Miketz, Shabbat Chanukah 5769

This week's Parsha Miketz is an engaging story filled with drama that inspired Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice to write the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and the film company Dreamworks to produce the animated film “Joseph”. In this Parasha, we watch Joseph’s rags to riches story unfold. We are spellbound by Joseph’s understanding of dreams and we are on the edge of our seats as Joseph discovers his childhood family that had once abandoned him. Much has been written, discussed and dramatized about this Parsha.

However, I am interested in the leadership qualities of both Pharaoh and Joseph. Parashat Miketz begins with the Egyptian Pharaoh troubled by two dreams. Although the details of the dreams themselves are interesting, (seven weak-fleshed cows eating seven healthy ones and seven heads of poorly growing grain devouring seven healthy ones), it’s Pharaoh response to the dream that illuminates his character. Parashat Miketz suggests that Pharaoh only had these dreams once and yet he was very troubled. Pharaoh could have ignored the dreams and remained the all powerful, all-knowing leader that was expected of him. However, Pharaoh admitted to everyone that he did not understand his dreams and he wanted an explanation. He obviously thought the dreams were significant. When none of his top advisers could help him, he was very receptive to his tale about Joseph and his dream interpretation skills. Again the Pharaoh could have disregarded the Butler’s story as a “tall tale” but he was open-minded and asked that the prisoner Joseph be brought before him. When Joseph told Pharaoh that Hashem would interpret the dreams, Pharaoh believed him (unlike the Pharaoh Moses meets) and acted on the interpretation of looming famine in his country by assigning Joseph to the task of overseeing the storage of food during the seven years of abundance. Once again Pharaoh is demonstrating his skills at listening, problem solving and delegating tasks. Clearly Hashem had some insight that Pharaoh would be the right individual for his message.

Joseph also demonstrates good leadership skills in his position of vizier. He leads the Egyptians in a plan to store a portion of the abundant grain crops to avert famine and subsequently saves many lives.

Leadership is also key component of our Chanukah celebration because without the strength and guidance of Judah Maccabee, the band of Jewish rebels would not have prevailed against Antiochus’ powerful army. Leaders can be found in individuals given power like Pharaoh or in individuals that rise in a particular situation like Judah Maccabee but each have a belief system and demonstrate the qualities of open-mindedness, determination, tenacity and persuasiveness to accomplish their goals.

Jodi Hecht

Vayeshev 5769

Angelology – Part III

A man found [Joseph], and behold! -- he was blundering in the field; the man asked him, saying, “What do you seek?” (Beresheit 37:15)

Yonaton ben Uziel
Gavriel, in the form of a man, found Joseph…

Oznaim LaTorah
Why was Gavriel sent from Heaven to show Joseph the way to his brothers? After all, his brothers were planning to kill Joseph, or at best, to sell him into slavery! Could it be that God sent the angel in order to relieve Jacob’s burden of guilt, inasmuch as he knew his sons hated and were jealous of Joseph?
Rather, the angel came to show Joseph the way to Egypt, to teach us that the entire episode comes from Hashem. The time had come for Jacob and his sons to descend to Egypt. The matter was hidden from Jacob’s wisdom and intellect, and he sent the son of his old age, whom he loved as much as life itself, to his brothers, who were planning to kill him. Therefore the Holy One, Blessed be He, sent an angel to protect Joseph on the way to Egypt.

Yonaton ben Uziel and Oznaim LaTorah address a problem with our text: who is this unnamed man and what is he doing in the field? The tradition teaches that Torah does not waste words. Every seemingly trivial detail must convey meaning. So it must be with a seemingly chance encounter between Joseph and an unnamed man.

The traditional interpretation holds that the man is an angel. The text provides several clues as to his identity: first, the man finds Joseph, rather than the other way around, as though the man had been looking for Joseph; second, the Torah states ‘the man asked [Joseph], saying… (Va’y’shalayhu ha-ish laymor).’ In Sefer Beresheit, the combination of verbs derived from the roots shin-alef-lamed + alef-mem-resh usually refers to communication with a malakh, human or Divine (e.g. 24:47, 32:18, 32:30). Finally there is the curious exchange between Joseph and the man:

And [Joseph] said, “My brothers do I seek; tell me, please, where they are pasturing.” The man said: “They have journeyed on from here, for I heard them saying, ‘Let us go to Dothan.’” (37:16-17)

The man’s answer begins with a seemingly superfluous comment: ‘they have journeyed on from here.’ This is obvious! Rather, the man is conveying a secret to Joseph that only a Divine being could know: that they had ‘moved on from brotherhood with Joseph [for] they sought a legal basis to kill him’ (Rashi to 37:17.) Furthermore, the man knows exactly where the brothers are, even recounting a supposedly overheard conversation, without first asking Joseph for any further information as to the boys’ identity!

Oznaim LaTorah explains why Hashem sent an angel to Joseph. If He hadn’t done so, the narrative would have ground to a screeching halt right here in Chapter 37 of Beresheit. There would be no descent into Egypt, no enslavement, no redemption, and no Sinai! Instead, the Torah teaches that Hashem guides Israel to Sinai and beyond.

One more phrase in our text deserves comment. It is the angel’s wonderfully-phrased question to Joseph ‘what do you seek?’ (ma t’vakesh:) If we accept that the angel already knows that Joseph is seeking his brothers, why doesn’t he ask ‘whom do you seek?’ Perhaps the angel is actually asking Joseph a philosophical question. Perhaps he is asking the boy Joseph to tell us what he has planned for his life. Will he carry on lording it over his brothers like a spoiled child, or will he grow up and respect them as equals like a grown man ought to? Though the question is surely rhetorical, it must have sounded harsh to Joseph’s ears. Perhaps this is why the tradition identifies this angel as Gavriel, the angel of severity.

Vayishlach 5769

THE LAST KISS

A kiss is so commonplace that we take it for granted - a kiss hello or goodbye, or perhaps as a sign of affection. It is something we do every day. So, it is somewhat surprising that kissing is mentioned a mere 11 times in Torah. Eight of those times it involves Jacob and does not stem from affection or sincerity.

The first instance occurs while Jacob is in the process of deceiving his father. Isaac asks that Jacob lean over and kiss him so that he may smell the scent of his son to identify him. Jacob leans over to kiss Isaac in the hopes that Isaac will believe that Jacob is really Esau. The kiss is not an expression of love, but a gesture of deception. (Gen. 27:26-27.)

The next kiss is an impulsive act of a self-centered youth when Jacob first spies Rachel and kisses her (Gen. 29:11.) When Rachel brings Jacob home to her father Lavan, Lavan kisses Jacob (Gen. 29:13.) As the story develops, we know that there is no love lost between Jacob and Lavan. Their relationship is built on deception and lies.

At the end of 20 years of service to Lavan, Jacob is fleeing with his wives, his children and his flocks. Lavan pursues him and upon not finding the household idols that were stolen, he uses the excuse that he did not have the opportunity to kiss his daughters and grandsons goodbye (Gen. 31:28.) We don’t associate warmth or demonstrative emotion with Lavan, so when he kisses the family goodbye, we are not moved (Gen. 32:1.)

We arrive at the kiss in our parashah, Vayishlach. Jacob is sleep deprived. He has just wrestled with an angel. He has been injured. He is afraid of the coming reunion with Esau. Esau, on the other hand, has had 20 years to heal, to forgive, to grow and to prosper. He approaches the reunion with great enthusiasm. Esau runs to greet Jacob, embracing him, falling on his neck and kissing him (Gen. 33:4.) Here is the one sincere kiss offered to Jacob and Jacob does not know how to accept it. Jacob is cowering and addresses Esau in an ingratiating manner referring to himself as “your servant” and to Esau as “my lord.” When Esau urges Jacob to travel home with him, Jacob declines, saying that he will follow shortly thereafter. Instead of following, Jacob heads in the opposite direction.

It takes Jacob a long time before he can give or receive a kiss with emotional engagement and sincerity. It only happens after Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers, forgives them and kisses them (Gen. 45:15.) As Jacob’s life is coming to an end, he asks Joseph to bring his sons so that Jacob can bless them. Jacob’s last kiss is for his grandsons, Ephraim and Menashe, before he offers his last will and testament to his sons (Gen. 48:10.) As Jacob concludes this testament, he draws his last breath and is gathered to his people.

Joseph weeps over his father and lovingly places one final kiss on his lips (Gen. 50:1.)

Rabbi Nechama Goldberg

Vayeitze 5769

Angelology – Part II

And (Jacob) dreamed, and behold! A ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold angels of God ascending and descending on it (Beresheit 28:12).

Rashi: Ascending and descending: They ascend at first and others descend. Angels who accompany him in the land (of Israel) don’t go outside the land, and ascend to heaven. And angels descend outside the land to accompany him.

Rashbam: Ascending and descending: Understand it according to the plain sense. There is no need to fuss over who ascended or descended first, inasmuch as it is customary to mention ascent before descent.

Keter Jonathan: The two angels who had departed from the destruction of Sodom wandered from there to discover the secrets of the Master of the Universe. They wandered until Jacob left his father’s house. They accompanied him to Beit-El, and then ascended to Heaven. There they reported that they had seen Jacob the Chassid, and described him as the very image of the Throne of Glory. Thereupon God’s remaining holy angels desired to descend and observe him as well.

These commentaries deal with a difficulty in the text: If angels are heavenly beings, why does the Torah state that Jacob dreams of angels first ascending to heaven, and then descending to earth? All three commentators seek to explain how this may be so.

Rashi, based on Beresheit Rabbah 68:12, argues that angels change shifts at the border of Israel. There the Israeli angels ascend to heaven and the Canaanite angels descend take their place.

Rashbam scolds his grandfather Rashi for quibbling about word order. Of course angels start in heaven and return there from earth! The Torah is merely observing the derekh eretz (accepted practice) of mentioning ascent before descent. You don’t say “there and here”, or “that and this”, do you?

Keter Jonathan brings a midrash about two of the three angels who appeared to Abraham in Parashat Vayera (recall the first angel disappears after informing Sarah that she will have a baby.) It must be these two who climb the ladder in Jacob’s dream.

But what if the Torah said exactly what it meant? Jacob may have dreamed of heavenly angels walking on the earth, climbing to heaven via a ladder, and others climbing down afterwards! The Torah may be teaching that angels walked among the patriarchs, guiding them along the way to fulfilling the Divine plan.

And what about today: Do angels walk among us? Modern teachings, Jewish and non-Jewish, answer in the affirmative. Chassidic masters wrote of angels carrying our prayers up to heaven and preparing them to be presented before God. Filmmaker Wim Wenders imagined angels reading over our shoulders in libraries.

On the chance that the Chassidic masters were right, let’s pray for the wisdom to know an angel when we see one.

Toldot 5769

“And the children struggled together within her…” (Beresheit 25:22)

The twins Jacob and Esau are not merely struggling together. The verb the Torah uses here, va’yitrotzatzu, suggests they are struggling against one another. The root of the verb is resh-tzade, meaning “run”. The tzade is repeated, rendering the root resh-tzade-tzade. In ancient Hebrew, duplication of the second letter of a two-letter root suggests intensification. In this case, the verb is not only intensified, it is transformed from the intransitive “run” to the transitive “trample, crush, as underfoot.” The verb is presented in the hitpalel, or reflexive, form. This suggests that whatever the twins were doing, they were doing it to each other. A more literal translation of the verse gives “And the children crushed each other within her…”

Elsewhere in Tanakh, resh-tzade-tzade also suggests crushing, either real or metaphoric.

“…[A]nd you will be only cheated and downtrodden (ratzootz) all the days.” (Devarim 28:33)

“They broke and crushed (rotz’tzu) the children of Israel…” (Shoftim 10:8)

“You have relied on the support of this splintered (ratzootz) cane…” (M’lachim II 18:21)

“You crushed (ritzatzta) the head of Leviathan…” (Tehillim 74:14)

The Torah’s choice of a reflexive verb based on resh-tzade-tzade (crush) suggests that Jacob and Esau not only trampled each other with their feet inside of Rebecca, but that in so doing they also inflicted injuries on each other. In fact, their original injuries prefigure the injuries they will inflict on one another in life. Jacob humiliates Esau through the purchase of the latter’s birthright for a mess of pottage (25: 29-34.) Esau, via an angel, cripples Jacob during the wrestling match at the Wadi Jabbok (32:25-30.)

Jacob’s and Esau’s injuries never heal, and yet the two become brothers again. At the beginning of Chapter 33 they meet after years apart and weep in each other’s arms. At the end of Chapter 35, Jacob and Esau bury their father Isaac together.

The Jacob-Esau narratives teach that Teshuvah (return, or in this case reconciliation) is attainable even after a lifetime of epic fighting, injuring, and separation. How much more so is Teshuvah available to us after the relatively minor injuries we inflict on one another!