Parashat Vayigash- True Life
We read in Parashat Vayigash of Yosef’s revealing his identity to his brothers, and his sending them back to Canaan to bring their father, Yaakob, to Egypt. In Egypt, Yaakob would be finally reunited with his beloved son, whom he had not seen in twenty-two years, and he would be supported during the harsh drought that ravaged the region.
The Torah tells that when the brothers came to Yaakob and reported to him the news that Yosef was alive, he initially did not believe them. It was only later, when they related to him everything that Yosef told him, and he saw the wagons that Yosef had sent for Yaakob, that he realized that they indeed told the truth.
Yaakob’s initial disbelief seems difficult to understand. This would be a very cruel joke for the brothers to play on Yaakob – to tell him that Yosef was alive, when he really wasn’t. Did Yaakob really suspect that they were lying? Was it possible that they would make up such a story?
Rav Shlomo Breuer (son-in-law of Rav Shimshon Raphael Hirsch) proposed a bold theory to explain this, as well as other, questions concerning the story of Yosef. Earlier in the Book of Bereshit (37:35), we read that Yaakob was unable to accept consolation after Yosef’s disappearance and the discovery of his bloodstained coat, which indicated that Yosef had died. For twenty-two years, Yaakob mourned the loss of his beloved son. Normally, as the Sages teach us, and as we know from experience, bereaved relatives are eventually to return to themselves and resume normal functioning. God mercifully implanted within the human being the capacity to forget, and thereby overcome the pain of losing a loved one. In Yaakob’s case, however, he could not find consolation, for the simple reason that Yosef was still alive. The special gift of forgetting applies only once a relative passes on. Yosef had not died, and therefore Yaakob was unable to feel consoled.
Of course, Yaakob himself was aware of this concept. He knew that his inability to find comfort and consolation meant that Yosef was still alive. And yet, he continued to grieve. The reason, Rav Breuer explained, was that if Yosef was still alive, he lived far away from his family, among idol-worshippers. There was no reason to expect or even hope that a seventeen-year-old boy living away from his family in a foreign culture would remain loyal to the heritage of his forefathers. And from Yaakob’s standpoint, there was no greater reason to mourn. Yaakob could have found consolation for Yosef’s death, but he could find no comfort in what he assumed to be Yosef’s estrangement from his religion and faith. And so he mourned. With every passing day, as the possibility of Yosef’s fealty to his religious tradition grew progressively smaller, Yaakob mourned even more bitterly. If Yosef had died, Yaakob would have found comfort in the knowledge of his son’s eternal life. But thinking that Yosef had assimilated among idolaters, Yaakob could not be comforted, and grieved over the loss of Yosef’s soul.
When the brothers returned from Egypt, they told Yaakob, "Od Yosef Hai" – "Yosef still lives" (Bereshit 45:26). Often, the word "Hai" ("lives") refers not to physical life, but rather to spiritual life. The brothers brought to Yaakob the astonishing news that Yosef was still faithful to God, to the spiritual legacy of Abraham, Yishak and Yaakob. Despite all that he experienced, spending his formative years in a foreign, decrepit culture among pagans, he remained steadfastly loyal to the values and beliefs of his father. This was something that Yaakob could not believe. He did not accept his sons’ report until he heard everything Yosef told them, his description of his religious life in Egypt, and he saw the "Agalot" ("wagons"), which, as the Sages teach, alluded to the topic of "Egla Arufa" which Yosef and Yaakob had studied together the last time they were together. Only then did Yaakob confidently and jubilantly declare, "Od Yosef Beni Hai" – "My son Yosef is alive," realizing that his son was "alive" in the spiritual sense.
For a Jew, "life" means more than breathing and a heartbeat. Without religious devotion, without striving for a higher purpose, we are nothing more than intelligent animals. We are simply organisms that go about trying to sustain ourselves, following our instincts and impulses, just like the rest of the animal kingdom. It is only through the service of our Creator that we are truly "alive," that we live meaningful and significant lives. To live a true "life," we must be spiritual beings, we must spend our time on earth not simply sustaining our bodies, but also working to raise ourselves to the greatest spiritual heights which we can achieve. This is what it means to "live" from a Torah perspective – living each day with a sense of religious mission, and filling as much of our time as we can with Torah and Misvot. Only then can we honestly say that we "live," in the truest sense of the term.
