PARSHAS VAYIGASH 5781

 

STAM TORAH

PARSHAS VAYIGASH 5781[1]

“DEEPEST OF THE DEEP”

 

Dedicated
l’refuah shleimah for נטע
יצחק בן רחל

 

          Yeshivas Eitz Chaim, the famed Volozhiner Yeshiva, was founded in 1806 by Rav Chaim of Volozhin, a noted disciple of the Vilna Gaon.
It was the mother of all Lithuanian Yeshivos.

          During the mid-1850s a contentious debate broke out in the
yeshiva about who should be Rosh Yeshiva. The two candidates were Rav Naftali
Zvi Yehudah Berlin (The Netziv) and Rav Yosef Dov Halevi Soloveitchik (The Beis
HaLevi).

          At the time, they both delivered shiurim in the Yeshiva.
They had very distinct styles of learning and different groups of students
rallied around each of them. The Netziv was a ‘baki’, who had brilliant
encyclopedic knowledge of virtually all sources of Torah learning. The Beis
haLevi was more of a ‘charif’, known for his sharp and incisive
analysis.

          Four
great Lithuanian rabbis were invited to adjudicate, including Rabbi Yitzchak
Elchonon Spektor, Rabbi Dovid Tevele Minsker and the Vilna Maggid.

          Before the proceedings began, the Vilna Maggid addressed
the assemblage and began: “Today we find ourselves involved in the story of
Parshas Vayeshev.” This remark immediately drew everyone’s attention because it
was the end of the month of Tishrei, and nowhere near the week of Parshas
Vayeshev.

          The Maggid continued: “I am a Maggid and I teach life
lessons based on the weekly parsha. During the weeks when Sefer Bereishis is read, it is easy to teach lessons
from the parsha by depicting who is the hero and who is the antagonist.

          “In Parshas Bereishis, Adam and Chava are in opposition
with the Snake, and Kayin is at odds with Hevel. In Parshas Noach, Noach stands
up to his generation. In Lech Lecha, it is Avraham Avinu against Pharaoh. In
Vayera, Avraham Avinu contends with Lot and deals with Avmelech. In Chayei
Sarah, Avraham deals with Ephron, in Toldos, Yaakov vies with Eisav, and in Vayeitzei, Yaakov lives in the home of Lavan.

          “However, in Parshas Vayeshev, I find myself at a loss
because there it is not good against evil. There both sides – Yosef and his
brothers – are wholly righteous. It is impossible to take sides regarding who
is right and who is wrong.

           “Today we find
ourselves in a situation comparable to Parshas Vayeshev for both the Netziv and
Bais HaLevi are great tzaddikim. That’s what makes this case so challenging.”[2]

 

          Rabbi
Aharon Kotler was once asked how the story of Yosef should be taught to
children. Rabbi Aharon keenly replied, “And how do you teach it to
adults?”

          If someone were to ask what the most difficult parshios in
the Torah are, one might reply that parshios Tazria and Metzora are the most
complex, because they deal with the intricate laws of tzara’as with which we
are so unfamiliar. Or one might say that parshas Mishpatim with its vast laws
of monetary responsibilities and obligations is the most difficult.

          However,
in a sense, the parshios of Vayeshev, Miketz, and Vayigash are the most difficult
parshios in the Torah. The commentaries expend great effort to explain what truly
occurred between Yosef and the brothers, beneath and beyond the surface of the
text.  

          Years
after I had left his class, I was speaking to my wonderful second grade Rebbe,
Rav Chaim Trenk. He commented that we teach young children the stories of the
Torah as we must, to develop a foundation of Torah within them. But then, it
takes a lifetime to undo the childish pictures we conjure in our minds of those
stories. Tragically, many people retain those childish images, notions, and
ideas about the stories in the Torah throughout their lives.

            Picture the following story[3]:
Yasir Arafat has a disturbing dream. He summons all his Moslem advisors, but
none can offer him a satisfactory interpretation. One of his chief advisors suddenly
recalls that, when he was imprisoned by Arafat, he met a forsaken Jew who successfully
interpreted his own dream. The Jew had been jailed years earlier for the
serious crime of trying to violate the wife of one of Arafat’s chief
executives.

          As
soon as Arafat hears about the Jew, he has the Jew hoisted out of prison and
brought before him. The Jew successfully explains to Arafat the significance of
his dream and is promoted to second-in-command to Arafat.

          This
wild story is not too different from what transpired to Yosef. When the
brothers came down to Egypt, Yosef could not eat with them at the same table because
it was repulsive for an Egyptian to eat with a Jew. Clearly, the Jews were
regarded as inferior to the Egyptians. Yet, Yosef – a Jew – became viceroy of
the greatest superpower of the ancient world. The entire world must have known
the story of the Jew who became viceroy of Egypt. It must have been on the
front cover of every newspaper and the subject of every blog. Yet, the brothers
did not even suspect that this man was Yosef.

         

          When
reading these parshios, there are many questions left unanswered.

          For
example, after Yosef revealed himself, what did he say, and what did they say?
Did Yosef ever tell them how he became the viceroy? Did the brothers ever tell Yosef
why they sold him? In addition, the Torah doesn’t tell us if Ya’akov ever found
out the whole story and if he did what his reaction was.

          My
rebbe, Rabbi Berel Wein, notes that, at one point, there was a commodity in the
United States called ‘paint by numbers’. A person purchased a canvas and followed
directions as he painted. The number one was to be painted blue, so wherever it
said one he painted blue. The number two was to be painted red, so wherever it
said two he painted red.

          When
the amateur was done, he didn’t exactly have a Rembrandt. But he did have a nice
picture that he was involved in creating.

          There
are countless life lessons to be gleaned from the story of Yosef. Perhaps
that’s exactly why the Torah doesn’t tell us all of the details, so that we can
fill in the blanks. The Torah is painting by number, as it were, so that we can
‘fill it in’, by extrapolating lessons, through seeing how these stories speak
to us in our daily lives.  

          In
a sense, the Torah records these parshios to be like the psychological
Rorschach test. When someone is given a Rorschach test, he is shown a blot of
ink and asked what he sees. It’s just a blot of ink, but everyone sees
something different, and what one sees reflects upon himself.

          The
Torah presents the story and asks us to answer what we see and how the lessons
of these great men apply to us.

          Rabbi
Wein added that part of the problem of contemporary chinuch is that we teach children
explanations of certain commentaries when they are young, and for the rest of
their lives they think it is the only explanation.

          This
may be a story that a five-year old can understand, but it’s not a story written
for a five-year-old mind. ”זה ספר תולדות אדם
– This is the book of the generations of man”[4]; everyone
has to see lessons that are applicable to himself.

    

          After
Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, he instructs them to go directly back
to Cana’an and, אל תרגזו בדרך – don’t tarry along the way[5].

           תרגזו has a connotation of anger or frustration. In Yiddish, when
people say someone is ‘broygez’ it means they are consumed with anger,
and often can become nasty.

          Yosef told the
brothers not to discuss how they sold him so that they shouldn’t get into the
blame game. 

          Menachem Zion[6] offers
another explanation: The word derech mean road/way. אל תרגזו בדרך means don’t be angry
about the way G-d brought this about. He did it להחיות עם רב  – to bring life to millions of people, and
ultimately the family will be reunited. Yosef told them not to be angry that it
happened in a way they didn’t like.

          Rabbi Wein notes
that much of the Torah world is angry about ‘the way it happened’, particularly
regarding the Jewish People’s return to Eretz Yisroel in 1948 and beyond. We
thought the Chofetz Chaim was supposed to bring us back, not Ben-Gurion.

          Yosef told them not
to be angry about the way things happened. G-d has his reasons and His plans
and it’s not up to us to decide whether it should have happened that way or
not. Our job is to figure out how to best react and proceed with what G-d has
brought about. There were numerous different ways we could have gone down to
Egypt, and numerous ways Egypt could have been saved from the famine. But this
is how G-d chose to make it happen.

          It’s a vital
lesson for life.

          Yosef told them
not to fall into that trap. Look at what is, not at how we got here.

          This is another
one of the timeless lessons that this parsha teaches us about our outlook and
lives. A story that happened so long ago and yet reverberates as if it happened
yesterday, and tomorrow!

 

          “Don’t tarry along/about the way”

          “This
is the book of the generations of man”

 

 Rabbi Dani Staum

stamtorah@gmail.com