Posts Tagged 'Yosef'

A Time for Introverts: Yakov and Yosef

Published January 1, 2021 1.12 VaYechi Leave a Comment
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In this week’s Torah portion, Vayehi, we do not see too much action. To be honest, compared with last week’s portion, this one seems a bit anticlimactic. The era of the Patriarchs is coming to an end and we are waiting for the narrative to pick up again in Shmot with the story of the Israelites, Moshe, Aaron, Miriam, and their redemption. We find ourselves in a lull in the action. But before we roll the credits on the book of Genesis, we do get the powerful ending to this epic we deserve.

Vayehi starts off, “ Yaakov lived in seventeen years in the land of Egypt…“ (Gen 47:28) The Baal HaTorim quoting the Midrash HaGadol picks up on the number seventeen. This number seventeen clearly sets the time that Yaakov lives in the land of Yosef to the time that Yosef his son spent growing up in the house of his father before he was sold. Even before we compare Yaakov and Yosef, it is hard not to relate to the symmetry. The child who was dependent on the parent physically and emotionally for their first stage of his or her life is often forced to reverse roles with their child for the parents’ final stage of life. There is a certain balance in the living out of the Riddle of the Sphinx. Yaakov  and Yosef are in this way the same.

But let us move ahead and highlight some of the differences between this father and son. Taking a look at Yaakov’s life we see a person developing in isolation. While, at first we see Yaakov cleaving to the heel of his twin brother, the text quickly shifts and Yaakov is depicted as a contemplative loner sitting in the tent (Gen.25:26-27). He is alone again when he flees home in fear of his brother to live in a foreign land (Gen 28:10-11). Amidst his flight he stops in Luz which later called Bet El (Gen. 28:19) There he has a divine dream of the ladder. Years later we see Yaakov alone again when he is returning home. (Gen. 32:25). Yaakov’s most important moments are when he is by himself. As the Midrash would have us understand his time in the tent was devoted to Torah study. But it is clear in the later two cases that Yaakov’s most powerful educational experiences with God are when he is alone. It is also interesting to note the development in his own education that in Luz the interaction is passive and just a dream where as when he returning home his is physically wrestling with God. This refinement of his character is picked up in the imagery of the movement from the rocks that he gathers to put under his head to the dust in which he and the angels of God roll around in amidst their struggle.

As a student of God Yaakov is truly a lonely man finding company with God. But, how do we see Yaakov as a teacher? Yaakov engineers the same educational environment that he learned about God for his chosen student Yosef. Yaakov sends Yosef to check on the very brothers who scorn him (Gen 37:13). It is no coincidence that when he gets there they are gone. The classroom is set; the apple is on desk, the board is clean, there is plenty of chalk, there are no distractions in the classroom, and the best teacher in the world is waiting His next student. Yosef comes into his own personal classroom asks where his brothers are and leaves (Gen 37:25) Yosef is gone and so is the educational moment. It will take him his whole life to come to realize God. In contrast, Yosef education happens in the moments of his trying to connect with others. First with his brothers, then in Potifar’s house, then prison with Pharaoh’s baker and sommelier , then with Pharaoh in interpreting his dreams, and then again with his brothers. It is clear that Yosef derech haLimud , method of learning, is very different then his father’s derech. Yaakov finds God in the extremes moments of radical solitude, while Yosef finds God in social joining.

Yosef lived his entire adult life away from his father. Not only did he not have the comforts of family, he never had his father validate his method of seeing the world. This all comes to a beautiful conclusion in this week’s parsha when Yaakov says, “ El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and God blessed me. And said to me, ‘I will make you fertile and numerous, making of you a community of peoples…” (Gen 48:3-4). God appeared to Yaakov in the solitude of Luz in the dream and blessed him with the blessing of the entire book of Genesis to be fruitful and multiple, but for the first time the bracha has been expended to “making of you a community of peoples”. If you are open to hear it you hear the reconciliation between the loner and the social learner. Yaakov is not saying that he was wrong, but he is finally able to see that Yosef’s way of seeing the world is also blessed by God and critical to future of the Israelites, and the world. In a book of conflicts between brothers and fathers and sons. We end of the beginning with an expanded blessing. We have a model beyond a nation of individuals, we have a community of those striving to learn.

Amidst Covid-19 some of us are hurting because we are like Yosef seeking social connection. For the true extravert people social distancing is really hard. For others who are like Yakov, these social distancing has translated into a a wonderful time to get in touch with themselves. For the introverts, Covid-19 has been a welcome respite from forced social engagements. For most of us we relate to both types of learners, not being either Yakov or Yosef, but both. I sincerely hope that this coming year we all get to learn and strive in the ways we choose that work for us. 

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Riddle of the Sphinx: A Thought on Yaakov and Yosef

Published January 10, 2020 1.12 VaYechi Leave a Comment
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At the start of  this week’s Torah portion, Vayehi, we read “ Yaakov lived in seventeen years in the land of Egypt…“ (Genesis 47:28). On this the Baal HaTorim quoting the Midrash HaGadol picks up on the number seventeen. This number seventeen clearly sets the time that Yaakov lives in the land of Yosef to the time that Yosef his son spent growing up in the house of his father before he was sold into slavery in Egypt. This points out a powerful symmetry between fathers and sons in general and Yaakov and Yosef specifically . The child who was dependent on the parent physically and emotionally for their first stage of his or her life is often forced to reverse roles with their child for the parents’ final stage of life. There is a certain balance in the living out of the Riddle of the Sphinx.

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As the riddle goes, “What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening?” The answer goes that is a person. As a baby in the morning of a person’s life they crawl on all fours. As an adult in the noon of their life, they walk on two feet. But when they are old, in the evening of their life, they walk with a cane, on three feet. In the first 17 years Yosef was as if on all fours, in the middle Yaakov and Yosef both walk around and make their way in the world on two feet. Upon their reconnection in Egypt we see a wounded Yisrael with his cane living his final 17 years with his Yosef in Egypt.

It is crazy how I can see myself in my children’s different stages. I also see myself evolving into my parents more and more. The experience of the passing of time has proven a rich source of reflection.  I cannot say it is a riddle, but it is surely a mystery.

The Hard Work and Luck of Our Expedition: Today in History

Published December 14, 2018 1.11 VaYigash , Uncategorized Leave a Comment
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Norwegian Roald Amundsen, born in Borge, near Oslo, in 1872, was one of the great figures in polar exploration. In 1897, he was first mate on a Belgian expedition that was the first ever to winter in the Antarctic. In 1903, he guided the 47-ton sloop Gjöa through the Northwest Passage and around the Canadian coast, the first navigator to accomplish the treacherous journey. Amundsen planned to be the first man to the North Pole, and he was about to embark in 1909 when he learned that the American Robert Peary had achieved the feat.

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Amundsen completed his preparations and in June 1910 sailed instead for Antarctica, where the English explorer Robert F. Scott was also headed with the aim of reaching the South Pole. In early 1911, Amundsen sailed his ship into Antarctica’s Bay of Whales and set up base camp 60 miles closer to the pole than Scott. In October, both explorers set off–Amundsen using sleigh dogs, and Scott employing Siberian motor sledges, Siberian ponies, and dogs. On December 14, 1911, 107 years ago today, Amundsen’s expedition won the race to the Pole and returned safely to base camp in late January.

Scott’s expedition was less fortunate. The motor sleds broke down, the ponies had to be shot, and the dog teams were sent back as Scott and four companions continued on foot. On January 18, 1912, they reached the pole only to find that Amundsen had preceded them by over a month. Weather on the return journey was exceptionally bad–two members perished–and a storm later trapped Scott and the other two survivors in their tent only 11 miles from their base camp. Scott’s frozen body was found later that year.

What made Amundsen succeed and Scott fail has been the subject of much analysis. I learned about them in Jim Collins’ Great By Choice. Collins points out the importance of the 20 Mile March. No matter what happened Amundsen and his team would always aim to do 20 miles every day, no more and no less. In comparison Scott and his team would not go certain days if the conditions were too tough and go too far if the conditions were good. Amundsen’s rigor and discipline ensured his success.

I think a lot about the Amundsen’s rigor and discipline when I think about our collective resilience throughout Jewish history. What has helped this small tribe of people survive let alone thrive against the harsh terrain of hardship, conquest and plagues of history?

There are surly many answers but for me one of them comes this week’s Torah portion. Here we see Yosef confront his brothers. There we read:

Then Yosef said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Yosef, he whom you sold into Egypt. Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you.
It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling.
God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance.” ( Genesis 45:4-7)

Yosef could have been stuck being in isolation or in anger of his brothers who sold him into slavery. Instead he decided to see it as God’s plan for him. He was “supposed to be in Egypt” in order to save them. That is a nice explanation for their behavior, but not his. Yosef worked really hard every day in Egypt to get to his position. My parents used to tell me all the time when I was young, ” The Harder you work, the luckier you get.” The Jewish people, like Amundsen, have had to work pretty hard throughout our expedition through history and we are pretty lucky.

-borrowed from Today in History 

 

High School Vanity

Published November 30, 2018 1.09 VaYeshev Leave a Comment
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Years ago my mother, a psychologist for over 50 years, told me that the greatest period of growth for most people is between their Senior Prom and coming home for Thanksgiving during their freshman year in college. Over Thanksgiving I was up at my mother’s house in the Berkshires and I took a look at my senior high school yearbook. Who was I at that moment over a quarter century ago?  In the middle of the period I had a transformational experience as a Junior Counselor at Jewish summer camp. Here amidst a period that could be seen as incredibly turbulent I was responsible for a bunk of a dozen 15 year-old boys.  At the moment of extreme vanity I was given the opportunity to give of myself fully to other people. In this process of giving I could start to imagine the person that I wanted to become.  What a gift?

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I was thinking about this age this week reading Vayashev, this week’s Torah portion. There at the begining we read:

Now Yakov was settled in the land where his father had sojourned, the land of Canaan. This, then, is the line of Yakov: At seventeen years of age, Yosef tended the flocks with his brothers, and he, being a lad to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Yosef brought bad reports of them to their father. ( Genesis 37:1-2)

Here we meet Yosef as this age and he is interacting with his brothers. To explain what it meant to be a lad Rashi brings a midrash:

His actions were childish: he dressed his hair, he touched up his eyes so that he should appear good-looking (Genesis Rabbah 84:7).

Giving a bad report on his brothers Yosef is not a person of character. He is vain and self absorbed. He is a young person who is more interested in how he appears to be than who is he is.

Looking at the vanity manifest my yearbook page it is not hard to imagine the self important quotes and overly curated picture that Yosef would have chosen to put on his yearbook. What would Yosef’s life have looked like if instead of looking after the flocks with his older brothers he was given a bunk of children to counsel?

Of Herders, Gardeners, and Builders: The Gift of Shabbat

Published January 5, 2018 1.09 VaYeshev , 2.01 Shemot 1 Comment
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A few weeks ago in Parshat Vayeshev we read of Yosef’s dreams in which he dreams about how his family’s stars and bundles of wheat bow to his. While the brothers are clearly angered by the idea of their having to bow to their little brother, is that enough to make them want to enslave or even kill their brother? Rabbi Riskin interprets that the dream of the wheat was really  Yosef’s  prediction of the transition from the nomadic shepherd way of life to the settled farmer lifestyle. It was not that their bundle of wheat needed to bow to his, it was that their lives of sheep herding needed to bow to his call for an agricultural wheat based society. In his dream Yosef was calling for a radical technological innovation. Yosef was saying that his brothers needed to put their childish things away and evolve.  They went after Yosef because he was calling for an end of life as they knew it.  And sure enough that is exactly what happened. Shift happens.

I was thinking about it this week as we start the book of Shmot. Here we read:

Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Yosef. And he said to his people: ‘Behold, the people of the children of Yisrael are too many and too mighty for us; come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when a war befalls us, they also join themselves with our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land.’ Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pitom and Raamses. ( Exodus 1:8-11)

When they were literally the children of Yisrael they were shepherds. Despite the difficulties surrounding it Yosef forces them to settle down and become wheat farmers. This is the very thing that saves them and the world from the 7 year famine. A new king takes over Egypt who does not recall the great deeds of Yosef. In his fear of the nation of Yisrael the new king enslaves them. I cannot even imagine the transition from being free to becoming a slave. It is also noteworthy they also needed to transition from being an extended family to becoming a nation. They also needed to transition from being farmers to builders. This is a lot of transition from being shepherds, to farmers, to builders.

In our Torah portion as we see the emergence of Yisrael as a nation, it is easy to wax poetic about the days of our being simple farmers in the land of Canaan. This reminds me a of a stirring quote from Paulo Coelho. He wrote:

In life, a person can take one of two attitudes: to build or to plant. The builders might take years over their tasks, but one day, they finish what they’re doing. Then they find that they’re hemmed in by their own walls. Life loses its meaning when the building stops. Then there are those who plant. They endure storms and all the vicissitudes of the seasons, and they rarely rest. But unlike a building, a garden never stops growing. And while it requires the gardener’s constant attention, it also allows life for the gardener to be a great adventure. Gardeners always recognize each other, because they know that in the history of each plant lies the growth of the whole World. (Brida)

In the context of this quote it is easy to imagine the people of Yisrael in a double slavery. Not only were they slaves to the king of Egypt, they were slaves to being forced to give up gardening for building.

This narrative is the very context for the gift of Shabbat to a group of slaves. And today more than ever we need the gift of Shabbat. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote:

To gain control of the world of space is certainly one of our tasks. The danger begins when in gaining power in the realm of space we forfeit all aspirations in the realm of time. There is a realm of time where the goal is not to have but to be, not to own but to give, not to control but to share, not to subdue but to be in accord. Life goes wrong when the control of space, the acquisition of things of space, becomes our sole concern. (The Sabbath)

Even if we have to become builders, we cannot only be builders. We must reinvest in our lives as gardeners. Shabbat is the time during which we as the Nation of Yisrael invest in the family of Yisrael with our families. With the gift of Shabbat we ensure that we continue to grow. Shabbat Shalom.

 

Confluent Education: The Wagons of Learning

Published December 18, 2015 1.11 VaYigash Leave a Comment
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I have spent most of my life thinking about and trying to craft optimal educational experiences. Recently I have come to realize that much of this work revolves around the ideal of Confluent Education. “Confluent” refers to the process of holistic learning, involving body, mind, emotion and spirit. In educational settings the term is used to describe methods for teaching traditional subjects such as math, science, social studies, reading, language arts, physical education and fine arts by applying effective, introspective, intuitive, body/mind, movement, and kinesthetic types of activities to the lessons being taught. In this process the students learn about themselves and others in a deep way at the same time they are learning the traditional subject matter.

I was thinking about this in the context of Parshat Yayigash, this week’s Torah portion. After Yosef reveals himself and saves his brothers, Pharoah sends wagons to bring Yaakov to Egypt to evade the drought.  There we read:

And they ( Yosef’s brothers’s) told him ( Yaakov), saying: ‘Yosef is yet alive, and he is ruler over all the land of Egypt.’ And his heart fainted, for he believed them not. And they told him all of Yosef’s words that he had said to them, and he saw the wagons that Yosef had sent to carry him, and the spirit of their father Yaakov was revived.  (Genesis 45:26-27)

Why does it say that Yosef send the agalot – wagons, if we know it was Pharaoh who sent them? On this Rashi comments that upon seeing the wagons, Yaakov was reminded of eglah arufah (Deuteronomy 21:1), the last Torah topic they learned together. There are many fantastic aspects of Rashi’s idea. One is that there is the word play connecting agalot  to eglah arufah. More interesting is the idea that in the book of Genesis they were reading from the yet to be written book of  Deuteronomy.

For now the part that I find most compelling is the fantastic idea that Yaakov and Yosef had a regular Chevruta in the learning Torah. And what were they learning? They were learning the laws regarding the communal responsibility in the case of a death without a known culprit. Years later this memory seems to reside. This seems to be the gold standard of confluent education. The student had learned about himself and his father in a deep way and at the same time they learned the subject matter. It is also interesting to note that the impact was not limited to the student, it also had restorative power on the teacher. We learn from this Rashi the learning that fused revelation in relevance can even help Yosef reconcile his relationship with his brothers who finally took responsibility for be the culprits in selling into slavery. One challenge of good education is that might take years to see its full impact.

One Dream: Einstein and Yosef

Published December 11, 2015 1.1 Miketz Leave a Comment
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Recently we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Albert Einstein‘s Theory of Relativity. Einstein stated that the theory of relativity belongs to a class of “principle-theories”. As such it employs an analytic method. This means that the elements which comprise this theory are not based on hypothesis but on empirical discovery. The empirical discovery leads to understanding the general characteristics of natural processes. Mathematical models are then developed to describe accurately the observed natural processes. Therefore, by analytical means the necessary conditions that have to be satisfied are deduced. Separate events must satisfy these conditions. Experience should then match the conclusions. There is no disputing Einstein’s unique genius and contribution to life in the past 100 years. I like to think there is part of his thinking that can be rooted in a Jewish sensibility of curiosity.

I was thinking about this when reading Miketz, this week’s Torah portion. There we learn that Pharaoh is being vexed by two strange dreams. His cup-bearer recalls his experience of Yosef who correctly interpreted dreams in prison.  On the merit of Yosef ability to interpret Pharaoh will through the veil of the dreams of the cup-bearer and the baker, Pharaoh brings Yosef to interpret his dreams. After  Pharaoh recounts his two dreams we read:

And Yosef said to Pharaoh: ‘The dream of Pharaoh is one; what God is about to do God has declared to Pharaoh. The seven good cows are seven years; and the seven good ears are seven years: the dream is one. And the seven lean and ill-favored cows that came up after them are seven years, and also the seven empty ears blasted with the east wind; they shall be seven years of famine. That is the thing which I spoke to Pharaoh: what God is about to do God has shown to Pharaoh. ( Genesis 41: 25- 28)

Yosef, like Einstein, had a gift to interpret subtle facts and a desire to share that vision even if it did not make sense to others.  Like Einstein Yosef’s theory would  be tested to ensure that the experience matched the conclusions ( or minimally he bought himself 7 years to live). The most interesting part for me is his claim that is all “one dream”. As we see in the rest of the Torah the drive for the descendants of Israel is to forge a relationship to the unified God. Both Yosef and Einstein felt drawn to come up with a plausible and unified theory for how the world works. Even if you do not believe that God created the universe in which this Theory of Relativity might be true, you could image how the story of the Yosef  and the Israelites pursuit of the One might have inspired this Theory.

The Other is My Brother: From Yosef’s Dreams to Freddie Gray

Published December 4, 2015 1.09 VaYeshev Leave a Comment
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In VaYeshev, this week’s Torah portion, Yosef tells his brothers of his dreams to his brother. There we read:

Now Israel loved Yosef more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a coat of many colors. And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. And Yosef dreamed a dream, and he told it to his brethren; and they hated him yet the more. And he said unto them: ‘Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: for, behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves came round about, and bowed down to my sheaf.’ And his brethren said to him: ‘Shall you indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?’ And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words. And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it to his brethren, and said: ‘Behold, I have dreamed yet a dream: and, behold, the sun and the moon and eleven stars bowed down to me.’ And he told it to his father, and to his brethren; and his father rebuked him, and said to him: ‘What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?’ And his brethren envied him; but his father kept the saying in mind. (Gen. 37:3-11).

While they stop short of fratricide, eventually the brothers’ envy and hatred moved them to sell Yosef into slavery. Why do they hate him so much? Is it all over a coat or is there something more in these dreams?

Rabbi Riskin taught in the name of  Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, zt’l that the brothers’ hatred towards Yosef was a denial of the world view he expresses in his dreams. The brothers were shepherds and wanted to preserve their traditional way of life. They maintain the flocks of sheep as they are, utilizing the milk and cheese for food, the wool and skins for garments and shelter. As shepherds they had time to contemplate and to meditate upon God. In Yosef’s dream we see that he is predicting his departure from the flocks and even from the familial and sheltered land of Canaan in favor of the more scientific and sophisticated Egypt. The dreams of sheaves express the cultural revolution of agriculture over shepherding, creativity and change over the preservation of the status quo. The brothers wish to remain in their ancestral home and familial occupation; Yosef senses that the world – even the universe (sun, moon and stars) – is beckoning , and necessity demands a change of venue and profession if Israel is to prevail. They sell him into slavery in hope of preserving the world they know and stymie his dream of progress.

It is interesting to hold this up against Ta-Nehisi Coates‘s inspired book Between the World and Me. Written as a letter to his teenage son about the complexity of growing up as a black man in America, he writes:

Why exactly was I sad? I came out of the studio and walked for a while. It was a calm late-November day. Families, believing themselves white, were out on the streets. Infants, raised to be white, were bundled in strollers. And I was sad for these people, much as I was sad for the host and sad for all the people out there watching and reveling in a specious hope. I realized then why I was sad. When the journalist asked me about my body, it was like she was asking me to awaken her from the most gorgeous dream. I have seen that dream all my life. It is perfect houses with nice lawns. It is Memorial Day cookouts, block associations, and driveways. The Dream is tree houses and the Cub Scouts. And for so long I have wanted to escape into the Dream, to fold my country over my head like a blanket. But this has never been an option, because the Dream rests on our backs, the bedding made from our bodies. And knowing this, knowing that the Dream persists by warring with the known world, I was sad for the host, I was sad for all those families, I was sad for my country, but above all, in that moment, I was sad for you. That was the week you learned that the killers of Michael Brown would go free. The men who had left his body in the street would never be punished.

For Coates America’s status quo is a dream built upon the slavery and even the fratricide of black men. How can we call this a dream if it someone’s nightmare? As the first officer goes on trial in the death of Freddie Gray in Baltimore we need to take stock of institutional racism in this country. There is no doubt that change is hard. Like Yosef’s brothers we need to be willing to give up our own dream’s of the status quo in the name of progress. Though it might take time, we need to realize that the other is my brother.

Yosef and Technology

Published December 6, 2013 1.11 VaYigash 1 Comment
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At the beginning of Parshat Vayigash, this week’s Torah portion, we read of Yosef’s reconnecting with his brothers. There we read:

Then Yosef could not refrain himself before all them that stood by him; and he cried: ‘Cause every man to go out from me.’ And there stood no man with him, while Yosef made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud; and the Egyptians heard, and the house of Pharaoh heard. ( Genesis 45:1-2)

While I imagine Yosef wanted to teach his brothers a lesson for having sold him into slavery, these are his brothers and he has been isolated from his family for many years. It is easy to relate to Yosef’s inability to control himself. But the situation does begs the question, with all of his wealth and resources why did Yosef not go out or send out for his family earlier?

I had not thought about it until I saw a video this week, but maybe Yosef  just lacked the technology. If you have not yet to see this video please watch it. It will blow your mind.

When Saroo Munshi Khan was five years old, he went with his older brother to scrounge for change on a passenger train about two hours away from his small hometown. Saroo became tired and hopped on a nearby train where he thought his brother was and then fell asleep. When he woke up, he was in Calcutta — nearly 900 miles away. Saroo tried to find his way back, but didn’t know the name of his hometown, and as a tiny, illiterate boy in a vast city full of forgotten children, he had no chance. Eventually he got adopted by an Australian couple.  Saroo moved there, learned their language and grew up, but he never stopped looking for his family and his hometown. Decades later, he discovered Google Earth. Using all of his memories,  this technology, and years of scouring the satellite photos, he recognized a few landmarks and found his way home.  

There are similarities between Saroo and Yosef’s story. One difference is technology. I have no misconceptions, technology can be terrible. It has brought us cyber-bullying, sexting, global terrorism, and many other terrible things that come from a platform for global connection and anonymity. But as the story of Saroo clearly articulates there is also a tremendous power behind today’s technology. This platform for global connection helped alleviate the pain of a lost child’s anonymity. It rejoined an orphan to his long-lost family.

It is interesting to reflect again on Yosef’s story. At the start he kicks everyone out of the room so he can reveal his hidden identity to his brothers in private. But when Yosef finds his voice it knows no bounds. His weeping was heard by the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh. If it was not for this technology I would never have learned about Saroo’s story or been able to share it with you. And who knows maybe if he had the technology Yosef would have tweeted his reunion.

 

–  Thank you Rabbis Yonah Berman and Seth Wax for helping this idea come together.

Revealer of Spiral

Published November 22, 2013 1.09 VaYeshev 1 Comment
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In Veyeshev, this week’s Torah portion, we learn about all family politics of Yakov’s family. It is bad enough Yakov has a favorite wife, but why would he ever community communicate this to his children? Reading this seems to be perfect preparation for everyone spending a lot of time with family on Thanksgiving. Here we read about the brothers capturing Yosef, Rubin saving him from being killed, and their selling him into slavery. There we read:

Come, and let us sell him to the Ishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh.’ And his brethren hearkened unto him. And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Yosef out of the pit, and sold Yosef to the Ishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they brought Yosef into Egypt. (Genesis 37: 27-28)

The brothers tell their father he was killed by a beasts and Yakov is lost in mourning. And then at the end before the whole Yehudah and Tamar interlude we read:

And the Midianites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh’s, the captain of the guard. (Genesis 37: 36)

There is some confusion. Did the brothers sell him to Ishmaelites or to Midianites? On one level this confusion is communicating that Yosef was passing through many hands indicating that he was a commodity. Maybe on a deeper level the Torah communicates this so that we know that even if the brothers showed remorse and wanted to recover their brother they could not do it. But is there any significance to the fact that Yosef passed through the hands of the Midianites?

Who was Midianites? They were the descendants of Midian, who was a son of Avraham through his wife Keturah. As we read:

And Abraham took another wife, and her name was Keturah. And she bore him Zimran, and Jokshan, and Medan, and Midian, and Ishbak, and Shuah. (Genesis 25:1-2)

According to the Midrash, Rashi,Gur Aryeh, Keli Yakar, and Obadiah of Bertinoro Keturah was actually Hagar (Bereshit Rabbah 61:4). Hagar remarried Avraham after the death of Sarah. Why did she change her name to Keturah? Keturah is a reference to the  incense used in worship. Hagar’s new name was symbolic of the pleasantness of her return from exile and repentance. Yosef  the privileged child of the loved wife was captured by his brothers who in turn sell him to the children of Yishmael who in turn sell him to the children of Keturah, both children of the original scorned wife. Hagar’s exile is marked by her blindness to the source of water to sustain her child in the wilderness. There we read:

And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bow-shot; for she said: ‘Let me not look upon the death of the child.’ And she sat over against him, and lifted up her voice, and wept. And God heard the voice of the lad; and the angel of God called to Hagar out of heaven, and said unto her: ‘What ails you, Hagar? fear not; for God has heard the voice of the lad where he is. Arise, lift up the lad, and hold him fast with your hand; for I will make him a great nation.’ And God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water; and she went, and filled the bottle with water, and gave the lad drink. ( Genesis 21: 16-19)

Similarly Yosef’s power came from his ability to predict the seven years of plenty and seven years of famine. He was able to lift his head and see the water. Like Hagar having her name change to Keturah Yosef’s name was changed by Pharaoh to Zaphnath-Paaneah – צָפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ‎ – revealer of mysteries or secrets (Genesis, 41:45). Hagar’s exile, renaming, and reconciliation with Avraham is similar to the story of Yosef’s exile, renaming, and reconciliation with his brothers. Living in the Diaspora, it is easy to relate to Yosef’s narrative as a uniquely Jewish tale. It is good to be remind ourselves that our story of surviving and even thriving at the margins while important is not unique to the Jewish people, and in fact it never was.

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