Vayigash 2018
This week’s parsha, Vayigash , is the culmination of several chapters documenting the intriguing story of Joseph and his brothers. Imagine yourself in the shoes of the brothers - the perplexity and horror at finding their money in their sacks, the viceroy’s cup in Benjamin's sack - framed for a crime. Having to bring their youngest brother down to Egypt to get food when that is precisely the thing their father cannot bear. Joseph strings them along, keeps them on edge so deftly, that the brothers must resort to extremes as the tension mounts. Reuven, the first born, is willing to allow Jacob to kill his own two children if they do not bring Benjamin back from Egypt, as they desperately need to go and get food. At each turn the brothers experience manipulation, tailor made to exert the most pressure on them, pinpointed to hit them where they are most vulnerable. One can only imagine how perturbed and perplexed they must be. It is no surprise they see this as a Divine punishment for selling Joseph:
"On the third day Joseph said to them, 'Do this and you shall live, for I am a God-fearing man. If you are honest men, let one of you brothers be held in your place of detention, while the rest of you go and take home rations for your starving households; but you must bring me your youngest brother, that your words may be verified and that you may not die.' And they did accordingly. They said to one another, 'Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anguish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded with us. That is why this distress has come upon us.' Then Reuben spoke up and said to them, 'Did I not tell you, 'Do no wrong to the boy'? But you paid no heed. Now comes the reckoning for his blood.'"
When our parsha opens the brothers are totally exhausted with no answers left to give, and no hope. The cup has been found in Benjamin’s sack and the Viceroy of Egypt insists on keeping Benjamin as his servant. The ultimate promise Joseph’s brothers made to their father, that they would protect Benjamin, has now been dashed. The brothers are at their wits end, they would rather all be slaves, they say, than to let Benjamin be taken. And then, at their lowest point, suddenly, there is a revelation: "And Joseph said to his brothers, 'I am Joseph. Is my father still alive?' And his brothers could not answer him, for they were bewildered before him." In one climactic moment, with one sentence, the prolonged months of confusion zoom into focus with the words, "I am Joseph your brother." Now they stand, stripped of their excuses, facing their sin, the brother whom they sold.
The Midrash states:
Aba Kohen Bardelay said, "Woe is to us the day of judgement, woe is to us the day of rebuke. Bilam, the wisest of the idolaters could not stand before the rebuke of his donkey, Joseph, was the youngest of the tribes, yet the brothers could not stand before his rebuke, as it says, 'the brothers could not answer him, for they were shocked. So too will God rebuke each of us…'"
Someone pointed out recently that "2020" is the year for hindsight. If someone a year ago had told us there would be a global pandemic, bringing the most powerful nations to their knees and the world to a stand still, that we would feel ourselves to be without hope, standing at the end of history, most of us would have responded incredulously and laughed it off. After all, we live in 2020, in the real world, in a country of power and safety, science and technology. Such things only happen in movies, or in less developed countries.
Now, perhaps we will begin, over the next several months and year, to resolve the virus and go back to our regular lives, and hopefully to reflect on what has happened. But just as Joseph’s brothers must in the end stand unprotected and accept their rebuke, so too we as individuals, a society and a world, must also. What could we have done differently? What were our “sins”? How should this change us?
Shabbat Shalom,