Stepping Up To Destiny--Vayigash

Stepping Up To Destiny

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayigash

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Stepping up to one’s destiny is the theme of this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash (Gen. 44:18-47:27).  It is in this portion that the story of Joseph and his brothers reaches its climax and conclusion.  It’s also here that the foundation for the rest of Israel’s story—its destiny of slavery and redemption—is laid.

The story of Vayigash picks up at the point where Joseph orders the arrest of Benjamin on the trumped-up charge of stealing Joseph’s Cup of Divination.  This is the ultimate test of the brothers’ honesty.  If they abandon Benjamin, they will be repeating history all over again.  Coming up with a way of saving him, however, might signal a new beginning, a chance for healing and redemption.

It is Judah’s place to speak up; he was the one, after all, who came up with the idea of selling Joseph to slavery in the first place.  Through the years, however, he has matured.  He has come to understand the results of his treachery.  He has seen the fall of the family, the sorrow that flowed unabated from Jacob, the guilt that spread like a poison among them all.  The death of two of his own sons taught him to understand a father’s grief.  His guilty conscience could bear no more.  Vayigash Yehuda, and so Judah stepped up.  Mustering all his courage, overcoming misery and despair, Judah approaches Joseph and lays his heart open before him:  “For how will I go up to my father if the boy is not with me? Let me not see the misery that will befall my father!" (Gen. 44:34). 

It is at this point that Joseph breaks down and tearfully reveals his true identity to his brothers.

It is a heartbreaking moment.  As the carefully built dam of forgetfulness gives way and collapses, a flood of repressed memories and emotions rushes and overcomes Joseph.  Joseph forgives his brothers and commands them to bring their father Jacob and his whole household down to Egypt, promising to settle them in the fertile region called Goshen, where he will sustain and take care of them all.

Without a moment’s hesitation, as he receives the news that Joseph is alive and well, Jacob leaves his homeland for the second and last time.  He knows he will never return—at least not during his lifetime.  Yet the chance to see Joseph one last time more than compensates for any sadness he might be feeling. 

Encouraged by God, Jacob sets Judah at the head of the procession, l’horot l’fanav, “to show the way before him to Goshen” (Gen. 46:28).  Jacob’s gesture shows his full confidence and regained trust in Judah.  But the literal meaning of l’horot, showing direction, is amplified by an early (3^rd century) Rabbinic midrash, which teaches that Jacob’s intention was for Judah “to establish a house of study for him, from which teaching [l’horot Torah] would emanate.”

Judah’s future role in Israel’s history is thus set in its twin purposes: to lead and to teach.  This is indeed the Judah whose –ism Jews have been following for over 3000 years.  Starting from deep depravity, Judah has found his way and come to find new purpose and meaning in life.  For Judah, stepping up to his historic role was an individual act of contrition, a deeply personal act of acceptance of responsibility.  For his brothers and for the nation that would follow him, this act would forever serve as an example and a teaching.  When called upon, we step up; when needed, we respond.

As for Joseph, however, the story leads to a different ending.  Having fulfilled his mission of reuniting and saving the family, Joseph returns to his first calling—the quest for fame and glory.  As the famine continues unabated, Joseph exacts any and all payment for the food he rations out.  When the money runs out, he takes work animals as compensation, then land and homes.  Finally, when all the wealth that could possibly be collected is gone, he takes the people themselves as slaves.  All Egypt becomes, quite literally, Pharaoh’s possession.

Ironically, Joseph, too, fulfills the task he was called upon to accomplish.  But whereas Judah’s “stepping up” will ultimately lead to redemption and freedom, Joseph’s acts lead to enslavement, followed by social upheaval, revolution, and finally to disaster.

Greatness is the consequence of the choices we make—to be there for one another, or selfishly to seek and accumulate wealth, power and glory, to fill our own coffers at the expense of everyone else.  History is the ultimate judge.

But for the time being, the Israelites in Goshen grow numerous and successful; they multiply and are fruitful. 

And so the scene is set for the next act is Israel’s long journey through history.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

Praying for Second Chances--Mikeitz

Praying for Second Chances

D’var Torah for Parashat Mikeitz

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

Dedicated to the memories of the children and adults murdered in Newtown, CT

It’s even hard to begin.  How does one reconcile Torah with the awful events that have taken place this day?  For if there’s one thing—and one thing only—that is eternal and never changing, it is the Torah.  But life can change.  It can change in a minute.

For some 30 families in Newtown, CT, Chanukah and Christmas will never be happy again.

The cheer of this season, the lights and colors—they are dimmed for all of us today because of the shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, because of the many innocent lives that were snuffed out like so many candles.

In the terrible sadness that this tragedy brings to us all, perhaps Torah can serve by shedding some light.  It almost seems right, at this point in our telling of the story of Joseph, to understand how brother can turn against brother, how jealousy can turn to hate, how years of repressed anger can turn to murderous rage. 

But, also from the story Joseph and his brothers, we can learn that it’s possible to overcome this smoldering yearning for revenge, to transcend the hate, to stop the wreck before it happens and, perhaps, begin again. 

As the news of the school shooting in Connecticut unfolds, there’s already talk about the person who may have committed such a heinous act.  What sort of deranged mind could even conceive of such a horror?

One commentator proposed a PTSD explanation.

 

Posttraumatic Stress Syndrome.  This all-inclusive term covers much.  It is a syndrome—a process that begins somewhere, with some experience that transforms its bearer.  It’s a chain reaction of physical and psychological consequences, like some sort of Rube Goldberg machine that sets in motion a whole series of events.

Traumas—the emotional as well as physical injuries that sometimes trigger such  reactions—never fail to change us in some way or another.  The man that Joseph’s brothers encountered in Egypt was not the Joseph they had sold as a boy to a caravan of slave traders some 20 years earlier.  He was transformed in character and essence.  That he was no longer a boy was only the tip of the iceberg.  From slave, he had become second only to Pharaoh; from forgotten captive in a dank dungeon, he turned to the second most powerful man in the world.

Inwardly, too, Joseph had changed.  Gone was his naiveté.  Deeper and darker passions conflicted within him.  Along with power came pride and arrogance.  After all, he knew, didn’t he, that one day the world would come to recognize him for his greatness!  But simultaneously, seething within him was also anger at the supposed brothers who had trapped him, mistreated him, tore him from his pleasant childhood and cast him at the feet and mercy of slave traders.  He was angry with his father, who seemingly had set him up for this betrayal to begin with.  He was angry with a God who had promised him greatness but never mentioned suffering.

As this week’s parasha (Mikeitz, Genesis 41:1—44:17) begins, Joseph reaches the zenith of his glory and power.  And it is exactly at this moment, too, that his brothers appear at the doorway to his opulent palace, asking to purchase sustenance.  It’s a dangerous intersection in anyone’s life, when we find ourselves able to do almost anything we had ever wanted to do.

What was Joseph’s first reaction at that moment?

How does a whole lifetime of putting up elaborate façades crumble at the onrush of one’s past?  Can anything withstand the repressed memories, the pain, the rage and the hate that all converge at that exact moment?

Joseph could have had them all killed in an instant without a word of protest.  He could have thrown them into a pit as they did him, or sold them as slaves and sent them in galleys to the farthest ends of the world.

What changed his mind at that fateful instant?  What stayed his hand?

Some say that Joseph’s next acts were devious.  He was playing with his victims.  He teased them with his supposed magical ability to tell things about them that only they could know about—such as about fathers and sons, and brothers, and trust, and lying, and selling one’s brother to slavery.

Others would say that Joseph was really wrestling with his memories.  As the terrible events of that day, frozen in darkness for so long, now awakened inside him, he could have exacted revenge at any moment.  But, instead, even as he accused his brothers of being spies, he was also searching their hearts for a higher truth.  While waging battle with feelings and emotions, Joseph gave his brothers a chance to tell the truth, to come clean, to make things right again.

Our choices determine the course of our lives.  Giving the other person the benefit of the doubt rather than expressing certainty of their guilt can change things and turn them around.  Joseph’s delay of judgment, his decision to give his brothers a second chance, triggers yet another positive reaction.  Back at home again, the brothers tell their father, Jacob, that they cannot return to Egypt without their youngest brother, Benjamin.  To Jacob’s objections, Judah offers to protect Benjamin; he pledges himself to ensure that no harm would come to the child.

You see, in the end it comes down to the children.  Whether we protect them, shelter them and shield them from harm, or cause them pain and hurt instead—that is the true test of our worth.

Who has changed the most in this story?  Was it Joseph or Judah, the brother who had suggested selling Joseph to the slave traders in the first place and who now offers to do things differently and infinitely better?

Does it matter?

 

What really matters is that we learn that we have a higher obligation than merely taking care of ourselves.  Joseph inherently understands the lesson no matter how deep the pain, we must control our anger.  No matter how profound the trauma, we must learn to see beyond ourselves, beyond our own needs, and turn instead to the greater good.

It is this understanding that stops Joseph from harming his brothers.  He remembers his father, his dead mother, Rachel, and his younger brother, Benjamin.  At that moment he knows for a fact that he has yet one more thing to do in life, and that is to protect them from further hurt.  His sense of love and obligation win over his selfish and short-sighted urge for personal gratification.

In Judah’s case, it was his realization of how much grief his past deeds had caused, and the   understanding he suddenly had that it was in his power to salvage some of the past.  At the critical moment, Judah realizes that it is yet in his power to turn events for the better, that he was given the gift of a second chance, and that that which he had broken, he now had a chance to fix.

But stories are only that.  They have a beginning, middle and an end.  Good stories contain lessons, not only adventures, and as far as that goes, the story of Joseph and his Brothers is a wonderful story.

But life is another matter altogether.  There are few neat endings.  From events such as today’s shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School we do not recover.  There is no ending to the grief.  All we can do is offer compassion and consolation to the families of the killed and wounded—and, really, to us all.  Because the senseless deaths of children hurts us all.  It shatters our sense of shelter and security.  It undermines our reason for existence as a species. 

Tonight we can only pray for second chances, for the hope that, somehow, we’ll be able to begin again despite the pain, that there will somehow be a less tragic ending to this story too.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

Joseph’s Fall--Vayeishev

Joseph’s Fall

D’var Torah for Parashat Vayeishev

By Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

The many twists and ironies of Vayeishev, this week’s Torah portion (Gen. 37:1—40:23), will lead up to the happy ending of Genesis.  This is the beginning of the story of Joseph and his brothers, a story of betrayal and treachery, of devastating grief for Jacob—who has already seen so much.  But it’s also a story of redemption and happy reunions, of cruel tests and cruel people who have to learn all about compassion and responsibility.

We are familiar with the general storyline.  Jacob favors Joseph above all his other sons; after all, Joseph is the first born of Rachel, whom Jacob loved and pined for, the same Rachel who died in giving birth to Benjamin, Jacob’s twelfth and last son.  Loved and cherished above all his brothers,  Joseph grows up knowing he can do no wrong.  He tells on his brothers and in return is rewarded by Jacob with a splendid tunic.

Like Jacob, Joseph is a dreamer, which is an additional connection between father and son.  But Joseph’s dreams are not of angels climbing up to heaven; they’re about him, enthroned above all his brothers.

One day, as Jacob sends Joseph to inquire after his brothers—as shepherds they wandered from place to place—they see him from a distance and decide to kill him.  Reuben, the first born of the twelve brothers, shows a measure of compassion and suggests casting Joseph into a pit instead of killing him outright.  He hopes to save the boy later but, at least for now, walks away.

Meanwhile, a caravan of traders approaches, and Judah (the same Judah whose –ism, whose teaching, we follow today) has the brilliant idea of selling Joseph to the traders.  After all, Judah reasons, what would killing the boy achieve?  If they sell him to the traders, however, they would be rid of him and even get some money back for their trouble.  They could always come up with some bloody story to tell Jacob.  If he believes them, good and well; if he doesn’t—oh well, he’s an old man anyway; he won’t be around forever either.

Joseph, as we know, is sold as slave to Poitphar, a high ranking officer in Pharaoh’s court.  Joseph is successful (did we mention he was very handsome?) and Potiphar pretty much gives him the run of the house. 

One day, Potiphar’s lusty wife tries to seduce Joseph.  Joseph, of course, rebuffs her.  Some rabbinic commentators say that every time Joseph felt the urge to give in to her entreaties, an image of his reproving father Jacob came to him, strengthening his resolve.  At last Joseph manages to escape—albeit without his tunic, however, which remains as evidence of what supposedly he tried to do to his master’s wife. 

In a fit of wrath, Potiphar throws Joseph into the dungeon.  But even here Joseph is successful.  He gains the trust of the jail keeper and achieves some fame as an interpreter of dreams. 

The portion ends after Joseph correctly predicts—from dreams they tell him—the hanging of one of Pharaoh’s imprisoned officers and the pardoning of another. 

Joseph asks the redeemed officer to remember him, but the man, in the flush of freedom and luxury, forgets all about Joseph, and our hero remains languishing in the prison.  

As the story will develop, so will its characters—and here lie the depth of this tale and the many lessons and morals it has to teach.  Suffice it to say that an unlikely hero will emerge to save the day.  But the time for that has not yet come.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman

29 November: A Day To Remember

29 November:  A Day To Remember

Rabbi Boaz D. Heilman

In their dark and cold cells at the Nazi-run prison in the city of Pesc, Hungary, the three inmates—two men and a woman—probably didn’t sleep all night.  Scheduled to be hanged the next morning, they must have spent their final hours reflecting on what they had succeeded in doing—saving hundreds of Jewish lives—and what they failed:  to save themselves.  In those last moments, they probably thought of their families and of the many friends who would now have to complete their journey to safety on their own, without the crucial help only these three could provide.

But there was nothing else they could do.  And so, counting the hours and minutes, they waited for the executioner.  It was the night of November 28, 1944.

Three years later, the United Nations took an historic vote.  On the table was a plan to partition the land that the world called “Palestine,” a land Jews never stopped calling “Eretz Yisrael”—the Land of Israel.  Years earlier, at the end of World War One, the British were awarded a mandate over that part of what used to be the Turkish Ottoman Empire.  The British announced their intent to create a homeland for the Jews within the borders of that land.  Chopping one piece of it after another, they finally came up with a patchwork map organized around Moslem and Jewish centers of population. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations voted to approve the partition of the Land of Israel according to this map.  The United States cast the deciding vote for partition.  Israel accepted.  The Arabs, however, refused to recognize the vote and declared their intention to destroy any Jewish state that would arise on what they considered Moslem property. 

The day after Israel declared its independence, armies from seven Arab countries attacked the fledgling state.  They were repulsed, but that did not stop them.  They tried again and again, in 1956, 1967 and 1973.  Defeated in full out war, they did not give up and turned to other violent means:  Terrorism, suicide bombings, two intifadas and a handful of limited, “regional” wars. 

Then came the thousands of Katyusha and Kassam rockets fired from Lebanon and Gaza, followed more recently by the longer-range Fajr 5 missiles that reached the outskirts of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem.

Still the Arabs failed.  And so they turned to legal battles. 

Last week, on November 29, ironically the same date as the 1947 vote on the first Partition of the Land of Israel, the United Nations took another vote, this time voting to upgrade the status of the Palestinian Authority to that of observer state.  Yet one more step toward the legitimization of the Arabs’ murderous claims on Jews and the Jewish homeland in Israel. 

The diplomatic victory that this vote represents was celebrated throughout the Arab world—and, sadly, in many western capitals as well.  Its clear meaning is that the Arabs are now one step closer to their sworn goal of destroying Israel.  Though not quite a full-fledged state, “Palestine” can now join the World Court and sue Israel on any number of “war crimes.”  Forget the indiscriminate firing of rockets into Israeli civilian population centers; forget the suicide bombings of homes, restaurants and synagogues.  Forget even the Iranian-funded and planned attacks on embassies, schools and Jewish community centers in California, Buenos Aires and elsewhere.  It’s Israel’s “crimes” that the world, led by Arabs, the world’s worst violators of human rights, will see fit to judge.

Israel’s reaction to the UN vote—announcing the building of more housing units in disputed areas—is probably the most peaceful protest against this injustice that Israel could make.  It could, of course, follow the example set by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt—assaulting and raping protesters in Tahrir Square.  It could engage in the kind of war Syria’s dictator Assad is waging against his own people. Israel could indiscriminately bomb the civilians population centers where Hamas and Hezbollah hide the weapons they aim and shoot against Israeli towns and schools.  But Israel won’t.  For Israel lives and fights by a different standard of morals and values.  Israel respects the lives of innocent men, women and children—especially those who have been exploited, abused and kept in ignorance and abject poverty for decades now by their own Arab leaders. 

Israel believes in justice and compassion, often willing to pay a high price in following its ideals.

But Israel is not suicidal. 

Israel knows better than to show weakness.  The long history of Jewish life in the Diaspora has taught us that perceived weakness is an excuse for further and ever-more violent attacks.  If the Palestinians want a piece of the Land of Israel, they need to make peace with Israel and recognize the legitimacy of Jewish presence in its own historical homeland, something they have adamantly refused to do so far.  Israel has repeatedly given up land, most recently withdrawing from the entire Gaza Strip without any reciprocal commitment to peace.  What Israel got in return was thousands of rockets fired at her.  Israel will not repeat this mistake.  Land for peace is its current philosophy.  Sophisticated attempts at grabbing pieces of Israel in the halls of the UN and the world court will only be met by more settlements and the building of more housing units.  It’s a clear message.

Languishing in prison, the three Jewish heroes imprisoned by the Nazis for trying to save Jewish lives awaited their execution.  Instead, miraculously, on November 29, 1944, on the very day set for their execution, the Russians liberated Pesc and freed the prisoners.  Danusha Firstenberg (now Deena Gilboa), Oleg Gutman (Gatmon) of blessed memory and Emil Brigg of blessed memory, three heroes, members of a Zionist youth group of which my mother was also a member, made their way to Israel and helped found, establish and secure the State of Israel.  Starting new lives and families, they set the date of their liberation (coincidentally also Danusha’s birthday) as a day of annual celebration, a get-together of all those youth group members who survived.  They, their children, grandchildren and now great-grandchildren, have been gathering on that day year after year now to tell and retell the stories of heroism, to celebrate their survival and to repeat the oath they took: that Jews will never again allow themselves to be led to the slaughter without armed resistance.

November 29—a day to remember; a day to repeat this oath of Jewish survival despite all obstacles.

©2012 by Boaz D. Heilman