Dec 27,2014 - Torah parashah = Vayigash (and more
about Yosef)
***************************************************************
Sh’ma
**
27 December 2014
~~ 5 Tevet 5775
Torah parashah = Vayigash (He approached)
B’re’shiyt (Genesis) 44:18- 47:27 RSTNE p 42
***
I have been listening to some Rabbi David
Foreman....
and I have been learning a lot not just about what
Torah says in Hebrew, but how to study the Word.
{One thing for you to remember if you listen to
Rabbi Foreman - he is Jewish... so there are on points from mid-rash etc. But what he teaches about the Word is very
good.}
So i want to share some things with you about the
story of Yosef (Joseph).
and we are going to do it from a perspective of
Inter - textuality
Inter -textuality is a way of saying...
“Where have we heard this before?”
It’s the idea that Torah links a story to a story.
So “Where have we heard this before?”
Is about...
words
ideas
phrases and
patterns
In Inter-textuality - story 2 will comment on
story 1.
An example of this:
D’varim (Deuteronomy) 21:15-17
p 154
Main
words we are looking at: (The Hebrew is
clear but we are goign to use English)
1. “Hated”
2. “inherit that which he has”
3. “Acknowledge”
4. “the beginning of his strength”
~ ~ ~
~ ~
Now let’s look at
B’re’shiyt (Genesis) 29:31
p 29
The only person described in all of Torah by the
word “hated” is Leah.
It really means - not loved as much.
B’re’shiyt 49:3
p 46
This is the only other time “The beginning of his
strength” is used in all of Torah.
And this - as you might guess has to do with
Ya’akov!
This is where YaAkov/Isra’el blesses his children
before he dies.
Then we still have the words:
#2 “inherit that which he has”
and
#3 “acknowledge”
Where do we see these words together?
B’re’shiyt 37:32
p 37
“And they sent the coat of may colors, and they
brought it to their abba; and said, This have we found: and we don’t know
whether it be your son’s coat, or not.”
“have we found” = “found” in English, the Hebrew
means “estate”
and
“know” -
better translated would be “recognize”
So D’varim is telling us how to understand the
Joseph story!
What the brothers are really saying to YaAkov in
B’re’shiyt 37:32
=
“Dad,
this is your estate - you need to recognize who your real bachor (first born
who gets the double portion) is!”
~
So that is an example of inter-textuality. :)
amazing!
~~~~
NOW LETS GET TO THE STORY!
Our parashah for today is
Vayigash - which is B’re’shiyt 44:18- 47:27 p 42
But let’s start back a bit in parashah
Vayeshev - B’re’shiyt 37:1-40:23
~
Did you ever wonder....
Why didn’t Yoseph write home?
Rabbi Foreman says....
“When we read the bible - we must remember that we
know more about story than the characters in the story.”
What “more” we know - that Joseph wouldn’t know...
= was the
brothers slaughtered a goat and took coat with blood to father...
Not knowing about the bloody coat - how might that
change Joseph’s view of story???
All Yosef (Joseph) knows:
- he
was 17 and
- he
had dreams that seemed to say he would rise to power and
- he
told his brothers and they became angry and
- then
he has a 2nd dream and he told his father YaAkov...
- this
is the very first time YaAkov rebukes Yosef... and was angry and scolds him and
- then
YaAkov sent Yosef to Sh’khem to check on his brothers.
What’s been happening in Sh’khem?
Simon and Levi undertook a commando raid to go
rescue Dinah - that resulted in the
death of an entire town... B’re’shiyt 34
Sh’khem is
a place soaked in blood.
blood spilled by the brothers of Joseph.
Now the brothers are angry with, and jealous of
Joseph.
They see him as a threat...
Joseph sees it is dangerous to go to Sh’khem to
his brothers.
But his answer to YaAkov, his father is...
“enani”
(en-ni) = “Here i am”
Eenani is one of those words in B’re’shiyt...where
we can ask “Where have we heard this before?”
... Who
else says “enani”...???
Avraham says enani “here I am”... to YHWH in the
story of the binding/sacrifice of Yitzhak (Isaac) in (B’re’shiyt 37:13)
It’s also comes up again in B’re’shiyt 22:11
- “enani” and
doom was right around corner for Yitzhak.
With Joseph’s “enani” - does Yosef realize doom is right around the
corner for him??
~
Everything wasn’t fine... and that is what Yosef
knows...
~
But what doesn’t Yosef
know??
He doesn’t know that the brothers brought the
bloody coat to father tricking father thinking that Yosef was dead...
He doesn’t know that maybe not only his brothers
are angry with him...but maybe his
father was angry with him...
... it’s not like nobody had ever been kicked out
of the family before...
-Avraham
wanted to keep Ishmael around.. Sarah didn’t want to and YHWH said - Ishmael is out...
-Jacob
and Esau
Esau
got kicked out...
So there was Joseph down in Egypt and there was
never any search party for him...
Maybe Yosef though he was kicked out of the
family...??
Look at the names Yosef gives to his 2 children...
Manasseh
= Mem nun shin hey
= “God has allowed me to forget my pain.”
Ephraim
= aleph peh resh yod mem
=
“God has allowed me to be fruitful amidst my pain.”
Joseph was building a new life - leaving his old
life... but does he think he was thrown out of his Hebrew family??
If we adopt this perspective, it changes how we
look at the story
and it changes
how we look at Yosef’s relationship with Pharaoh.
Pharaoh pulled Yosef out of the pit and asks for a
dream interp... and gives him new
clothes...
Pharaoh set Yosef up (again) as 2nd in charge
...everything Yosef would have wanted from his own father...
Pharaoh gives Yosef a wife... and a new name....
what kind of man does this? = a
-father -kind- of -man...
Joseph has new challenge - who’s your real
father??
but what if Yosef should be reunited with his
father???
~~ ~~ ~~
So.....moving to parashah
MIKKETZ -
B’re’shiyt 41:1 - 44:17
This is the story of the epic confrontation
between Yosef and his brothers...
In this story...
YHWH speaks without speaking...
What?
YHWH speaks without speaking....
We see it in
how Yosef interpreted Pharaoh's dream....
Yosef said YHWH will tell - yet YHWH didn’t say anything... might YHWH have been speaking without saying
anything?....
~
The
key to understanding Pharaoh’s dream
is to understand that the
cows represent years
Maybe YHWH was communicating with Yosef by using
things /events/history of Yosef’s life... ?
And then the next question would be ... Might YHWH
use this “telling” without saying anything with us... with the events of our
lives???
**
B’re’shiyt 41:14 p 39
- Pharaoh calls for Yosef and has him hauled out
of the pit (prison)
“PIT” ??
hmmm
-But he was in “jail” not a pit...???
= The Hebrew word for jail is - beit ha sohar.
... but it doesn’t say beit ha sohar -
It says “boar” = PIT.
BUT Yosef wasn’t in the pit now..he was in the pit
13 years before this - his brothers had thrown him in a pit....
but the Torah says “boar” instead of “beit ha
sohar” (jail)
Aslo - B’re’shiyt 41:14 p 39
-
Yosef gets new clothes...
What happened right before Yosef got thrown in pit by his brothers..??
-They stripped him of the beautiful coat...
So Look at this....
The pattern of this story is in reverse
chronological order...
1st = they strip him of clothes and j
2 = thrown in to pit
now taken out of pit
and
given new clothes...
Let’s look at reverse chronological order and
reverse significance
- or
opposite.
= It is reverse on two levels = chronological and
significance...
Does that pattern continue??
... If it
does, the next thing we would expect to happen is reverse of that story that
happened 13 years before - before he is stripped of clothes.
- He was
brought / came to Pharaoh...
So.... he went or was sent to a man...
= The opposite is being sent away from a man...
does that happen in story 13 years prior??
Before thrown in pit and
Before he
lost his clothes...
his father had sent him away from him to go meet
his brothers.
~
Let’s pause here... if this is true... that these
two stories are connected... ???
Who is pharaoh representing in this story???
Yosef’s father.
AS Yosef was going in to pharaoh's court to
interpret dreams.....
Joseph is
seeing in backwards fashion - his life when he got thrown in pit and before
with his Hebrew family - 13 years
prior...
So i am guessing this is preparing and leading
Yosef to understanding as he hears the dream....
Because he
must have seen parallels between his
life and pharaoh’s dreams... and these parallels helped him to understand
more!
The next thing that happens in the Yosef pit story
- should be the reverse of something that happens in the Pharaoh story....
before
Joseph was thrown in pit
before
he lost his clothes/ coat
before
his father sent him away....
After pharaoh has Yosef taken out of pit and after
he gets new clothes and after he comes to pharaoh ....
the very next words are...
B’re’shiyt 41:15
Pharaoh says - “I have this dream that nobody can
understand...”
What is the opposite of a dream that nobody can
understand??
= A dream whose meaning is so obvious that nobody
needs to interpret it...
This was
the exact event that occurred...!!!
Right before Yaakov had sent Yosef away to his
brothers...
Yosef had a dream that the sun, moon and stars
would bow down to him.... and Yaakov was angry....
and now 13 years later - the father figure has the
dream and WANTS Yosef to interpret it....
13 years before -Yaakov didn’t want to hear
anything about the dream...
~
one more...
In Pharaoh story the language - “the dream i
dreamt” was
Chalom Halemte = chet lamed vav mem = chalom
chet
lamed mem tov yod = halemte
13 years before the Torah says... Halemte Chalom =
“i dreamt a dream”
It’s the same thing - backwards!!
Add all this up..what does it mean?
This suggests that whatever happened 13 years ago
- at some level - is getting undone now in the pharaoh story!!!
13 years ago everything was falling apart
now it is all coming together
There is a remarkable correlation between the
events 13 years ago - Yosef’s last days with his family before getting sold to
Egypt... and the events leading up to Pharaoh telling his dream to Yosef.
Next thing is that Pharaoh is going to tell Yosef
the dream.... and if the pattern
continues - to correlate to Joseph’s life...
then
maybe these parallels to Yosef’s life - are
priming Yosef so when he hears the
dream....he’s ready to see the “more” of the bigger picture.
Meaning -it helps him “get it”!
So then let’s look at :
THE DREAMS of PHARAOH
There are the
7 fat
cows...
7
skinny ugly cows...
B’re’shiyt 41:18
p 39
7 beautiful
cows... beautiful and well favored
= vav yod peh tov - tov alef peh resh =
“yafotator”
if you are Joseph, what would “yafotator” (???)
remind you of...???
There are only 2 people ever described in Torah
as yafatator (???)
it’s Yosef himself and Rachel his mom
so if you are Yosef you know “these cows remind me
and remind of mom” = Rachel cows and Yosef cows
They were grazing in (a word that only appears
here and no where else in first 5 books) Rashi guesses that it means ‘swamp’ -
Gen 41:18
It is an - aleph chet vav
And can mean “next to river”.
But there might be another interpretation other
than “swamp” for aleph chet vav =
and that
is == “they were grazing with their
brother cows”....
But if you are Yosef, what would that remind you
of??
Besides... if it is talking about people it can
mean “shepherd”... so now what does it remind you of??
Rachel cows and Yosef cows... were shepherding
with their brothers.
Was Joseph ever shepherding with his brothers?
YES
That is the very first verse of the Yosef story
before he was
1.
thrown in pit
2. stripped of clothes
3. sent away from father
4. had dreams and tried to tell father
Before
all that - FIRST = he was shepherding with his brothers! == Gen 37:2
ugly cows = children of Leah cows...
what else does text say?
Pharaoh keeps on
in 41:19...
ugly , thin and gaunt -
=
“rachot” = resh qof vav tov
where have you heard that before??
The only other time “rachot” is used is is a homonym
resh kaf vav tov = describes a woman = leah “eyes were thin “ eyes were soft”
= leah cows...
Then in Pharaoh ‘s dream...
The ugly cows devour alive - the beautiful ones..
--If you are Joseph, what do you think?
= It’s the disappearance of the Rachel child into the pit!
The realization must have hit him like a ton of
bricks...!!
“I dreamt that my brothers would bow down to me
but that is not what happened, pharaoh’s dream is what happened...
-those
brothers, children of Leah - they swallowed me alive.
Then see what pharaoh says..
“The
ugly cows don’t look any better...
They look the same...
.... So this is the perfect crime.. “I was gone
without a trace.. and Yosef erased
off the family map!”
~
What is the problem with all of this??
- The number of cows...
Rachel cows = shouldn’t have been seven - should have
been one or two
and leah cows - should have been 6 only six
brothers from Leah
why 2 sets
of 7 ???
Let’s go back to one verse = the key to the dream
It’s the verse
B’re’shiyt 29:17
p 29 that gives the physical descriptions of rachel and leah...
“tender” and “beautiful and well favored”
“tender” = “resh kaph vav tov -- and
Beautiful and well favored = “ yod peh tov - tov aleph resh”
This is the key for Yosef to understand how
everything mirrors his own life!!!
and in B’re’shiyt 29:18 - and YaAkov loved Rachel... and he worked for 7 years...but Rachel was
switched for Leah....and Ya’akov ended up working for Lavan for another 7 years...
2 sets of 7 years...
cows = years!!!
when brothers put Joseph in pit - when they
“swallowed him”
... it is like one set of years .. had swallowed
the other set of years!!!
Because
the fruits of those years vanished!
Then Yosef understand... the dream was telling Him
something and it is telling Pharaoh something.
It was telling Yosef about his past life
and when he understood the cows...
then he got what it meant for Pharaoh...
7 beautiful years
and 7 terrible years...
YHWH is using Yosef’s life as the key that unlocks
the meaning of Pharaoh’s dreams!!
~~
There is yet...
a 3RD LAYER
of understanding Pharaoh’s dream....
Once Yosef understands meaning of dream.. it
unlocks the meaning of the dream for Yosef’s future - the 3rd layer...
let’s go back to Yosef’s interpretation...
He told Pharaoh
- “Do not despair... the fact that the ugly cows ate beautiful doesn’t
mean that we are doomed! We can
survive...
the beautiful cows’ job is to sustain everyone
despite the fact that nobody remembers them....
the Egyptian on the street won’t remember the 7
beautiful years ... but the crust of bread in his hand will be what keeps him
alive - and is from the grain of the 7 beautiful years...
even tho they are forgotten those 7 beautiful
years...
Beautiful cows have to give their bounty to the
ugly cows...
then they’ve done their job.
9 years later - Yosef’s brothers show up...
and Yosef estranges himself from them and is going
to send them home
but something happens...
Yosef remembered the dreams... in 42:9
He would have remembered how that dream
characterized the people,
...His
brothers, standing in front of him... they are the “rachot” cows - the ugly
cows...
and in the language of the dream, who is he -
Yosef?
The beautiful cow... and what did he tell Pharaoh
the job of the beautiful cows are??
To sustain the terrible years.
The job of the beautiful cows is to take care of
the ugly ones
Yosef looks at the brothers and as angry as he
is...he stays in conversation with them.
and when he sends them home, he sends them home
with food
When the brothers come back again, he sends them
home with food again.
And when he finally reveals himself, the first
thing Yosef says is “don’t be upset about what happened, I know why YHWH put me
here -- to sustain. B’re’shiyt 45:5
How did he know that? He knew that from Pharaoh’s dream... and
finally he understands the meaning of his future.. why YHWH put him there - to
take care of his brothers.
**~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Today’s
Parashah - Vayigash
Yahudah / Judah comes to the aid of his brother
Benjamin
Yosef places silver goblet in Benjamin’s
bag... and Judah says the person who has
the goblet shall die...
Yosef says “I won’t kill him, I will make him my slave.”
Judah had promised his father that he’d bring
Benjamin back alive..but he never thought Ben would steal the cup of the king!
- He doesn’t know he was framed...
Most of us would have just gone back to Yaakov and
said..
“What
are we going to do? Benjamin is
captive.. and we are lucky Ben is alive!”
But that is not what Judah does...
Judah makes a last ditch effort to save Ben by any
means possible and those means include a passionate speech to Yosef in B’re’shiyt 44:18
And Judah
he tells Yosef the whole story...
...
The painful story
“You don’t understand ... our father has already
lost a child of his beloved wife Rachel.
If you take this last child from him - the last remaining part of
Rachel...
He says...
“my father’s soul is bound up with Ben’s soul (heart in CJB) Gen 44:30
So if you take Ben from him, he will die. Please take me instead.”
There was a time when Judah had allowed a brother
to be sold into slavery because his Father loved that child more...
....but now would not be that time - again.
Now Judah says,
“I know my father loved Rachel more than my mother
I know he loves Ben more than me. I know that his soul is bound up with Ben...
but that is okay.
Take me instead.”
“Let Ben go back to his father.”
It is perhaps Judah’s finest moment...
And it succeeds in ending the long painful story
of the sale of Joseph.
Joseph cries and reveals who he really is...
-The long charade is over.
~~
Here’s the question....
Where else in the Torah do we hear these words??
B’re’shiyt 44:30 p 42
In the book of Samuel chapters 17 - 18...
In that story Goliath had threatened the first
King of Isra’el - Shaul .
Nobody thought they could fight him and then the little shepherd boy fells the giant...
Sam 17:57-58
-
It is strange Shaul is asking - “Whose child are
you?”
... the truth is Shaul knows David - he had
already been playing harp for him.
He doesn’t just ask, “Who are you?” but “Whose child are you?”
Sam 18:1 - the soul of Jonathan and the soul of
David become bound together.
This echos from the Joseph story...
Judah had said that Yaakov’s souls was bound to
Benjamin’s....
Sam 18:3 - loved him as his own self/soul
Sam 18:4 Jonathan took off his cloak and gave it
to David
what’s going on here?
What’s going on is that we are hearing the ripple
effects of Joseph’s story
... these men are the descendants of 2 prime
characters in the Joseph story...
Who is Shaul and who is Jonathan his son?
Shaul is a king from the tribe of Benjamin.
and who is David? ... from the tribe of Judah.
== Judah and Benjamin one more time.
In the story of Joseph and his brothers, Judah
risked his life for Benjamin
Judah came face to face with the recognition that his father loved
Ben more and would rather have Ben home with him than Judah... and that was OK.
Judah says - take me instead - it’s okay - he can
love him more.
Did Benjamin every repay Judah for that?
Jonathan, from the tribe of Benjamin repays that
debt.
Because, - what does it look like from Jonathan’s
perspective?
David comes back triumphant... if you are Jonathan
who does your father love and who is to be king? and now look after David returns with
Goliath’s head... look how Shaul is
treating David...
Jonathan
has everything to lose to David... Shaul adopts David as his own son that day
and didn’t allow David to return back to Jesse’s (his father’s) home.
Shaul knows David will one day become king and
what would that mean for Jonathan? ....
.... For Jonathan it is the greatest threat you
can possibly imagine...
But that is not how Jonathan sees it.
The heroism of this child of Benjamin, mirrors the
heroism of Judah...
... one who said this for Ben... now one said this
for David... “Let father take David.. i love David like my own soul...”
Then he takes his cloak and gives it to David!!
What does that remind you of?
There was a child of Rachel who had his cloak
stripped force ably by Judah...
Now it is not force able -
Now the child of Rachel the child of Benjamin
willingly strips his cloak and gives it to Judah.
It is a moment of healing
... where at least at that brief point, the 2
sides were reconciled.
At that moment ...
at complete
risk to himself - a man turned his back to his own safety and loved his brother
like his own self.
The memories of the sale of Joseph run deep,
but the
heroism of Jonathan is that he didn’t remember just the animosity,
he remembered
the sacrifice and he remembered the love
and in that remembrance lays Jonathan’s
greatness....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How does Yah speak without speaking...????
Might it be that even in our lives... He speaks without speaking....
by our circumstances...
did you ever look at your life?
did you ever look at the patterns in your life?
We have a private message board.. your life.. it
is the way YHWH talks to us...
and we may not always understand the messages...
We have to
learn how to listen..
Even Joseph didn’t know.. it took him nine
years...
It takes us awhile...
.... but we understand enough to know there is no
coincidence...
It is a personal language that means something
only to us...
AMEIN
AMEIN.
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