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A certain inner warmth exudes from our weekly Torah portion (Vayigash). It is expressed in the renewed connection between Joseph and his brothers, which occurs in this week’s parsha. After his brothers “sold” Joseph into servitude and he was brought down to Egypt, a gulf of thirteen years separated Joseph from his family. When after thirteen years, the brothers descended to Egypt in order to buy provisions for the family in Canaan, Joseph realized that the time had come to bring his dreams to fruition. Although he recognized them, they did not recognize him (due to the fact that he now had a beard, which he did not have in Canaan). After bringing them to a point of total subjugation to him, as the leader of Egypt (for spiritual reasons), he revealed his true identity. “I am Joseph your brother,” he told them. Initially taken aback, they recovered their composure, and then returned to Canaan to bring back their father with them down to Egypt.
Upon seeing each other, Joseph and his father embraced, and the verse tells us that Joseph wept upon his father’s shoulder. However, the commentators (Rashi) tell us that his father did not weep. Rather, he recited the kriat shema – the verse from the Torah with which a Jew professes his deepest commitment to one God above. Now, this episode took place before the Torah was given. Our forefathers were aware of and kept the Torah even before it was given to the Jewish people, so we need to understand just what Jacob was doing when he recited the shema during this meeting. For, without doubt, Jacob had already recited the shema that day, since it is among the very first things that a Jew does upon arising in the morning. And if so, what was Jacob’s purpose in saying it once more upon meeting Joseph after thirteen years of separation?
The Ilana deChaya (R’ Menachem Mendel of Rimanov) suggests that Jacob was engaged in a far higher form of serving God than any of us would usually get involved with. Though we might think that this was simply Jacob’s way of praising God – that upon meeting his son in such a miraculous manner he sought to praise and reiterate his faith in the one God – the Ilana deChaya says that Jacob’s purpose was far greater than this. Jacob sought to take whatever emotional attachment he felt for his son, and sublimate it to a far higher emotional attachment to the One above. And that’s why he recited the kriat shema when he met his son.
The way of a tzadik, or righteous person, is to transform worldly matters into Godly matters – to infuse the physical world in which we love with spirituality from above. The normal “Jew on the street” does this as well, by performing Torah and mitzvoth, but the tzadik, because of his higher spiritual level, is able to consciously approach matters of the world, which might be too complicated for others to get involved in, and to elevate them to a spiritual plane. This form of serving God is alluded to in a verse regarding events that occurred some two hundred and twenty years after the meeting between Jacob and his son. Just before the Jews left Egypt, the Jews were commanded, “Take and draw a sheep for yourselves.” The sheep was the korbon Pesach, or the offering that the Jews were told to bring just before leaving the land of Egypt. The commandment was to “take” – referring to whomever already had a sheep in their possession, and to “draw” – referring to those who would have to go to the marketplace to purchase a sheep in order to offer it to God. Similarly, we all have a certain drive to serve God. At the given times (during prayers or Torah study), we have to “take” that drive and utilize it, praying and studying in order to fulfill the will of the One above.
However, sometimes, our desire to serve Him is just not operative. Sometimes, we just don’t feel the urge. Regarding those times, the verse tells us to “draw” (a sheep from the marketplace) – we have to go out and find the desire. Because it is not sufficient to stay on one level emotionally. It is necessary to develop as a human being, emotionally, intellectually and most of all, spiritually. And for that it is sometimes necessary for the individual to leave his own environment and home and gain experience outside of his own purview. Afterward, with his newfound awareness and experience, he can elevate different aspects of himself and his “world.”
But, not everyone can do this. It takes a well developed individual to go “out” to the world and find a new path for serving the One above. And that’s what our forefather Jacob was doing when he met his son Joseph after the long hiatus.
As Jacob approached his son Joseph, without doubt he felt the natural love and compassion that a father feels for a son. But Jacob, experienced as he was in serving the One above, was not about to suffice with natural love. He wished to find a way to “convert” his love for his son into love for God. This was part of his ongoing desire to always find new ways with which to serve God. It was also part of an ongoing desire to elevate whatever part of the world he was involved with. In this case, God presented Jacob with an opportunity to uplift his own parental love and dedicate it to Him. And that is why, the Ilana deChaya tells us, Jacob did not merely cry on his son’s shoulder. He recited the kriat shema – he saw an opportunity to elevate the natural love that he felt for his son, to the spiritual love that he was capable of feeling for God. By reciting the shema as he felt love for God, he was able to unite his natural emotions with his Godly emotions, and pave a new path in love and dedication to the One above.
Have a happy Chanuka, a great new month (Tevet) and a shavuah tov!
Rabbi David Sterne, Jerusalem Connection in the old city of Jerusalem