PARSHAT VAYEISHEV by Yehuda HaKohen While the power of Redemption is personified by the Hebrew Nation’s potential to build a society that will illuminate mankind’s awareness of HaShem, the force of exile comes to dim that holy light and hold up history’s ultimate goal.
In VAYEISHEV, the concept of exile is first introduced through a shocking deed carried out by Yaakov’s sons – a deed that remains deeply rooted in Israel’s collective psyche until today.
“His brothers saw that it was he whom their father loved most of all his brothers so they hated him; and they could not speak to him peaceably.” (BEREISHIT 37:4)
“They took him, and cast him into the pit.” (BEREISHIT 37:24)
“They drew Yosef up and lifted him out of the pit and sold Yosef to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver.” (BEREISHIT 37:28)
The selling of Yosef exposes the Hebrew Nation’s most exploitable weakness. While it is true that HaShem revealed in an early prophecy to Avraham that his children would suffer Egyptian oppression, it is known that negative prophecies do not necessarily have to reach fruition.
Man has the ability to choose good over evil and while negative events in history are clearly part of a larger Divine plan and must be learnt from in order that they not reoccur, we have no possibility of even learning from a tragedy if we alleviate ourselves from responsibility by arguing that said tragedy was meant to come about. From the perspective of man, the assumption that national catastrophes are beyond our control is what allows catastrophes to repeatedly befall our people. While from a Divine point of view, the exile was necessary to the historic plan, from our human perspective it never had to occur. This is a crucial understanding because Israel did in fact go into exile and that fact itself implies something fundamentally wrong.
Israel was cast into exile because the sons of Yaakov had dreamt of an exile. At the very source of our national formation, Israel had a selfish dream. Yosef dreamt of overshadowing his brothers and in turn his brothers harbored jealousies towards him. They were disturbed by his thoughts of personal grandeur and resented the favoritism their father had shown him. They conspired against Yosef and sold him into slavery.
But the seed of Yaakov is one. The objective reality remains that Israel is eternally united at the soul and cannot be separated by any mortal means. By selling their brother Yosef into slavery, Yaakov’s sons were in fact selling themselves into bondage, blazing a trail for generations of Hebrews to be born into bitter subjugation.
But in the heartrending story of the birth of Israel’s exile we find another birth – the dawn of Redemption. Yosef is quoted in the Torah as saying “my brothers do I seek” (BEREISHIT 37:16). And the first World Zionist Congress in Basle was concluded by Binyamin Z’ev Herzl stating that “brothers have found each other again” as if Political Zionism, the external manifestation of Israel’s ancient collective yearnings, was at its very core a movement to unite the scattered Jewish people and rectify the exile. In its purest and most revolutionary form, Zionism was – and should continue to be – the national movement to unite the Hebrew Nation on our ancestral soil. And this simple and beautiful phrase “brothers have found each other again” represents the dawn of such a movement as probably no other words could. After Herzl’s untimely death, his movement was taken over by more “pragmatic” thinkers who reduced momentum and eventually enabled a terrible catastrophe to occur. Unlike Herzl, who in his compassion sought to create a political solution for the entire Jewish people, his successors saw their role as merely facilitating the growth of a Jewish community in Palestine. They made ambiguous the notion of a sovereign Jewish state while denying any responsibility for the fate of their brothers in Europe. Leaders who had remained true to Herzl’s revolutionary vision were marginalized within the movement and one third of the Jewish Nation was exterminated in the exile.
When Rachel gave birth for the first time, she named her son Yosef because “G-D has taken away (asaf) my shame” (BEREISHIT 30:23). Rachel had two sources of shame. Her personal shame was that she was barren and her national shame was that her descendants would later be exiled from their homeland (YERMIAHU 31). While the early interaction between Yosef and his brothers certainly sets the stage for Israel’s later exile, their actions also expose the cure to this plight. Through careful manipulation, Yosef brought his brothers to the realization of their unity to the extent that Yehuda was ready to sacrifice his own life in order to save his brother Binyamin. Even out from the darkness of exile can shine the miraculous power of Redemption. When one Jew is willing to lay down his life for another, miracles occur (Brachot 20a). And the rebirth of the Hebrew Nation on our soil after nearly two thousand years of suffering in the exile is truly nothing short of miraculous. In difficult times, we must be vigilant not to fall into despair but rather devote our efforts to bring change to the world. By learning to courageously take responsibility, as did Yehuda, we can rise to the challenges confronting our people and through awakening to the inner essence of Redemption, we can unite as brothers on our soil and restore to Zionism its authentic revolutionary character.
With Love of Israel,
-Yehuda HaKohen
Am Segula
