BS”D
DRAMATIC
DISBELIEF: PARSHAT VAYIGASH
Shira Smiles shiur 2020/5781
Adapted by Channie Koplowitz Stein
Parshat
Vayigash brings the Yosef Hatzadik saga to a climax. Yosef Hatzadik Hatzadik
reveals himself to his brothers and cryptically asks, “Is my father still
alive?” After all, Yehudah had just pleaded with him that his father would die
if Binyamin were to be lost. Nevertheless, Yosef Hatzadik instructs his
brothers to tell their father that Yosef Hatzadik is still alive, and that he
is the ruler of all Egypt. Instead of being overjoyed, Yaakov Avinu Avinu’s
initial reaction is disbelief, complete rejection of this news. Only after the
brothers relate the full conversation with Yosef Hatzadik and show Yaakov Avinu
the wagons Yosef Hatzadik had sent did Yaakov Avinu finally accept this report
and Yisroel said, “How great! My son Yosef Hatzadik still lives! I shall go see
him before I die.”
The
overriding question here is why would Yaakov Avinu refuse to believe such good
news? Certainly, his sons would be incapable of foisting such a cruel lie on
their father. How can we understand Yaakov Avinu Avinu’s incredulity?
Rabbi
Bick in Chayei Moshe offers us our first possible answer. Rabbi Bick
suggests that Yaakov Avinu believed them when they told him Yosef Hatzadik was
alive. What he couldn’t believe was that his Yosef Hatzadik was the ruler of
all Egypt. Yaakov Avinu knew the prophecy given to his grandfather Avraham,
that his descendants would go into exile in a strange land. Exile usually means
hardship and chains. How could Bnei Yisroel be going into this exile in pomp
and honor? So, although he heard the words intellectually, adds Rabbi Grosbard,
Yaakov Avinu could not accept them emotionally. He could know intellectually
without believing in his heart.
Using
this idea, the Chazon Ish instructs us to train ourselves and our children to
ask Hashem for everything, even for something as mundane as a new pair of
shoes, so that we begin to internalize hashgacha protis, that Hashem maintains
personal care and concern over each of us. Then we can take that sense of faith
in security in Hashem’s providence and infuse our mitzvah observance with a
sense of joy. If we observe mitzvoth only with a sense of obligation, with the
mantra of es is shver tzu zein a Yid/it’s hard to be a Jew, writes Rabbi
Schlesinger, then you lose The Heart of Emunah and open up yourself and
your children to the materialistic lures of society, ready to abandon the
untasted sweetness of Yiddishkeit. Once the emotion is there, one can attempt
intellectual understanding of the mitzvoth as well.
Yaakov
Avinu was so emotionally blocked from believing the news of Yosef Hatzadik’s
survival that the message could not penetrate his heart.
For
twenty two years Yaakov Avinu had been deluded into thinking that Yosef
Hatzadik was dead, yet he could not be comforted during all that time. Our
tradition tells us that a mourner can be comforted only if his loved one has
truly died, not if the loved one is actually still alive. In this scenario,
Yaakov Avinu should have believed the information that Yosef Hatzadik was still
alive. In Talmud Beyado, Rabbi Kram suggests that Yaakov Avinu knew that
Yosef Hatzadik was indeed physically alive; what Yaakov Avinu continued to
mourn was the probability that Yosef Hatzadik was no longer spiritually alive.
How could Yosef Hatzadik remain spiritually pure in the corrupt and depraved
Egyptian society? This also explains why Yitzchak, who knew Yosef Hatzadik was
physically alive, could not share that information with Yaakov Avinu, for
Yitzchak himself did not know if Yosef Hatzadik had remained righteous. As the Netivot
Shalom adds, Yaakov Avinu never stopped thinking about Yosef Hatzadik,
keeping him alive within his heart and thoughts, just as Yosef Hatzadik
consciously and continually kept Yaakov Avinu alive within himself.
In
a similar vein, Yosef Hatzadik also knew that his father was still physically
alive. He argued with Yehudah, “Yehudah, how can you claim that the disappearance
of Binyamin will kill your father when the disappearance of the other son did
not?” What Yosef Hatzadik was asking his brothers was how has Yaakov Avinu not
“died” from the disappearance of the other son? Now that Yosef Hatzadik has
revealed himself to his brothers his question takes on a different
significance. Is my father still alive? Did the Divine inspiration leave him
when that son disappeared? What will kill Yaakov Avinu now is not the physical
death of Binyamin, but the “knowledge” that Binyamin was a thief, that Binyamin
succumbed to the evils of Mitzrayim.
Go
tell my father, adds Rabbi Dunner, that I am still Yosef Hatzadik, that Hashem
has made me master over [the enticement of] Mitzrayim, that I have kept the
Name of Hashem in my speech and made Hashem Master in Egypt. It was with this
reassurance that Yaakov Avinu was appeased, that he was reinvested with the
elevated name Yisroel, and that he wanted to go to Egypt to see Yosef
Hatzadik’s face and recognize the holy aura emanating from it.
Yosef
Hatzadik’s words alone would not be enough to totally convince Yaakov\ Avinu,
for a liar can deceive others. But a liar and evil cannot exist in the face of
pure righteousness. One can mouth words that appear true even if they are
not. That evidence Yaakov Avinu wanted to see on his own, says Rabbi
Diskin.
An
agunah, a woman whose husband had disappeared, once asked the Vilna Gaon
to help her judge whether a man claiming to be her long lost husband was
actually her husband or an impostor. In spite of the man’s giving her many
details from her husband, she still had misgivings. The Vilna Gaon suggested
taking him to shul and asking him where his seat was. This he did not know, and
the man’s deception was uncovered. Yaakov Avinu wanted to reassure himself that
this was truly Yosef Hatzadik and not an impostor.
Life
must not be static. A Jew must continue spiritual growth, not live in stasis.
That’s why if a Jew were ever to flee to an ir miklat/a sanctuary city,
his Rebbe must go with whim so he continues to grow and not stagnate. Just as a
body needs physical food to survival, so does the soul need spiritual food. The
Torah must continue to beat within one’s soul to maintain its life force. One
must continue to ingest Torah’s spirituality to remain alive.
We
can, however, start with a very simple explanation for Yaakov Avinu’s disbelief
of Yosef Hatzadik’s being alive. As Avos d’Rabbi Nosson states, if the
brothers had lied to their father when they implied that Yosef Hatzadik was
dead, why should Yaakov Avinu believe that now they were telling the truth?
Truth and honesty are the very foundations of a proper life.
Yosef
Hatzadik offered two proofs that he was indeed Yosef Hatzadik. He showed them
that he was circumcised, and he spoke Hebrew to them. How do these prove the
truth of Yosef Hatzadik’s assertion? A Jew shows his connection to Hashem
through the brit milah/covenant of the foreskin. Through the brit,
he is dedicating all his passions to Hashem’s service, writes Rabbi Lopiansky
in Golden Apples. Speaking Hebrew, Yosef Hatzadik’s second sign, is
called lashon hakodesh/the holy language. By bringing the bloodied
garment to their father and agreeing that Yosef Hatzadik had been torn by wild
animals, the brothers had corrupted the holy language with their lies. In
contrast, Yosef Hatzadik’s tales to their father, however ill advised and
misconstrued, were nevertheless true, as were the dreams he related to them.
Additionally, his withstanding the seductions of Potifar’s wife proved his
passionate commitment to the morality of Hashem’s words. It was not merely the
Hebrew language, but rather the ring of truth, the hallmark of Yaakov Avinu, that
convinced both the brothers and Yaakov Avinu himself of Yosef Hatzadik’s
identity. We, as descendants of Yaakov Avinu, must work on ourselves both in
strengthening our passionate commitment to Hashem and in honestly evaluating
our middos so that we can perfect ourselves.
With
the power of truth as our guide, we can see how Rabbi Zweig understands Yaakov
Avinu’s inability to believe his sons’ telling him that Yosef Hatzadik was
alive. Rabbi Zweig cites Rabbi Nosson in saying that a liar is not believed even
when telling the truth. However, Rabbi Zweig notes that there are two
different words for a liar in Hebrew. A shakran is one who knows he is
lying for whatever motive he may have. A badai is one who fabricates a
story and convinces himself of its truthfulness, often the result of
rationalizations that present him or his actions as righteous when in fact they
may not be so. A skilled listener can usually tell when the speaker is lying
through certain tell tale signs, but the listener may not be able to spot an
untruth when the speaker himself believes what he is saying. Even a lie
detector test may not catch that untruth.
Yosef
Hatzadik’s brothers had convinced themselves that indeed Yosef Hatzadik would
not be able to survive his treatment as a slave in Egypt. Therefore, he must
indeed already be dead, and they fabricated that untruth to their father. They
were so convincing in their own truth that Yaakov Avinu could not discern the
lie. Therefore, now when the brothers came to tell their father that Yosef
Hatzadik was indeed still alive, Yaakov Avinu had no way of knowing which
narrative was truth and which was a lie. Only the proof provided by Yosef
Hatzadik himself who had remained true to his father’s teaching throughout his
ordeal finally convinced Yaakov Avinu that Yosef Hatzadik was indeed alive.
Each
of us has at times bent the truth or deluded ourselves with half truths or
little (and sometimes big) lies. Only by looking uncompromisingly within
ourselves with the powerful light of glaring truth can we overpower our human
frailties and grow as human beings reflecting Hashem’s seal of truth and
carrying forth Yaakov Avinu’s legacy of truth.