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Vayigash 5768

"Oh, Abba, you're stopping right at the metach" - this is inevitably the claim of our kids when we've read them bedtime stories over the years - we stop right at the height of the action, the tension (the literal translation of metach). Never mind that ANYWHERE we'd stop our reading would be "right at the metach" for kids who don't want to go to bed - everyone know that a good storyteller knows how to leave his/her reader in the creative suspense of a moment, a dilemma that must be resolved in one of (usually) two ways, each one leading the characters on very different paths. That's what the Torah does when we come to the end of last week's Parashah, Miketz, when Yosef has planted his "divining" goblet in Binyamin's sack, and, after the brothers have departed, sends his chamberlain after them with accusations of theft. The brothers swear they didn't take anything, and vow the thief should be executed. When it's found in Binyamin's sack, they tear their clothing and beg for mercy. Yehuda represents them all, making no excuses, and offers that they all be accepted as slaves. Yosef, who has proclaimed to their ears that he is a G-d fearing man, will do no such thing - the thief is to remain as slave, and they are directed to "ascend to their father in peace"! Has there ever been a statement more laden with irony? Though no possible resolution can suggest itself for the brother's predicament, the tension is unbearable and must be resolved somehow. Rashi adopts the Midrash's approach, and has Yehuda step forward toward Yosef in righteous indignation, armed even with threats to destroy Yosef's house and Yosef himself. While it is hard to imagine such threats being taken seriously by the ruler of Egypt, it isn't hard to imagine Yehuda transformed, reaching a new level of desperate action spurred on by his situation. For his situation was unique, he had stepped into a role of complete responsibility for Binyanmin's wellbeing: "Avdecha Arav et Hana'ar" - "Your servant has become a guarantor for the boy (to my father)". In the Midrash's way of understanding of this, Yehuda swears to forfeit his portion of this world and the next if he fails his father. Suddenly, having bound his entire life to Binyamin and his fate, Yehuda feels what it means to be profoundly connected. Life without restoring Binyamin to Ya'acov is no life at all, SOMETHING -- ANYTHING -- must be done, so Yehuda reaches deeper.



But veiled threats and barely restrained violence are only one way to view Yehuda's initiative. The Ramban has a very different reading of Yehuda's state. It is well worth learning Ramban's ever-so-pshat-sensitive reading of Yehuda's words to Yosef, but in extreme brevity: Yehuda seeks to stir Yosef's compassion. Basing himself on the ruler's own words, and perhaps some indefinable sense of things, Yehuda approaches Yosef and shares with him the deepest truth: His soul is bound up with his soul. In the context of Yehuda's words, the simple meaning is the Ya'acov's soul is bound up with Binyamin's soul for all the reaons that Yehudah makes plain: it's as though Ya'acov had ONLY one real wife, the wife of his heart: Rachel. With Yosef gone, says Yehudah, Binyamin is like his only real son. "If anything should happen to him...!" Can you believe that this is YEHUDAH saying this? The one who had no use for Yosef, and initiated the plan to sell him to Egypt? Yehuda is saying to Yosef, unaware still of who he is, "I really DO understand the special connection that my father had with YOU, and I've accepted it, I'm even willing to DIE to restore that connection, because it is true, because it constitutes the core of my father's life, because without that connection and that love, I'll never be able to look into the eye's of a father who, maybe through this act of mine, will come to know who I am and love me too". Nafsho k'shurah b'nafsho - the indeterminate pronominal suffix - who's soul is bound to whom? All of a sudden, the bond spoken of between BInyamin and Ya'akov, forges/reveals a mighty bond between Yehudah and Yosef. Yosef cannot defend himself any longer from the emotional onslaught he has incurred, and he reveals himself. "Deep-running water is counsel in the heart of a man, and a wise man shall draw it out" - on this verse, the Midrash teaches us how Yehuda drew forth the sweet, deep, pure water of Yosef's hidden love for his brothers. The Zohar reverses the situation, and has Yosef as the drawer, and Yehuda as the one whose depths need to be plumbed. The Shem miShemuel says that, in fact, both are true. In the impossibly brave act of Yehudah, the stepping forth, the approach that might end with his death, Yehudah has already penetrated defenses and touched Yosef's heart. For what else can "He approached him" mean when two people are already confronting one another nose-to-nose but that: "He approached himself, and, thereby, he approached the other". Ultimately, the two, Yosef and Yehuda, will spawn anointed ones who will lead all of us to approach the Unapproachable One, touch His Heart, and merit the ultimate Revealing.

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