Parashat VaYigash Genesis 44:18-47:27
With apologies if anyone else was planning on posting something; the schedule didn't show anyone for this week. I also haven't had time to write anything new, so here's a recycled drash from a couple years ago.
The last portion, Mikeitz, leaves off with us wondering whether the children of Jacob were condemned to repeat the violent mistakes of their past or if they will show that they learned from their misdeeds. None is innocent, save Benjamin -- not the brothers who sold Joseph into slavery, among many other misdeeds recounted in the past few weeks; not Jacob, who failed to teach his sons to control themselves and who treated his children unfairly by so clearly favoring one son over all others; and not Joseph himself, who might not have aroused the ire of his brothers had he not spent his childhood as the favorite son, a situation of which he constantly reminded his brothers and that he compounded with attempts to denigrate his brothers before his father. When this week's portion begins, we wonder whether the brothers will continue their destructive patterns or if they have learned to forgive the petty insults of sibling rivalry. To test his brothers, Joseph has just framed Benjamin for theft (another not-so-nice act toward his brothers), and he waits to see how the brothers will react; based on their reaction, he will decide whether and how to reveal himself to them. Judah, knowing that Benjamin did not commit the crime of which he was accused, cannot allow Joseph to keep him prisoner but he also cannot afford to arouse Joseph's ire. He is skilled in the art of violence, but a more diplomatic solution is clearly preferable. Which will he choose?
We need not wait long to find out the answers to these questions. Whereas in earlier parshiyot Judah was selfish, here he is selfless -- he begs Joseph to allow him to take his younger brother Benjamin's place as Joseph's prisoner, both to spare Benjamin and to spare his father, who now favored Benjamin, the sole remaining child he had from his favorite wife Rachel, above all his other children. And Joseph, who reveals himself to his brothers upon hearing Judah's heartfelt plea, embraces his brothers, implicitly forgiving them for the terrible wrong they had committed against him years ago and not continuing to lord his superiority over them as he would have done in his youth.
The brothers have learned -- they have grown and matured since the incident in which Joseph was sold into slavery. We know what has caused Joseph's maturity, having read all about his slavery, his unfair conviction for a crime he never committed, and his subsequent rise to prominence. Similarly, we have read about some of Judah's trials and tribulations, but he doesn't come off as well in the stories we have read about him in the past few weeks. So where does this new maturity come from?
A hint may be found in the way Judah speaks about Benjamin:
And we told my lord, "We have an elderly father who has a child of his old age, the youngest, whose brother is dead. He is the last remaining son of his mother, and his father loves him."-- Genesis 44:20
Pay attention specifically to the last part of the quote -- "and his father loves him." Why would that be included? Isn't it natural that a father would love his son?
To me, the implication is clear: either Judah means that his father loves Benjamin and not his other sons, or that his father loves Benjamin the same way he loved Joseph, over and above his other sons. Either condition would be a natural source of jealousy and hurt feelings, yet Judah now ignores his own angst and thinks first and foremost of others, of his brother and father, and how they would be hurt if he were to repeat the mistakes of his youth. He has to get over his jealousy and his hurt and stand up for the greater good, even at a great cost to himself. He must learn to balance his own needs with the needs of others, and to recognize that his own wants may have to be subordinated to the needs of others. He must be the embodiment of a teaching made famous by a certain first-century rabbi:
If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?
It is not fair to Judah and his brothers that their father loved Joseph and Benjamin more than he loved them, and it is not fair that their father showed far greater favor to Joseph and Benjamin than he ever showed them. As children, "that's not fair" may have been a rational and even reasonable excuse for bad behavior (though they clearly went waaaay over the line when they sold Joseph into slavery). But as adults, they had to recognize that life isn't fair, and they had to be willing to suck it up and do the right thing -- to act like adults -- even when they were getting a raw deal.
Perhaps more to the point, the brothers had to recognize that blaming their brother for their own unfair treatment at the hands of their father not only did nothing to rectify their situation, but actually made it worse. They had to accept that they couldn't change their father -- they couldn't have the fair conditions they desired -- but had to ignore what to them basically amounted to a petty slight in order to focus on more important issues. Do not mistake my meaning here; by no means do I consider it categorically unimportant for a father to mistreat his sons. But in the grand scheme of things, it seems to me that Jacob did love his sons, if not exactly equally, that he treated them quite well on balance, and that they did not suffer any greater psychological trauma than any child suffers at the hands of his/her parents in the normal course of life. It was incumbent upon the brothers to accept that their father was a flawed human being and not to project the blame for his imperfection onto anyone else.
In this era of widespread unfair scapegoating, fingerpointing, and selfishness that impede progress, it is more important than ever those who stand up for those most in need of support and defense ignore the petty insults we face constantly in our quest for tikun olam. We must have the maturity to recognize the difference between great injustices and petty slights and that our work is a continuous process with many small steps along the way. We must be willing to make sacrifices of our own for the greater good while having the character to stand up for ourselves when others seek to abuse our goodwill. And we must learn from the mistakes of our pasts in order to build a better future for ourselves and all those who need our help to build such a future for themselves.
This got posted a little early by accident. I usually try to post something in my tip jar for people to reply to, but the intended tip jar ended up here. Do what you will, either way.
We also have another d'var Torah this week by ramara; make sure you read it too.