A.
וישב יעקב בארץ מגורי אביו בארץ כנען: אלה תלדות יעקב יוסף בן שבע עשרה שנה הי' וגו'(“And Ya‘aqov settled in the land of his father’s sojourns [mëgurei aviv] in the land of Këna‘an. These are the fruits of Ya‘aqov: Yosef was seventeen years old....”). So begins our parasha.
Rashi comments on the above, following the midrash (בראשית רבה פ"ד סי' ג'): בקש יעקב לישב בשלוה קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף צדיקים מבקשים לישב בשלוה אמר הקב"ה לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמתוקן להם לעוה"ב אלא שמבקשים לישב בשלוה בעוה"ז (“Ya‘aqov sought to live in tranquility; the outrage of Yosef sprang upon him. Do tzaddiqim seek to dwell in tranquility? Said the Holy One, Blessed is He: it is not enough for the tzaddiqim what is in store for them in the world to come, but they seek to live in tranquility in this world”).
The midrash puts us in mind of King Shëlomo’s assertion: יש צדיקים אשר מגיע אליהם כמעשה הרשכים (There are tzaddiqim to whom it happens according to the deeds of rësha‘im”; Ecclesiastes VIII, 14) on which Rava famously asks in the Talmud: וכי סני לצדיקי דאכלי תרי עלמא (“Is it hateful for tzaddiqim who enjoy the fruits of both worlds?”; הוריות י:).
Apparently it makes a difference to G-d if tzaddiqim are well off in both worlds; why should that be, especially in light of Rambam’s pësaq (הל' תשובה פ"ט הל' א') that the purpose of the good things of this world is so that the tzaddiqim are free to concentrate on Divine service? It would appear that tzaddiqim should dwell in tranquility in this world!
B.
The great Rabbi Aryeh Yëhuda Leibush ha-Lévi Epstein זצוק"ל proposes in his Birkath Tov to answer our question by carefully examining the wording of our passage. “In the land of his father’s sojourns, in the land of Këna‘an”; why does the Torah find this repetition necessary, given that we already know not only that Yitzchaq dwelt in the Holy Land but was indeed the only one of the Patriarchs never to have left it?
The Rebbe considers this reason to reëxamine the word mëgurei as meaning not temporarily staying in one place or another (hithgorér), but rather magor, “fear” (cf., e.g., Jeremiah VI, 25 and XX, 3; Psalms XXXI, 14; and especially Lamentations II, 22, where the word occurs in the construct plural, mëgurei), seeing in this an allusion to Yitzchaq’s defining characteristic, his G-d-fearingness (ופחד יצחק, Genesis XXXI, 42), which the Zohar defines as the clear and certain knowledge דאית דין ואית דיין, “that there is judgment and a Judge”; ח"א ע"ב. פ"ז:).
A retrospective of Ya‘aqov’s career ere now reveals a life filled with considerable hardship: He was forced to flee from his home by his evil brother ‘Esav (XXVII, 42-45), after which he confronted his no less evil father-in-law, Lavan (XXIX, 1 - XXXII, 1). On his triumphant return to the Holy Land from Paddan Aram, Ya‘aqov again faced the challenge of his brother, first in the metaphysical struggle with his sar, his “guardian angel” at the River Yabboq, and then in the physical confrontation with ‘Esav himself (XXXII, 4 - XXXIII, 33), followed by the rape of his daughter Dina (XXXIV, 1-31) and the premature death of his beloved wife, Rachel (XXXV, 19-20).
Having thus been “through the mill” and emerged unscathed (XXXI, 5, Rashi ad loc.; עם לבן גרתי ותרי"ג מצות שמרתי, “I stayed with Lavan and nonetheless observed the 613 mitzvoth”), one might perceive that Ya‘aqov felt himself ready to inhabit the space which his father had earned through his willingness to be sacrificed at the ‘aqeida, in the Rebbe’s words, שרצה לאחוז במדת גודל היראה והפחד מדת אביו יצחק "בארץ כנען", שגם ארץ ישראל מסודל לכך כמ"ש "תמיד עיני ד' אלקיך בה" וגו' וכנע"ן ראשי תיבות "כנור נעים עם נבל", "עם נבל" מרמז על "עם נבל ולא חכם" (“for he wished to grasp the quality of the greatness of fear and awe, the quality of his father Yitzchaq ‘in the land of Këna‘an’, for which Eretz Yisra’él is especially suited, as it is written, ‘the eyes of Ha-Shem your G-d are always upon it’ ]Deuteronomy XI, 12]; as well, Këna‘an is composed of the initials of kinnor na‘im ‘im navel [‘a pleasant harp with a lute’; Psalms LXXX, 3], and ‘im navel allides to ‘am naval vë-lo’ chacham [‘foolish and unwise people’; Deuteronomy XXXII, 6]”), going on to find in the word naval an allusion to the lamed-béyth nëthivoth ha-chochma, (“32 paths of wisdom”), that he wished, in other words, to be left in peace to concentrate on Torah u-mitzvoth, on his Divine service.
But such peaceful contemplation is part of the next world, not this one; the here and now is not the time or place for this, for the correction and perfection of the world is still so very far from complete, and who else but the tzaddiqim must lead the way: וזהו הכההנה "לא דיין לצדיקים מה שמתוקן להם לעולם הבא", שראה הקב"ה שהצדיקים אין די ומספיק להם זה הדבר שצד הקדושה והשלוה הוא לעולם הבא ורק שמשתוקקים ומבקשים וחפצים שצד הקדושה יהי' להם ישיבה ונטיעה גם בעולם הזה ולכן למלאות רצונם "קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף" ועל ידי זה יגרום להוציא נצוצות הקדושה ושיהי' גמר התקון כו' כמו שעקר הבריאה היתה על דעת כן וכמו שנאמר "ומלאה הארץ דעה" שהארץ הגשמיות תתמלא בדעת והשכל וכולם ידעו את ד' למקטנים ועד גדולים וגו' (“and this is the meaning of ‘it is not enough for the tzaddiqim what is laid up for them in the next world’, for the Holy One, Blessed is He, saw that it is not enough and satisfactory for the tzaddiqim this thing that the side of sanctity and tranquility be in the next world, but they yearn and seek and desire that the side of sanctity be for them a dwelling implanted also in this world; and therefore, to fulfill their will ‘the outrage of Yosef sprang upon him’. that through this the sparks of sanctity would be brought forth and the completion of the correction would take place... as was the main point of the Creation, and as it is said, ‘and the earth will be filled with knowledge’ [Isaiah XI, 9], that the earth, the essence of materialism, will be filled with knowledge and enlightenment, and all will know Ha-Shem from the lowly to the great [cf. Jeremiah XXXI, 33]”).
It required the crucible of the Egyptian exile to prepare Israel for receipt of the Torah, the beginning of the “correction and perfection” of which the Rebbe speaks.
C.
His grandson and heir to the throne of Ozherov, Rabbi Moshe Yëchi’él, brings out in his Bë’er Moshe another aspect of the “outrage of Yoséf,” explaining the midrashic assertion cited by Rashi supra that tzaddiqim are not satisfied only with the world to come as simple fact and their just desserts, such that בגלל זה סבבו משמים שימכרו את יוסף במו שאמר יוסף לאחיו "וישלחני אלקים לפניכם" וכו' ונפלא בזה הבנת הלשון "קפץ עליו" כי מצינו בזוה"ק שיעקב חי במצרים י"ז שנה כנגד מה שיוסף הי' בן י"ז כשנמכר ויעקב הי' בוכה בכל יום על אותן י"ז השנים כו' ולפיכך קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף כי לשם קיום גזירת גלות מצרים לא הי' אולי צורך למהר אך בגלל טו"ב השנים של יעקב הוצרך לזרז מכירת יוסף ולכן "קפץ עליו" רוגזו במהירות ובחפזון (“For this reason it was arranged in Heaven that they would sell Yoséf, as Yoséf told his brothers, ‘And G-d sent me before you....’ [Genesis XLV, 7], and so the meaning of ‘it sprang upon him’ can be understood wonderfully, for we find in the Holy Zohar [ח"א רט"ז:] that Ya‘aqov lived in Egypt 17 years apposite the fact that Yoséf was 17 years old when he was sold, and Ya‘aqov would weep every day over those 17 years... and therefore the outrage of Yoséf sprang upon him, for in order to fulfill the decree of the Egyptian exile it was not necessary, perhaps, to hasten, but for the sake of Ya‘aqov’s 17 good years [the numerical value of the word tov, ‘good’, is 17] it was necessary to hasten the sale of Yoséf, and therefore ‘the outrage of Yoséf sprang upon him’ suddenly and unexpectedly”).
In other words, the “outrage of Yoséf" was the means to achieving the relative comfort of Ya’aqov’s declining years in Egypt, and the Rebbe finds in this an indication that the trouble and woe of our current exile are only the means and preparation for the future which the nëvi’im tell us is yet in store for us, based on the midrash Leqach Tov on our parasha which sees an explicit connexion between the sale of Yoséf and exile in general.
D.
This weekend marks the beginning of the festival of Chanukka, celebrating faithful Israel’s miraculous deliverance from the unclean hands of the Greco-Syrians and their Hellenizing allies, the end of galuth Yavan, the third of the four exiles which Israel were destined to endure. The Shëla”h ha-qadosh comments on our parasha that there is an organic connection between the parshiyoth of the Torah and the seasons in which they are read.
Perhaps a connection between our parasha and Chanukka can be seen in this very theme of the darkest hour heralding the dawn, that the depths of anguish, whether from loss of a beloved son, from such cruel oppression as gave rise to the revolt under the Chashmona’im, or spiritual oppression by those whose values are so utterly foreign and contradictory to those of the Torah, conceal the seeds of resolution and redemption.
As deliverance from the third exile came in the days of the Chasmona’im, may it come speedily from the fourth exile in our own.
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