Friends – in the climactic moment of the brother/brother saga, Yehuda steps up to tell this Egyptian minister (Yosef) that, yes, the goblet was in fact found in Benjamin’s sack, and yes, technically he is guilty and should be enslaved, but, really, this Benjamin is his father’s youngest and the last remaining son of his father’s favorite wife…
Really, Yehuda doesn’t add anything new in his speech to Yosef. What is new, however, is where he says it. “Vayigash” – and he approached. The impact of his words has more to do with where he says it than from what he says. This “vayigash” approach is composed of so many factors – all the tension they have been experiencing, both the brothers and Yosef, the exhaustion of traveling, the worries, the fear of grave consequences if in fact Binyamin is put in prison or enslaved by Yosef. Most of all, this encounter is framed by the circumstances of a powerless foreigner who is guilty by association with a thief, stepping up to the most powerful man in the most powerful country in the world. And because of all this, his words, which are ordinary words, have intense power – power enough to end the game, to force the mask to be lifted.
There are some circumstances in which it does not matter what you say – the mere fact that you speak at all is enough to bring about massive change. Sometimes emotions are so charged that the mere act of opening one’s mouth says everything.
It is amazing that we pray for the same things, with subtle variation, every day. But actually it makes sense, because each speaking of a prayer finds the heart in a different place. One day, as a result of the weather and hearing the news and slipping in the mud, your heart is in just the right place to feel the injustices of the entire world, and to say it out.
This “vayigash” is brought in Kabbalah and Chassidut as a parallel to prayer. Yehuda stepping up to Yosef is like any of us stepping up to speak to Hashem – we are ultimately powerless. He has all the cards. But Yehuda’s test, and ours as well, is not to flex power, but to care. The brothers’ fixing is complete when they do the opposite of what they did wrong. They did not see how their actions of “killing” Yosef would affect their father. Now, all of a sudden, they are so concerned that if Benjamin doesn’t come back with them, then Ya’akov will die of anguish. They have been transformed into truly caring beings.
So, too, in prayer, we are challenged to really care about the world. Only by truly caring about the world can we really pray – only by taking responsibility, by seeing the world as ours, can we really pray. It is always easier to express yourself in the parts of prayer that relate to you most – if, for example, a relative of yours is sick, that prayer comes out more honestly. If you talk to her on the phone, then it comes out even more truthfully. If you find out her chances are 50/50 of living, then there can be so much more feeling there.
I have heard it said that each word of the formal prayer applies to every person at every moment. Really, were we to think a few minutes before praying, we would realize that we know a lot of people who need healing in an intense way. And the whole world needs a new knowledge and wisdom, and there are entire countries dying of malnutrition. Somehow we manage to block it out, though, because it can be overwhelming. But if we can allow ourselves to let it in three times a day, we can really step up to Hashem. And when this happens, somehow, despite our smallness and powerlessness, we really feel that we are saying these words to the only One in the world who can make a change. And we feel right, we feel like we are doing something. But only when we have first allowed ourselves to feel it.
It is a shame that it takes the brothers this long to feel what they now feel. But it makes sense – they have surely put up such impenetrable walls and fortified themselves against having to deal with these feelings of guilt. There are some things that we have to keep way, way down, that will only come out under extreme pressure and at unique moments. But there is so much we can do in the meantime, so much we can remind ourselves of - a world that is coming apart at the seams, our families and friends in pain, a Judaism that is ailing. Only with this identification and empathy can we have the courage to approach the One who can change All. Not only will we have the courage, we will feel that we have no choice.
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder
|
Rav Gavriel Goldfeder is one of the first semicha recipients of the yeshiva. A graduate of Drew University in Religious Studies, he came to Bat Ayin after stints in other yeshivot and found a spiritual and intellectual home. Here he met his wife, Ketriellah, who was a student in our short-lived Women's Yeshiva. Upon graduation, Gavriel took the position of rabbi of the Aish Kodesh Congregation in Boulder, Colorado and together with Ketriellah and their growing family, they are busy creating (in Gavriel's words), "a community infused with Torah values, passion for learning and prayer, consideration of one another, and action, as well as deep celebration of the joys of life." |