A.
With our parasha begins the story of Yoséf, which occupies the rest of the Book of Genesis. It is a story of the intense rivalry between Yoséf and his brothers, which the actinic, prophetic light of the Torah’s account casts in very harsh relief indeed. The account must be read through the filtering lens of Hazal in order to restore its human dimension, lest we be led to bring a dibba ra‘a, an evil report, against tzaddiqim.
אלה תלדות יעקב יוסף וגו' (“These are the offspring of Ya‘aqov, Yoséf....”; XXXVII, 2), even though Yoséf was the 11th of Ya‘aqov’s twelve sons; as the Torah Tëmima puts it, דאם בא לספר תולדות יעקב כסדרן ה"ל להתחיל מתולדות ראובן ומדהתחיל ביוסף ש"מ דשייכות יתירה יש ביוסף ליעקב משאר בניו (“for if it is coming to tell of Ya‘aqov’s offspring in order, it should have begun with Rë’uvén; and since it began with Yoséf. we discern from it that there is an additional relationship between Yoséf and Ya‘aqov [different] from the rest of his sons....”). Indeed, Rashi explains why the Torah focuses so intensely on the circumstances of this relationship, for ע"י זה נתגלגלו וירדו למצרים (“because of this they were led to descend to Egypt”), and exile.
This exile had been foretold to Avraham, at the bërith béyn ha-bëtharim: ידע תדע כי גר יהי' זרעך בארץ לא להם ועבדום וענו אותם ארבע מאות שנה: וגם את הגוי אשר יעבדו דן אנכי ואחרי כן יצאו ברכש גדול: (“Knowing you should know that a stranger shall your seed be in a land not theirs; and they will serve them, and they will torment them four hundred years. And also the nation which they will serve I am judging, and afterwards they will come out with a great possession”; XV, 13-14).
Two things are obvious from the above passage: First, that the nation amongst whom the bënei Yisra’él would be exiled is not named. The other is the period of 400 years assigned to an exile which in fact lasted 210.
About the latter, Rashi explains: משנולד יצחק עד שיצאו ישראל ממצרים ארבע מאות שנה כיצד יצחק בן ששים שנה כשנולד יעקב ויעקב כשירד למצרים אמר "ימי שני מגורי שלשים ומאת שנה" הרי ק"צ ובמצרים היו מאתים ועשר כמנין רד"ו הרי ארבע מאות שנה וגו' (“From Yitzhaq’s birth to when Israel departed from Egypt, four hundred; how? Yitzhaq was sixty years old when Ya‘a-qov was born, and Ya‘aqov when he went down to Egypt, said, ‘The days of the years of my sojournings are thirty and a hundred years’ [XLVII, 9], which is 190; and in Egypt they were 210, the numerical value of radu [“they descended”], which is 400 years....”).
This implies that by the time Yitzhaq was born a clock began ticking. Rashi’s next comment makes it even clearer: The word translated “stranger” above, gér, is derived from a root meaning “sojourn, stay or swell provisionally or temporarily” (“my sojournings in the verse cited by Rashi supra is mëgurai). Hence, Rashi tells us, the name of the nation or country is not defined, but a hint is provided: ולא נאמר בארץ מצרים אלא לא להם ומשנולד יצחק "ויגר אברהם" וגו' ויגר יצחק בגרר "ויעקב גר בארץ חם" "לגור בארץ באנו" (“and it is not said ‘in the land of Egypt’ but rather ‘not theirs’; and from when Yitzhaq was born, ‘And Avraham sojourned....’ [va-yagor; XX, 1; XXI, 34]; and Yitzhaq sojourned in Gërar [cf. XVI, 6, where the hint is found in the name of the town]; ‘And Ya‘aqov sojourned [gar] in the land of Ham’ [Psalms CV, 23]; ‘to sojourn [la-gur] in the land have we come’ [Genesis XLVII, 4]”).
The whole nature of the exile, then was that it would be temporary, ואחרי כן יצאו ברכש גדול (“and afterwards they would come out with a great possession”). This temporary exile, as Rashi tells us, was engineered through the events of Yoséf’s life. How, and why? Beyond the historical, what does it mean for us?
B.
Hazal in several places note the uncanny parallels between Yoséf’s life and his father’s. To name a few: Both were born circumcised; both had serious problems with siblings who sought to destroy them; both began as herdsmen and achieved wealth; both descended to Egypt; and both were brought out of Egypt and buried in the Holy Land (עיי' בראשית רבה פפ"ד סי' ו', סוטה ל"ז:, ואבות דר' נתן פ"ב).
The rivalry between Yoséf and his brothers had reached the point that ולא יכלו דברו לשלום (“they were unable to speak of him peacefully”; XXXVII, 4). When Yoséf was sent by Ya‘aqov to Dothan to check on his brothers, we read: ויראו אתו מרחוק ובטרם יקרב אליהם ויתנכלו אתו להמיתו (“And they saw him from afar, and before he had yet drawn near them they conspired against him to put him to death”; XXXVII, 18). The verb used is significant; hémith is used of execution, as opposed to harag, which simply means “kill”; the brothers had been accused by Yoséf of serious transgressions; the accusations were sincere, though mistaken. Nonetheless, the brothers felt that they had a legitimate case against him for false witness (עיי' ירושלמי פאה פ"א ה"א).
But a cooler head prevailed: וישמע ראובן ויצלהו מידם ויאמר לא נכנו נפש: ויאמר אליהם ראובן אל תשפכו דם השליכו אתו אל הבור הזה אשר במדבר ויד אל תשלחו בו למען הציל אתו מידם להשיבו אל אביו: (“And Rë’uvén heard and saved him from their hand, and said, 'Let us not strike him mortally.' And Rë’uvén said to them, 'Do not spill blood; throw him into this pit which is in the desert, and do not lay a hand on him'; in order to save him from their hand to return him to his father”; vv. 21-22). The others took his advice, וישליכו אתו הברה והבור רק אין בו מים (“...and they cast him into the pit; and the pit was empty, there was no water”; v. 24).
Hazal ask: If the pit was empty, of course there was no water in it; so why say it? לומר לך מים אין בו אבל נחשים ועקרבים יש בו (“to tell you, There was no water in it, but snakes and scorpions were in it”; שבת כ"ב.).
Rë’uvén was frustrated in his rescue attempt, because the brothers spotted an Arab caravan headed toward Egypt, and Yëhuda suggested selling Yoséf to them. But the Torah makes clear what his intent was, and yet elsewhere, Hazal tell us: נפל לבור מלאה נחשים ועקרבים מעידין עליו להשיא אשתו (“[If] one falls into a pit full of snakes and scorpions, it constitutes testimony for his wife to re-marry”; יבמות קכ"א.). The poor man is considered a goner; how, then, did Rë’uvén expect Yoséf to survive long enough to be rescued and returned to his father?
C.
The answer is, in fact, simple, as the Maharal mi-Prag tells us in his Gur Aryé; the gëmara is speaking a pit which is swarming with noxious creatures, such that the victim cannot possibly avoid being stricken when he falls in. In Yoséf’s case, the pit was not “full”; it simply had some snakes and scorpions in it, such that Yoséf was able to avoid them, or kill them individually, and stay alive.
But if so, why bother to tell us this? What difference did it make?
We have here another parallel between Yoséf’s life and his father’s, the crucial one, I think, in understanding the nature of the exile.
Ya‘aqov was forced to flee from his brother into exile, where he also found his wives and made his fortune. However, in fleeing from ‘Ésav, he found himself contending with his wily, unscrupulous, and thoroughly corrupt father-in-law, Lavan. When he returned to the Holy Land, he announced to his brother, ‘Ésav, עם לבן גרתי (“With Lavan did I sojourn”; XXXII, 5) and Rashi explains what lay behind this blank statement: גרתי בגמטריא תרי"ג כלומר עם לבן הרשע גרתי ותרי"ג מצות שמרתי ולא למדתי ממעשיו הרעים (“Garti [‘I sojourned’] is in gimatriya 613, as if to say, I sojourned with the evil Lavan and [yet] observed the 613 mitzvoth, and I did not learn from his evil ways”).
Ya‘aqov’s exile, his sojourn with the ‘snakes and scorpions’ of Lavan’s personality, had not affected him; finally at the appropriate time, a mal’ach came to Ya‘aqov in a dream and said, in part: ראיתי את כל אשר עשה לבן לך: אנכי הא-ל בית א-ל כו' קום צא מן הארץ הזאת ושוב אל ארץ מולדתך (“...I have seen all that Lavan has done to you. I am the G-d of Béyth É-l... Arise, depart from this land and return to the land of your birth”; XXXI, 12-13).
Similarly, Yoséf was freed from his ordeal, and sold to the Yishmë‘élim, and in this he, too, had a sign from Heaven. The Torah gives evidently unnecessary details, that the caravan was an ארחת ישמעאלים באה מגלעד וגמליהם נשאים נכאות וצרי ולוט (“caravan of Yishmë‘élim coming from Gil‘ad, and their camels were bearing spices, and balsam, and lotus”; XXXVII, 25), Why do we need their cargo? Rashi tells us: להודיע שכרן של צדיקים שאין דרכם של ערביים לשאת אלא נפט ועטרן שריחן רע ולזה נזדמנו בשמים שלא יוזק מריח רע (“to inform [us] of the reward of tzaddiqim, for the usual Arab custom was to carry petroleum and natron, whose smell is bad; and for this one were provided spices, so that he not be harmed by the bad smell”). But he was still being taken into slavery and exile!
I have heard in the name of Rabbi Hayyim Shmuelevitz זצ"ל that this circumstance was sufficiently unusual as to constitute a Divine message to Yoséf, that he was not alone, and that just as G-d had assured his father, He would be with him in the trials ahead, as He had seen everything that had been by Yoséf, and that, like his father, he had not let himself by harmed by the snakes and scorpions with which he was confronted.
D.
And this is the significance, beyond the historical, of Yoséf’s experience, and all of Israel’s subsequent exile in Egypt.
As we read every year in the Haggada at the séder: בכל גור וגור חייב כל אדם לראות את עצמו כאילו הוא יצא ממצרים (“In each and every generation, every person is obligated to see himself as though he has departed from Egypt”), and the sëfarim ha-qëdoshim assure us that this is possible only if we understand that Egypt represents the yétzer ha-ra‘, and the Exodus our freedom from its tyranny, possible only if we grasp the opportunity afforded us by the Torah of mastering our lusts and appetites, the “snakes and scorpions” with which we are surrounded, when the nëshama is cast into the pit of the physical world, and exposed to its influences.
The Egyptian exile also has immediate national relevance; the Talmud connects the 400 years of Genesis XV,13 with Psalms XC,15: שמחנו כימות עניתנו, “make us rejoice according to the days you afflicted us,” to indicate that ימות המשיח ארבע מאות שנה, (“The days of Mashiah are four hundred years”; סנהדרין צ"ט. ). We shall not know until his advent at what seminal moment the 400-year messianic clock began ticking, but we can be assured that the countdown has begun.
In neither the individual nor the national case is he pit “full” of “snakes and scorpions”; it is possible to master them, to avoid them, and when necessary, to crush them. In both cases we must know that we are our gérim in a foreign land not ours, an exile endurable because we know it is only a sojourn, that G-d is with us, and that He sees all that is done to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment