VAYIGASH
This is the third parsha in the story of Joseph (44:18-47:27). Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, who can hardly believe it, and succeeds in bringing his father and the clan, numbering just under 70 people, to Goshen. Goshen is a land that is good for grazing, and Joseph carefully prepares his brothers to say they have always been shepherds so they can settle there. There’s this mysterious sentence “For all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians.” (46:34), even though the Pharoah himself has livestock.(47:6) Joseph stays in his job as Pharoah’s #2 and continues to manage the famine, gaining control of all of the land of independent farmers and turning them basically into sharecroppers, with the throne receiving 20% of all grain. The parsha ends with the note that the clan “were fertile and increased greatly.” (47:27)
It is interesting, though not something I’m going to explore here, that the people are kept intact and separated from the Egyptians. We have here what might be read as an anti assimilation message.
I’m going to discuss four themes.
Is everything part of the divine plan?
Granting Forgiveness
Joseph and psychospiritual adulthood continued.
Jacob and hineni.
Joseph reiterates his message about divine action when he reveals his identity to his brothers. This is the same message he told to the baker and the wine steward when he interpreted their dreams. Joseph has had a long time to think about how he is going to reunite with his family. He finally reveals himself after Judah comes forward (vayigash) and pleads with Joseph not to imprison Benjamin and eloquently offers to take Benjamin’s place as a slave (44:18-34). When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, he says “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into slavery into Egypt. Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourself because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you….God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth and to save your lives in extraordinary deliverance. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.” (45:5-8).
That’s a common belief in our spirituality these days that everything happens is for the good. We have an indigenous champion of this view in a Rabbi named Nachum Ish Gam Zu. Nachum was the teacher of Rabbi Akiva, and he earned his nickname Gam Zu because whenever a misfortune would befall him, he would respond “Gam Zu l’tovah” meaning “this too is for the good.” (BT Taanit 21A.)
I want to make two points about this common belief. First, it’s not clear to me that this is exactly what Joseph is saying. He is saying that all the bad things that happened to him are part of the divine plan, but he is silent about whether they were good or not, in contrast to Gam Zu. Second, I tend to think the belief that it is all for the good can only come from privilege. If you are on the top of the heap, sure maybe it looks like it all works out well, but if you are not?
What Joseph is saying is that he was sent to Egypt by God, as part of the divine plan so he could eventually interpret Pharoah’s dreams and create a master plan that would save his family from starvation. The divine, in Joseph’s telling, is actively intervening in history. The question of how the divine intervenes in history later becomes a huge bone of contention in Jewish philosophy, but I don’t want to approach this from a philosophical perspective. I am less interested in some kind of intellectually consistent argument than I am in raising what I think are the obvious questions on both sides of this problem.
Do you believe the divine intervenes in the world? How does the divine intervene? If you do believe God acts in history, how do you address the existence of evil and God’s failure to sometimes act? Why would the divine help Joseph but fail to help Jews in the Holocaust? On the other hand, if you don’t believe the divine acts in history, (as I don’t) then you are pushed towards a view of God as not being omnipotent. How well does that work for you? I’d highly recommend Carol Christ’s She Who Changes as a remarkably clear and coherent account of a possible monotheistic theology of a non omnipotent deity. True confession, this is absolutely an area in which I struggle, and I don’t have answers with which I am satisfied.
Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers shows him as a psychospiritual adult. I also discuss Joseph as an adult both below and in the commentary on the next parsha. Here I want to focus on granting forgiveness. This is very different than asking for forgiveness; that’s a different discussion.
Joseph forgives his brothers for all the evil they have done to him selling him into slavery because he has been able to mature and learn from the experiences. Forgiveness, I learned from Landmark education, is when you give up the right to make someone else wrong for how your life has turned out. Forgiveness does not mean that what was done to you was acceptable or necessarily well intentioned or all for the best. Forgiveness is about the forgiver, not the forgiven. And the next step after forgiveness is that you are free to mature beyond the pain that others have caused you.
Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers does not mean that he thinks that what they did was right, or that it all worked out in the end. It does not change who they are; that is their work to do. Rather’s Joseph’s forgiveness of his brothers frees Joseph from carrying around his rage at putting him into a pit, taking the ketonim passim, the coat of many colors, exiling him from his beloved father and selling him into slavery in Egypt. Forgiveness frees us from whatever emotions we are dragging around with us like a weight. It doesn’t have to be rage.
But it isn’t as simple as saying I forgive you. Joseph, even with his exalted position, has been through a lot of tough times and I would speculate has done a lot of emotional work, though the text gives us nothing. This work earns you the ability and the right to forgive those who have done you wrong.
Whom do you think you might need to forgive? What do you need to forgive them for (you don’t have to share this to the group). How would forgiving them benefit you?
What is a psychospiritual adult? Following Plotkin, being a psycho spiritual adult has nothing to do with earning a living, having a family, living on your own, attaining a certain age, having a driver’s license etc. Rather a psychospiritual adult is someone who has discovered who they truly are, their unique purpose on the earth, and is executing a delivery system for their target community that is an embodiment of who they are. A psycho spiritual adult can articulate why they are on earth at this particular moment in this particular place and can demonstrate that they are manifesting this answer in a way that makes a difference.
I’ve talked before about how you know your unique purpose by looking at the intersection of what excel at and what you care deeply about. I want to explore this further.
I absolutely believe that we can be really good at more than one thing and we can care deeply about more than one thing. I am really good with numbers, long term planning and synthesizing information into a coherent whole. I care deeply about my family, the way land is grazed, being a member of the Jewish people and personal spiritual development. Only some of those are wrapped up together in my true purpose.
Joseph, for instance, wins his renown by interpreting dreams, but for him that’s not why he is on earth at this particular place and time. How do we know this? Because his delivery system has nothing to do with dreams. Joseph is Zaphenath-paneah, the creator of life who creates life for his people by saving them from famine. He may be great at interpreting dreams, but I would argue that this isn’t a burning passion for him and actually isn’t why he was born where he was and when he was. He obviously cares deeply about his family and yet chooses not to live with them. Joseph settles his father and brothers in Goshen, provides them with bread (the literal bread winner of the family) (47:11-12) and stays in the capital overseeing the famine distribution of grain and the eventual land grab for the Pharoah (47:13-26)
My questions here are meant to deepen your engagement with your gifts and your true purpose. I tend to think that sometimes it is really important to recognize what isn’t part of your true purpose, what roads you shouldn’t take or are less important to you.
What things are you really good at that you don’t care too much about? That you do care about? What things do you care deeply about that you may not be particularly good at or are not connected to your true purpose?
Israel, (it is interesting how the use of the names seems inconsistent and doesn’t tell us anything), responds hineni “here I am” to the divine in our parsha. (46:2 Jacob has a vision after offering sacrifices in Beer Sheva. When God calls to him, “Jacob, Jacob he responds, hineni, here I am. Hineni is used three times in the 5 books of Moses. The first time is when the angel (but not God) stops Abraham from sacrificing Isaac (Genesis 22:11). The second time is in our parsha when God (Elohim) talks to Jacob after he offers sacrifices to Elohim on their way down to Egypt (Genesis 46:2). The third time is with Moses and the burning bush when Moses hears YHVH speaking to him and he responds “hineni” (Exodus 3:4)
All three of these are turning points in the lives of the protagonists. Abraham, from that point on, will no longer converse with God directly. Abraham might be there, but the divine is not. Reading the Akedah as a failure on Abraham’s part, as I do, Abraham’s presence comes too late. For Moses, the encounter at the burning bush where he says hineni begins his turn to return to his people and free them. If you think Moses’ purpose in life is to liberate his people from slavery in Egypt, his saying hineni at the burning bush is his decisive change from being a shepherd of his father in law’s flocks, to being a leader.
In our story here, Jacob is in the process of leaving Canaan as an old man. This is the land promised to him by the divine and promised to his father and grandfather. He knows, I believe, that he will not return to see this promised land ever again, and that he will die in Egypt. Indeed, God consoles Jacob, reiterating his promise to make him into a big nation who will return to the promised land (46:3-4). Jacob here doesn’t have a particularly hard decision to make; there’s no food in Canaan so he can’t just do nothing, and his long lost favored son from his favorite wife is in Egypt and in power. Yet unlike his other exile (where he is also portrayed as a passive participant), he is old and there is no return. He stole Esau’s patrimony for what? Exile in Egypt with 70 people?
We could read this vision in Be’er Sheva as reassurance from the divine that Jacob has done what he should do with his life; that he has fulfilled his mythopoetic identity as God wrestler. Or maybe, this hineni is ironic because Jacob isn’t really present; he hasn’t become a psychospiritual adult because he hasn’t found a way to embody being Israel, Godwrestler. Indeed, the earlier divine promise of a nation as numerous as the stars is belied by the meager clan limping down to Egypt. People fail to successfully live into their visions and fulfill their purpose all the time, it seems to me. Certainly, I received a mythopoetic identity in the mid 90’s and I am still struggling to live into it. Success is not a given.
Have you ever said hineni in your life? Can you describe the circumstances and was this an effective turning point in your life? How well have you lived into the possibilities revealed to you in your hineni?
QUESTIONS
Do you believe the divine intervenes in the world? How does the divine intervene? If you do believe God acts in history, how do you address the existence of evil and God’s failure to sometimes act? Why would the divine help Joseph but fail to help Jews in the Holocaust? On the other hand, if you don’t believe the divine acts in history, (as I don’t) then you are pushed towards a view of God as not being omnipotent. How well does that work for you?
Whom do you think you might need to forgive? What do you need to forgive them for (you don’t have to share this to the group). How would forgiving them benefit you?
What things are you really good at that you don’t care too much about? That you do care about? What things do you care deeply about that you may not be particularly good at or are not connected to your true purpose?
Have you ever said hineni in your life? Can you describe the circumstances and was this an effective turning point in your life? How well have you lived into the possibilities revealed to you in your hineni?
