer him because they were shocked before him.” The Midrash says that in this pasuk Yosef rebuked his brothers and they were not able to answer because of the shame they felt. The Midrash compares this with God’s rebuke on the ultimate day of judgment, “אוי לנו מיום הדין אוי לנו מיום התוכחה/Woe is to us on the day of judgment; woe is to us on the day of rebuke.” If the brothers could not withstand Yosef’s admonishment, how will we be able to withstand the ultimate admonishment before the redemption. Is the Midrash’s comparison simply one of degrees of rebuke or is there a fundamental connection between Yosef’s chiding his brothers and God’s chastisement on the final day of judgment?

The Sfas Emes explains that the rebukes are fundamentally the same. To understand why, we need to understand why the brothers were ashamed. The Sfas Emes explains that the brothers were mistaken about Yosef himself. The Zohar tells us that Yosef was שומר הברית/keeper of the covenant. Conventionally, this refers to his overcoming the temptations presented to him by the wife of Potiphar. The covenant that he kept was the covenant of the circumcision.

In this world holiness is hidden by gross physicality. The removal of the foreskin represents an unveiling of the holiness that lies within the physical world. (See VaYeira 5632 First Ma’amar for a detailed discussion of this concept.) Yosef, as the keeper of the covenant, represents the holiness that is within the physical world. The brothers, because this was hidden, did not realize it. Once Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, when they were confronted with their mistake, they stood in shame.

At the ultimate redemption as well, it will be made clear for all to see that the physical world in which we live is replete with holiness. God gave us the physical world and our circumstances to use to accomplish God’s will thereby rectifying ourselves and our environment. Before the final redemption, when this fact becomes clear to us we will look back at our lives and wonder how we could have used the physical world for purposes that were at odds with God’s will. Realizing our mistake, we will stand in shame before God. This is why the Midrash compares Yosef’s rebuke and the rebuke on the final day of judgment. They are fundamentally the same.

We can prevent the rebuke and our resulting shame by internalizing the understanding that everything around us and everything that happens to us are tools that God gave us in order to use to accomplish His will and come close to Him. On the day of judgment we will be able to stand before God, not in shame, but proudly having used these tools for their fundamental and ultimate purposes. Amen.

VaYigash 5631 First Ma'amar

At the end of parshas Mikeitz, Yosef frames his younger brother Binyamin. He decides that as a punishment he will keep Binyamin as a servant and free the rest of his brothers. In the beginning of our parsha, Yehudah tries to convince Yosef to take him instead of Binyamin. To this end he recounts the sequence of events from the brothers’ initial encounter with Yosef to the present.

The question that immediately presents itself is that Yehudah’s argument adds nothing that is not already known. He simply recounts the events leading up to the current situation. What is the point of this?

To answer this question it will help to first understand the fundamental difference between Yosef and Yehudah in their approach to serving God. In the second ma’amar of parshas VaYeishev 5631 the Sfas Emes explains, in the name of his grandfather the Chidushei HaRim that Yosef and Yehudah are archetypes of different kinds of tzadikim. Yosef was completely dedicated to God. In this sense, he was removed from the mundane. Yosef saw the Godliness that gives life to everything physical. In fact, the Sfas Emes tells us that Yosef actually represents this hidden Godliness. The Torah calls him the most consecrated of his brothers (Breishis 49:26). Yehudah, on the other hand, revealed the holiness in the mundane. The Torah tells us, regarding Yehudah, “May God hear Yehudah’s voice and bring him to his people.” (Devarim 33:7) The Chidushei HaRim understands this as an allusion to Yehudah bringing God to His people.

There are tzadikim who do not have many followers. They are very holy and removed from the world around them. This is Yosef’s approach. On the other hand, there are tzadikim who have many followers. Their work is in influencing as many people as possible. They bring holiness into the mundane. This is Yehudah’s approach.

What did Yehudah gain by simply rehashing the recent events? The Chidushei HaRim explains that Jews are called Yehudim in Hebrew, after Yehudah. The name Yehudah comes from the root word hoda’a which means “thanks” and “admission.” Jews are called Yehudim because we thank God for everything, large and small. We know that everything comes from Him.

Yehudah understood that everything, even the most difficult situation, is from God. Yehudah knew that to be saved he would have to approach the level of Yosef. On this level he was able to approach Yosef, who represented the actual Godliness hidden in this world. The way he raised himself to Yosef’s level was by repeating the sequence of events leading to the present difficult situation, admitting and accepting, at each step, that it was all from God. The hidden Godliness within the events was thus revealed. The greatest good we can aspire to, is coming close to God himself. Therefore, revelation itself is redemption. That is why immediately following Yehudah’s argument, the Torah tells us that Yosef was no longer able to contain himself and he revealed himself to his brothers. Once the Godliness was revealed, the brothers were saved.

The Torah is teaching us an important lesson. Any time we find ourselves in a difficult situation, we have the tools with which to save ourselves. We need to first understand that God is hidden in even the most difficult circumstances. Even if a person thinks that his own mistakes caused his current situation, (the Torah tells us that Yosef’s brothers blamed themselves for their predicament) when he recognizes that God is the life giving force behind his predicament and asks God for help, he will be answered.