CHOCHMAS NASHIM: VAYIGASH: Auld Lang Syne
By: Lenore Suri Davis
The unfolding story of Joseph and his brothers. We see this week the very moving story of how Joseph can no longer keep his identity secret from his brothers, and he reveals himself. Wanting to save them from regret or remorse, he immediately states, that it is G-d who sent him to Egypt so that he could save his family and the entire region during the famine. Joseph already worked out the story in his mind. Kind creates the refuah/the medication before the makah/the illness.
G-d knew there would be a famine, and that Jacob’s family would need to be sustained, so He went through the story of the jealousy, the pit, the selling to merchants, the house servant to Potiphar, jail and finally viceroy to Pharaoh just for the purpose of preventing the family of Jacob from starving during the famine. Couldn’t G-d have found an easier, more positive way, for Joseph to make it to Egypt?
Last week, we see that Joseph told his brothers that if they wanted further food from him, they would have to bring their brother Benjamin with them. At first, Jacob refuses to permit Benjamin to return to Egypt with the brothers, but the situation became dire, and Benjamin was brought to Egypt for the purpose of permitting the brothers to get food.
Joseph entraps Benjamin with a goblet and throws Benjamin in jail. Why all these machinations by Joseph? Why doesn’t he reveal himself immediately to his brothers. Is he trying to torture them, as they tried to torture him by throwing him in a pit and selling him to merchants. Is it pithy nekamah, retribution?
And we all know the end to the story of Jacob and his family coming down to Egypt, they become enslaved for 210 years, so was it really fortuitous for Joseph to become Viceroy and for Jacob’s family to settle in Egypt?
When Benjamin was taken from his brothers, Reuvain recognized that this was a punishment from G-d for what they did to Joseph. He told this to his brothers and they repented. If Joseph had not taken Benjamin from them, they would not have done this repentance that was necessary in order to benefit from what was to come after through Joseph’s beneficence. Just because all is from G-d does not mean that those who do evil do not have to repent.
But as the Lubavitcher Rebbe states in his Likutei Sichos vol. 5, p.247, it is also why we don’t seek revenge from one who does evil to us for they are merely a messenger of G-d.
Each negative occurrence from being thrown into the pit, to being thrown into jail, to having Benjamin taken from the brothers, represents a hardship which is an opportunity for individual growth. In times of trouble, more than when things are good, people turn to G-d for help and inspiration, and it is at these moments that we have an opportunity to grow.
We see it at the culmination when the Jews are enslaved for 210, and the process of slavery is called the Kur Habarzel, the iron refinery, where the Jews refined their entity becoming a unified nation capable of receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai.
We all wish for the easier path, this year was a test for us all. A test of grit, a time to figure out how to grow, show unity and get closer to G-d. It appears that even the closure of the epidemic will require not one, but two vaccines, a booster…a test of consistency and tenacity.
The Parshah is Vayigash, and he approached. It is a time for us to approach each other, remember that we are all brothers, strengthen our unity for the sake of the ultimate redemption.
Have a meaningful fast, a commemoration of the time when our enemies besieged Jerusalem, as their first step in destroying the holy temple.
Have a holy Shabbos.
-Suri