VAYEISHEV/MIKETZ: Seeing Heaven on Earth

A Vignette onto Yosef

To fully appreciate Yosef, you have to use your imagination...

A 30 year-old indentured servant, scorned by his brothers, and traded to Egypt by Arab merchants, is rushed out of his dungeon, shaven, given a fresh change of clothing and stood in front of the leader of the most powerful nation on the planet.  Upon being asked by Phraroah if indeed he is capable of interpreting dreams, Yosef responds, "It has nothing to do with me -- the Almighty will respond and [restore] Pharoah's peace [of mind]" (Bereishit 41:14-16).

This is not exactly the most opportune time to be doing outreach in the world's hotbed of polytheism!  Just interpret the king's dream and be on your merry way!  Bear in mind, contrary to popular belief, there is no obligation to say "baruch Hashem," every other sentence -- it's a nice thing to do, but certainly as you're trying to save your life, you can do good by thinking it in your heart and getting on with the dream-interpreting.  Being a religious Jew in the working world is due our utmost respect, but no one said you have to pray mincha in your boss's office.

The most stunning thing is that Yosef pulls it off.  He accurately interprets the dreams, and does so in a way that rings with familiarity in Pharoah's heart.  He even makes a plug at the end to create a new vizier position to implement a food storage program, and pitches it so well that he gets the job himself -- 2nd only to the king (41:39-43).  No SAT's, no ivy leagues, no internships -- he just showed up out of prison to an interview for a job he made up.  This is the type of person we need doing PR for the Israeli government!   

Who is Yosef?  Where is he coming from?  What is driving him?


Truth Hurts and Beauty Lies

Ostensibly, the world is divided in two.  On the one hand, there are synagogues worth tens of millions of dollars, elaborately adorned, with stained-glass windows, vaulted ceilings, heated seats, and a self-opening ark, but are mostly empty 353 days of the year, low interest in educational programs, and high intermarriage rates.  On the other hand, there are small, cramped shtieblachs with grimy floors and peeling walls, and smell mildly of herring, but are as packed with people learning and praying at 2 in the afternoon as they are on any given Shabbat morning.

Who's right?

Some readers may be nodding in disagreement with our polarized imagery.  And, indeed there are exceptions -- there are rare communities in which both the inner authenticity of Torah principles and its beautiful external expression are valued, but it is important to realize that if you've found such a community, you've found a gem.

It is the nature of "truth-seekers" to be suspicious of anything that glitters.  They tend to withdraw into their books, far away from the deceptive world that packages and markets anything that sells.  On the other end of the spectrum, there is a strong human tendency that drags us after aesthetics and popular appeal, simplifying and trampling along the way the fine nuances of what is actually true. 

Of course, the answer is that both extremes are right... and of course, both of them are wrong...

We hope to show, at least a little bit, how this dynamic tension between truth and beauty opens up the Book of Bereishit and the ongoing struggle of the Jewish people.


{This section is optional "for advanced hikers only"
"Truth from the Earth will Sprout"

Before we understand Yosef himself, we have to understand where he is coming from.

We'll start from the beginning: G!d's Existence is not like our existence.  We cannot exist without Him, but He can exist without us.  As the Rambam writes:

"All beings need Him [for their existence], and He does not need them or any one of them [for His Existence], and therefore His Truth is not like the truth of any one of them.  This is what the prophet means by וה' אלהים אמת 'Hashem Elokim is Truth' " (Mishna Torah Laws of the Foundations of Torah 1:3-4).

The Almighty is the only absolute existence.  As such, He knows and is all that is true.  Therefore, the creation of the world is not by any means a science experiment.  G!d is not hoping to discover any new technologies by running world history.  The only logical explanation for our world is that G!d created it to share Truth with us. 

Of course, for G!d, knowledge of Truth is essential to His existence; whereas for us, it doesn't come quite as easily.  Part of G!d's sharing truth involves us working to get it.  The physical world can be deceptive.  There is not a single principle in modern physics that can be described as "intuitive."  Try to go back in time and explain relativity or quantum mechanics or dark matter to Isaac Newton.  In this world, truth takes time.  Whether we're sitting in the laboratory or in front of a gemara, we will need patience in order to wade through our false hypotheses and buried premises to arrive at the hidden truth. 

Avraham Avinu eventually became renowned for his ability to light up the hearts of others with words of truth (B"B 16b), but he wasn't born knowing it:

"From the time he was weaned, [AvrahamQasdim amongst ignorant idol worshippers...he even served [idols] with them... until he arrived at the correct line of reasoning... He understood that the entire world was mistaken, and what caused them to err was serving [idols] until the point that the truth was lost... Avraham was 40 years old when he recognized his Creator [in the world]" (Rambam Mishna Torah Laws of Idol Worship 1:3). 

Penetrating the superficial shell of societal "givens" is no simple task.  It takes an enormous amount of time, courage, intelligence, and persistance.

Although Avraham came to attract tens of thousands of students, between the not-so-marketable commandment of brit milah (circumcision), the Akeida (binding of Isaac), and Avraham's eventual death, only one follower was left standing -- Yitzhak.

Yitzhak's greatness was in his complete internalization of his father's teachings, but unlike Avraham, Yitzhak deeply feared externalizing the message.  He was afraid that by over-publicizing it, simplifying it, and expressing it poetically in a way that would pull on the heart-strings of his listeners, the earth-shattering voice of the Almighty's wisdom would end up becoming another new age self-help book on the shelves, a bumper sticker slogan, a fad.  It is not until G!d reassures him, "Don't be afraid because I am with you," that Yitzhak builds his first altar and "calls out in the Name of Hashem" (26:24-25, Sforno 26:5 as explained in Michtav MeEliyahu II p. 163).

If you look at the nature of the blessings Yitzhak ends up giving to Yaakov, you will notice that they are all blessings for physical things (dew, grain, oil; 27:28).  His intention was to give the blessings to Eisav because Eisav, a "man of the field," would use those blessing to sanctify the external physcial world, while Yaakov would be the tzaddik who "sits in tents" sanctifying the inner world of truth and spirituality (25:27; Malbim 27:1-11).  As often is the case, the Almighty had other plans, and orchestrated the events in such a way that Yaakov would receive both the spiritual and the physical blessings.

Whereas, it may have been that Yaakov would have been content in his youth to have continued to sit in the tents of Shem and Ever and study and teach his entire life, the Almighty had other plans for him as well, and here begins Yaakov's life of exile out in the physical world.} 


Yaakov & Yosef

This week's parsha opens like this:

"...These are the descendants of Yaakov: Yosef..."

For those keeping track, we know that Yaakov had 11 other sons.  Why does the verse make it seem like he only had one?!?

We know that Yaakov's midda-primary character-trait is אמת Truth, as the verse states תתן אמת ליעקב "[G!d] will give Truth to Yaakov" (Micha 7:20).  As we mentioned above, Truth is a wonderful thing, praised above and beyond all the other character traits (Maharal Chullin 91b, M.M. II p. 164).  However, truth will begin to run into major issues as soon as it steps out of its tent of study into a world of half-lies, quarter-lies, white-lies, and plain-old-lies.

Indeed, we see this occur with Yaakov time and again.  He has to trick his father in order to recieve the blessings that are rightfully his... When he first meets Rachel, he kisses her because he knew that she would be his wife, and cries knowing that his act of love was misinterpreted by onlookers (29:11, Bereishit Rabba 90:12)... For fourteen years, he works for Lavan who is constantly cheating him -- he has to maintain his integrity while not getting taken advantage of by Lavan... He has to display kingly honor to pacicy his brother Eisav, to whom he owes no honor at all... When Shimon and Levi attack Schem, Yaakov is horrified that they "putrefied [his name] amongst those who dwell in the land of Canaan..." (34:30).

So tumultuous are Yaakov's trials and tribulations out in the world that a casual "Bible reader" may close the book with a negative feeling about him.  This stands despite that in reality, on a personal level and within his family, Yaakov achieved heights of greatness to merit all of his children's inclusion in the Jewish people -- a level not reached by Avraham nor Yitzhak.

As Jews, this is more like the PR we're used to!  If Israel does something good, it's really a ploy to control the media, and if they mess up, or do something that can be spun negatively, it's fitting for a front-page story!  In a certain sense, it is encouraging to realize that this struggle which is such a perennially "Jewish" topic of conversation isn't just serendipitous "bad news for the Jews," rather it is the essential struggle of truth in a world that doesn't appreciate it (Disclaimer: This is obviously not to say that everything that Israel does or Jews do is correct, but rather, even if it were, we'd still have problems). 

Despite this, we find that Yaakov's deep desire against the current was for truth to find its expression in the world.  His love for Rachel with all its depth stemmed from this desire.  She, as opposed to her sister Leah, is described in terms of her beauty יפת תאר ויפת מראה "beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance" (29:18).  Her name itself רחל means "sheep" the source of wool and clothing -- that with which we outwardly represent ourselves to others.  Yaakov saw in her a partner to bring the wisdom he possessed to fruition in the physical world (Zohar quoted by R Eliyahu Dessler M.M. II 218).

אהבה love, in the deepest sense, is the knowledge that you and another form an inseparable oneness greater than the sum of the parts (which is why in the infrared vision of gematrias    אהבה = 13 = אחד) (Maharal Netiv Ahavat Hashem Ch 1).  Yaakov's אהבה for Yosef is an extension of his love for Yosef's mother Rachel, and vice versa.  Yosef is also described as יפה תאר ויפה מראה "beautiful in form and beautiful in appearance" (39:6).

We can now begin to understand why Yosef is considered the primary child of Yaakov -- he continued Yaakov's life project of bringing truth to life.  This is what the Torah means when it says that Yosef was Yaakov's בן זקונים "son of his old age" -- not merely that Yaakov had him when he was old, but that Yosef was able to impact the world where Yaakov couldn't -- he continued his father's life (Rav Dessler M.M. II 217-221).  While יעקב was able to integrate truth from his head to his עקב heel,  יוסף could take it to the סוף ends of the earth.

It almost need not be mentioned, but beauty has its obvious slew of issues as well.  Yaakov saw in Yosef kingship, the ability to unify his 12 sons -- to help each find his place within the whole with his unique abilities.  His love for Yosef was actually framed by his love for all his sons.  The famed coat-of-many-colors was meant to outwardly represent that Yosef had in him the ability to orchestrate the many colors of the brothers (Rabbeinu Bechayei 37:2).  The problem is that physical beauty can be blinding.  Instead of awakening the brothers to see in Yosef what their father saw, they saw instead favoritism on the part of Yaakov, and arrogance on the part of Yosef.  This premature externalization of Yosef's kingship, even though it was true, ultimately led to the descent of the Jewish people into exile in Egypt. 
 
Similarly, when Yosef began to gain power in the house of Potiphar in Egypt, he wanted his external expression to be fitting with the new power he wielded.  A king must look the part.  But as we know, beauty can be tricky, and he was playing with fire.  In order to test him, G!d sent him Potiphar's beautiful wife as if to ask him How truthful is your desire for beauty?  The gemara says that what saved him was imagining his father's face -- the picture of אמת truth.  Because he stood this test, Yosef receives the title of יוסף הצדיק, who acts in the world, but is rooted in righteousness.

Ultimately, Yosef's kingship is what allows him to pave the path to save his family from famine, and unify his brothers many years after he was sold by them into slavery.

Between the lives of Yaakov and Yosef, we see in vivid color the push and pull of truth and beauty -- the danger of both extremes.  Certainly, each comes with its own challenges, but it is clear that the flow of the Torah is towards the outwards expression of truth.  Towards a beautiful truth.


Letting it shine through

We (the Jewish people) do not subscribe to the idea that making things beautiful or accessible to the public is by definition "selling out" or a cheapening of that which is true.  On the contrary, אמת truth, is found in its complete form only after the ineffable oneness of the "א" is expressed all the way out to the other extreme of the "ת."

As surely as the Almighty weans us slowly from childhood to maturity to confront the hard truths of life, so too, we cannot treat truth like a battering ram until the message gets through.  Beauty is meant to be a vehicle for the slow-release of truth.  Beauty is a readily-visible quality of something in which one can see the oneness of it through its symmetry, harmony, contrast, etc.  Truth, as we've seen, is not as immediately recognized -- it is hidden, more subtle, and requires more mental processing to grab onto.  When it doesn't overpower the message it is packaging, beauty will function as the very gateway to truth.  Its immediate attraction will draw in the heart, and subsequently, the mind can begin to appreciate the inner oneness of the wisdom therein.

This explanation above can sound like beauty is just a technical prerequisite to get to truth -- however, it's even deeper than this.  Although we say that "G!d's seal is Truth" (Yoma 69b), we know that שהאדם לא נברא אלא להתענג על ה "man was only created in order to rejoice in G!d" (Rav Moshe Chayim Luzzato Path of the Just Ch. 1).  G!d's "motivation" to create us was His Love for us (ibid Way of G!d 1:2:1).  It turns out then, that Beauty is the vehicle for Truth, and Truth is the vehicle for Love.  The reality is that Truth is beautiful.  Objectively speaking, learning and living wisdom ought to be pleasurable.  The Almighty intended Torah in its true expression to be more than just truth on a shelf, but to feel good in our hearts and even in our body.*

King David, who aside from leading the Jewish people, dedicated time to composing words of Torah as song wrote:

טַעֲמוּ וּרְאוּ, כִּי-טוֹב ה

Taste and see that Hashem is good...
(Tehillim 34:9)

*Of course this idea is coursing through all of Torah and mitzvot, but just to give a few examples...  The most obvious is "hidur mitzvah," the obligation to beautify a mitzvah.  The halacha says that one should overspend up to a third of what he was planning to invest in a mitvah in order to beautify it (Shulchan Aruch O"Ch 556:1).  To honor the Shabbat one should shower, wear clean clothing that are fancier than his weekday clothes, eat delicacies that he does not normally eat during the week.  The entire Beit haMikdash is actually described as the place in which all of the higher truth is sensorally expressed in this world (Ramban Shaar haGmul quoted in Rambam Hil' Tshuva Ch. 9).  A kohen in the Beit haMikdash must wear clothes that fit him and have no stains, otherwise his service is disqualified (Likutei Halachot Zevachim ch. 2).  These are just a few examples to pique your interest, but once you start looking, you will see this theme everywhere.           

         

.