Category Archives: Torah

Parshat Vayigash

Torah

Share This:

We find in our parashah a short and strange dialogue between Yaakov and Pharaoh:

“Pharaoh said to Jacob: ‘How many are the days of your life?’ Jacob said to Pharaoh: ‘The days of my sojourning are a hundred and thirty years. Few and bad have been the days of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the life of my fathers in their sojourning.’ ” (Gen. 47:8-9). This is a surprising answer to an apparently innocent question.

Yaakov states a difference between “life” and “sojourning”, even though he has not been asked that way. Rabbi Yitzhak Karo, in his commentary “Toledot Yitzhak” explains that “sojourning” refers to the wandering in life (“megurim” [=sojourning] is close to “guerut”, being a stranger and a wanderer), while “life” refers to good life. Yaakov wanders in life and even the time regarded as good was not actually that good. Rabbi Shimshon Raphael Hirsch explains “Life” as the time when there is a meaningful task to fulfill, while “sojourning” means life in general. Yaakov feels that his task in life was little and not good.

He says the days of his life were bad. Bad? He benefited from divine grace in a way only a few chosen merit! He overcame many difficulties and rebuilt himself. That’s why God changed his name into Israel! He run away with nothing and came back rich and strong. He made peace with his brother and succeeded in settling in his father’s land. He grew twelve children all of whom followed the paths of his forefathers, remaining faithful to God. This is a task in which both Avraham and Yitzhak did not succeed! (Yishmael, Zimran, Yokshan, Medan, Midian, Yishbak, Shuah and Esav are the evidence). He found his beloved son, whom he believed dead.

Isn’t Yaakov aware of his success in life? He is, indeed; he knows it very well. He even thanks God for this: “I am not worthy of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which You has shown unto Your servant” (Gen. 32:11). Nevertheless, these positive facts in his life are not enough to calm the pain of his soul. There is an unfathomable difference between what others see from the outside and what a person feels and experiences form the inside. Yaakov has a deep internal feeling that his life is bad. Trying to convince him that he is all right by showing him his achievements, is tantamount to tell him his feeling is not correct. But his feeling is strong and true! This kind of encouragement only increases the breach between his internal and external worlds. This only causes him more pain.

“Few and bad have been the days of my life”. It is from that point onwards, and not going against this statement, that one can help Yaakov to take a different look at his life and at his soul. Only by understanding this painful position we can help whoever expresses, like Yaakov: Few and bad have been the days of my life.

Parshat Miketz

Torah

Share This:

Shimon was not being heard.

Yosef, the great Egyptian vizier, forces his brothers to leave one of them as hostage, and he chooses Shimon. There is apparently no complaint, or resistance, or plea neither from the brothers, nor from Shimon himself.

Thirteen years earlier, when the brothers caught Joseph and threw him into the well, we did not hear any complaint or cry, neither. Joseph also was silent.

Was he?

In our parashah we finally discover that he did cry, he did ask for his brother’s compassion… but they did not hear: “We are being punished because of our brother. We saw his distress when he pleaded with us, but we would not listen” (Gen. 42:21). Why the Torah did not tell us at that point, in parshat Vayeshev, that Yosef spoke up and pleaded? Maybe it is so to let us feel that lack of listening from his brother’s side. Yosef cries and, like his brothers, we do not listen. The Torah teaches us by means of a hard example, together with a tangible experience.

Maybe Shimon also cries and claims, but they are not ready to hear.

The difficulty to listen, the difficulty to accept the voice of the other, is a central issue in Yaakov’s children relationship.

Now they talk in front of Yosef; they speak of their younger brother’s cry while being thrown into the well – a cry that they were not willing to listen to. They speak, but they still ignore the presence of their fellow person. Yosef listens, understands, but they do not take him in consideration. They assume he does not understand; and if he does not understand, he is not significant. Let’s talk in his presence without taking him into account.

Yosef, on the contrary, is open to listen to his fellow distress. He listens to the other and is open to hear and to understand. That is why he has the ability of interpret dreams, which are the hidden language of God and of the soul.

The brothers are too busy with themselves to grant the fellow person the status of existent: Yosef is there, but they do not recognize him; Shimon is there, but they do not hear him. Yaakov cries: “You have bereaved me of my children: Yosef is no more, Shimon is no more, and now you would take Binyamin!” (Gen. 42:6), but his children are not able to understand his clamor. Reuven even offers him to magnify the loss: “Kill my two sons, instead“… these are Yaakov’s grandchildren! Instead of three, Reuven suggests losing five of the family!

Yosef’s “exercise” is intended to cause them feel directly what it is not to be heard. They tell him who they are what their intentions are, but he makes like he does not listen and considers them to be spies: “Your servants have never been spies… We are twelve brothers, the sons of one man” (Gen. 42:11-13). But all explanation was useless: “It is as I said to you. You are spies” (idem 14). They feel the hopelessness of that who says and is not listened to.

The long and painful experience that Joseph makes them go through, produces a change in their souls and they are now ready to understand what they did not understood previously. They begin hearing one another, they quit each one’s bubble of isolation and become able recognize and accept the existence of their fellow person

This evolution in their souls is the founding point of the development of the People of Israel, a people ready to accept the Torah, to listen to God’s voice, to elevate the existence of other persons to the level of vital respect, and to persist in reading, listening and understanding every evening and every morning.

Parshat Vayeshev

Torah, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share This:

We usually consider little actions to be of little importance. Even things we utter by the way, we do not think of them as having any big consequences. It is as if crucial outgrowths could only come from important and programmed deeds. Moreover, drastic changes in history come only from famous people, who are experienced and well known in the field which is being transformed. At least, this is the widespread opinion.

Our parashah shows us a different reality, a more frequent one that happens every day, a reality more like ours. We may think it is a fortuitous reality. But it is not.

Yaakov had sent Yosef to search for his brothers, who went to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem. Yosef did not find them. He wandered seeking them, but it was of no avail.

Up till now, this is a simple story of something that could also happen to us. We set an appointment at a certain place but we cannot find each other. What do we do? We wait, we search, and after a while we decide to go back. We couldn’t meet this time, so we’ll do it later on.

But in the parashah Yosef finds a man, an anonymous man, whose task is to ask him “what are you looking for?” meaning “have you lost something? Have you get lost? May I help you?” A simply deed of everyday life. A generous one, but simple all the same. Something done by an unknown person. A deed that is not intended to cause any significant revolution. “They went to Dothan”, this is all the contribution of this anonymous man.

Is it?

Wasn’t this man interested in Yosef and hadn’t he offered him this simple information, Yosef would neither have been sold, nor would he have arrived to Egypt, nor would he have become Vizier. He would not have brought his father and siblings into Egypt and would not have become slaves in a strange land. We would have then never been liberated, would not have received the Torah at Mount Sinai, we would have never entered the Promised Land and the slavery we suffered would have never become the example and the basis for foundational mitzvoth of the Jewish civilization such as Shabbath, loving the stranger, respecting the rights of the slaves and paying them a compensation for slavery time, judicial justice, justice for the vulnerable, social justice and support for the needy.

It was only because one little thing by an anonymous man that our history developed as it developed.

God had said to Abraham that his descendants would be enslaved in a strange land and that He would redeem them. But He did not state neither the place, nor the time, nor how things would develop. He did not even say who exactly would be those involved and how they may respond to the developments. All this was in man’s hand.

And that anonymous man, with his so little deed, changed our whole history.

We all are that anonymous man. We should never belittle the importance of what each one of us may do. We should neither forget the power of our words – power either to build or to destroy.

Parshat Va-Yishlah

Torah, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share This:

“We came to your brother Esau; he himself is coming to meet you, and there are four hundred men with him.” (Gen. 32:7 (6))

What did Yaakov’s messengers really mean? A well-known explanation says that Esav was coming to fight him: “We came to your brother, but he behaves towards you like Esav, the one who hates you” (Bereshit Rabba, Pseudo Jonathan, Rashi, Radak). Others consider they reported only plain facts: “he comes to see you the same as you come to see him” (Ibn Ezra, Nahmanides). Other commentators see here the happiness of the reunion: “Esav comes with a large retinue to welcome his brother joyfully and cheerily” (Rashbam, Hizkuni).

So, how should we deliver a piece of information? How should we tell somebody, somebody else’s message?

Even though there is not an exclusive way or technique to do that, three basic qualities are to be met by a messenger: objective approach, empathy and control of emotional sensitivity.

Objective approach: to rely on facts, without adding or omitting elements.

Empathy: to try and understand what the receiver of the news feels (not “how”, but “what” he/she feels), without being emotionally involved. Emotional engagement may lead us to not to understand other person’s feelings, but to be engrossed in our own feelings and to react according to the latter.

Control of emotional sensitivity: to understand the emotional process we go through, so as to prevent these feelings from interfering.  Our feelings may lead us to detachment and coldness (out of distress to deal with the facts), or to overexcitement, or even to decide not to deliver information that is hard for us to grasp (assuming it will be hard for the receiver to hear). In other words, our feelings thwart our real understanding of the fellow person, they dazzle the soul and may lead us to act in a paternalistic way (“my feelings know better what is good for him or her”). At any rate, we should not annul or neutralize the feelings – the real challenge is to control them.

These three qualities must be present together. Relying on only one of them may cause us to deliver a wrong message, an inappropriate one, which consequences may be disastrous… even having the best of the intentions… like Yaakov’s messengers.

They failed to apply two out of the three qualities. They were very objective in their report, but they were neither empathetic, nor did they measured their own feelings. They described the facts without taking on account Yaakov’s situation, his problematic relationship with Esav, his fears, or even the threat of death because of which he fled the land he’s now returning to. Maybe they felt it was better for Yaakov not to return. Maybe they were full of anger against Esav. It is possible that they preferred not to influence Yaakov in any way, so they took the objective approach. At any rate, they did not measure the emotional sensitivity required by the situation.

The messengers transmitted only facts, without any context. Over-objectivity, that was not objective at all, since the context was lacking. And the context is a built-in part of reality.

In this way, they let Yaakov’s fear and anxiety tint the information with tonalities of loss and destruction. His apprehension coming from the past conquered him and prevented him to properly judge the now different current reality.

It is not easy to put in practice the three basic qualities of transmitting a message. Especially hard are empathy and control of emotional sensitivity. But to ignore them is tantamount to disembarrass oneself of the great responsibility of being a messenger of truth.

Parshat Va-yetze

Torah, , , , , , , , , ,

Share This:

Yaakov is a very complex character that presents dilemmas and experiences that are very close to our own life. His way to respond to the challenges compels us to reflect upon our stances, our beliefs, our principles. How would we react if we were in his place? What does he teach us, his descendents, by his behaving?

A very common situation in our daily life is the doubt that affects our confidence in the Almighty. We use to think that this is a direct consequence of modern times, of an era of spiritual skepticism derived from the scientific attitude in modern society.

But in our parasha we discover that this phenomenon existed always. One of the expressions of this doubt regarding the confidence is the lie that both Abraham and Yitzhak told regarding their wives. They lied out of fear that the local dwellers kill them in spite of God’s promise!

Yaakov, for his part, he establishes conditions to accept the Almighty ad his God! The Torah says: “Jacob made then a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, if He protects me on this journey that I am making, and gives me bread to eat and clothing to wear, and if I return safe to my father’s house, then the Lord shall be my God” (Gen. 28:20-21).

Many commentators try to understand that Yaakov did not really establish conditions for his belief. Some consider that he was afraid of losing God’s protection because of his possible future sins (Radak and Hizkuni, among others). Other commentators say that Yaakov was actually swearing that after having enjoyed of the Almighty’s protection, he will worship God in that very place (Ramban, Rabenu Bahya ben Asher, Rav Hayim Paltiel, Rosh, Keli Yakar)

But the simple reading of these verses put forward the doubt, the dilemma, the lack of confidence of Yaakov. He does not know for sure whether God’s promise will indeed become true. He is only beginning his spiritual journey. His belief comes from his parents and his grand-parents, but he has not yet developed his own in his soul.  Up till now his life experience may have taught him the incertitude of the confidence: his father prefers his brother and he himself receives a blessing by deceiving; but the blessing is intended for somebody called Esav. His mother assured him that if anything goes wrong with the deception, she will carry the consequences instead of him (“Upon me be your curse, my son“); but now it is Yaakov who must run away and his mother does not defend him.

This doubt is not only his, although. It is also ours. We find ourselves all the time in the twilight zone of our confidence in God’s promise to the Jewish People. We believe, yet we ask questions. We are confident and skeptic at the same time. Sometimes we feel that we can rely on nobody, but God. And some other times we feel that we can rely on nobody, period.

Our spiritual growth and our dialogue with God are not constructed without doubts. They are forged by struggling deeply with spiritual doubts and by building again and again our confidence and our belief in God. Yaakov’s spiritual development is the symbol of this struggle, of this going from the doubt towards the deep understanding of the relationship between God and Israel His People. Yaakov learnt in his childhood how difficult it is to trust, but in time he understood that even if “my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up” (Psalms 27:10). In that moment, he became Israel and ceased being only Yaakov. Yaakov establishes conditions, while Israel is grateful to God. Yaakov runs away, while Israel comes back. Yaakov is plenty of doubts, while Israel seeks to trust. Yaakov looks for one only answer to his needs, while Israel knows that life is too complex and there is not only one solution to the challenges we face. As it is written: “though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for You are with me” (Psalms23,4)

Parshat Toledot

Torah, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Share This:

One of the challenges that parshat Toledot forces us to face is whether we develop independence or dependency in the parent-children relationship.

The Torah opens by: “these are the generations of Yitzhak” [v’ele toledot Yitzhak], yet it does not go on with the latter’s children (like in other instances in the Torah) but with the generations of Abraham: “Abraham begat Yitzhak”. A known midrash tells us that God formed Yitzhak’s face similar to Abraham’s, for everybody to know that it was he who fathered Yitzhak (see Midrash Agadah, Bereshit 25:19 and also Rashi). Maybe our Sages felt how difficult it was for Yitzhak to get free from his father’s influence. We find indeed in our parashah, Yitzhak mirroring many times Abraham’s behavior. But his results weren’t as successful. Imitating the success of the previous generation is not a way of gaining accomplishment.

Yitzhak’s dependency on his father, or Abraham’s difficulty in letting the son of his old age go and develop himself, all made it hard for Yitzhak to walk independently. Who knows? Maybe the story of the Binding of Yitzhak, the Akeda, symbolizes the sacrifice of the dependent child on the altar of a parent who cannot release him … and yet God says to him: “Let him go!”

A lesson for all the generations.

We meet then the two siblings: Esav and Yaakov, who struggle with the imprint cast by their parents – the names, that fix behavior; the preference, that fixes behavior. The names: Esav, a man of doing (esav-aso = alef-samekh-vav = to do), a man of handwork. A practical person without any thought, reflection or cogitation, without any ability to evaluate. He’s a man of here and now – either he does, or he dies. And Yaakov, a person who arrives at his goal by indirect ways – he tracks [okev], he bypasses [okef] , he follows [meaqev], he hampers [meakev]. They both mirror what their parents established for them. And everybody, parents and children alike, enter into a series of actions/mistakes that only perpetuates the difficulty of recognizing the value and the dissimilarity of each one of them, as well as the value of being dissimilar.

Another lesson for all the generations.

It will take two parshiot, 21 years, and a lot of suffering from both sides (mainly from Yaakov), until both brothers would be able to be free from repeating the model established by their parents… and to meet… and to recognize each other… but the wounds and the scars will remain.

Everyone meant well and thought of the wellbeing of their children. But they not always regarded their children. In fact, they saw in their children their own reflection, forgetting that “toledot”, generations, speaks of “going forth” and not “going back”. It speaks of “we give, we guide, we show, we teach… and you must go on without imitating”.