רפואה מן התורה
Healing from the Torah
Although I have many
teachers. I’d say my two greatest teachers have been life and death. Each though is like a pit, however. The pit of life teaches me to be thankful for
what I have, learning to let the ebb and flow of the good and the bad, the seen
and the unseen, the expected and unexpected to teach me lessons that only life and
its imperfections can produce. The pit
of death has taught me to appreciate those around me, seeing the beauty in another
even if I encounter beauty differently, recognizing that sometimes it takes the
absence of one to see the other. But the
pit of death has also taught me how that the power of regret and anger or guilt and
fear (to name a few) can leave behind a residue that infiltrates the pit of
life, keeping me if unaware with the sakes and scorpions that meander on the
bottom. For me, the reality of the pit
either adds to my life or it keeps me a prisoner to my past that endeavors to siphon
away the future which in the end will include my departure from one existence to
the next.
Regarding Joseph, who we began
reading about last week, he also had such an experience, where the darkness of
his days in a pit appear to end this week.
In Talmud, Tractate Shabbat, Joseph and Hanukkah are connected although at
first glance appear as strange bed fellows.
In short, while Rashi says that the pit was empty of water it also contained
snakes and scorpions, the Abarbanel disagreeing based on the fact that Reuven
who intervened to save his brother would have never approved of such a tactic. What made Joseph and Hanukkah connected according according to Talmud was the measurement of “twenty cubits,” or 30 feet. If any lower you could not see the dangers of the pit, but if the Hanukkah menorah was any higher it could not be clearly seen. With Hanukkah the lights glimmered in the darkness
and for Joseph he emerged from the darkness of the pit, each its own miracle
and perhaps why they coincide yearly.
The parsha itself is
basically divided into two stories; Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams and Joseph’s
initial encounter with his brothers. The
dreams spoke to the abundance of today and the needs for tomorrow regarding
provision and lack. The first dream was
about seven beautiful cows and seven emaciated cows, the latter eventually
consuming the former. The second was of
seven healthy ears of corn and seven rotten ones, the latter causing the former
ones to lose their health. The
interpretation was that there would be seven years of plenty followed by seven
years of famine where the nation and the known world would have nothing. Pharaoh then elevates Joseph from a mere
Hebrew slave in jail to the second most powerful person to oversee this
potential world crisis, thus Pharaoh said to him; “I am Pharaoh; yet without you,
no one shall lift up hand or foot in all the land of Egypt” (Genesis41:44).
But toward the end of the first
story and before the second the redactor of Torah inserts a few verses about the birth of Joseph’s two
sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, which seems to come out of nowhere, although it is
really setting up Joseph’s encounter with his brothers (see Genesis 41:50-52). While Rashi teaches, based on a Midrash (Bereishit Rabbah 34:7), that this
info about the births was merely technical since according to Jewish law
marital relations are forbidden during a famine, Rabbi Raphael Samson Hirsch says
this highlights the fact that a Hebrew slave is the mentioned parent as opposed
to his Egyptian wife Asenat, honoring the rise and person of
Joseph. But Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg goes another way with this brief story. Zornberg
ties Joseph’s physic-social, or behavior, to the names of his children and his
past. Manasseh, which means “God has made me forget completely my hardship and my parental
home,” in its Midrashic sense is connected to “Torah learning” that for
Zornberg relates to Joseph’s “native culture,” or connection to his family
upbringing. Ephraim is about Joseph’s
“survival,” which celebrates his ascent as a ruler from his “terror of great
darkness” that fueled his plight of injustice (from his brothers or falsely accused
by Potiphar’s wife). Nachum Sarna also teaches
that the experiences that drove Joseph’s desire to name Manasseh is tied into
his experiences of being raised in Canaan while Ephraim is a word play of the
word,הִפְרַ֥נִי, hifrani, which
means “fertile,” Joseph seeing Ephraim as a gain
from a doomed past, or a “blessing of abundant prosperity.” Zornberg links this gain to “gratitude,” thus
the word for forget, נַשַּׁנִי (nash’shani),
not only means to “forget” but also “credit,” Robert Alter translating the
meaning of Manasseh as “God has released me from all the debt of my hardship,”
ultimately meaning that the two sons were like a credit gained from the past
more so than simply forgetting it. But
Joseph will learn that being grateful for the future without a past would be like
not looking beyond the plenty of today without preparing for the famine of
tomorrow.
The truth is that Joseph found
himself in the pit of rejection when his brothers turned on him. He also found
himself in the pit of injustice after being thrown into jail for something that
he did not do. But now Joseph was in another
type of pit, the pit of an emotional prison, embracing his new future while
seeking to extinguish the past, entering a pit that was much deeper than he
realized. According to Sarna Joseph’s
“physical, social and psychological security” allowed him to “forget his
miserable unhappy” past with great bravado. Yet, once the seven years of plenty
had passed the famine overtook the world, and in the same way after nine years
of Joseph being in command he encountered his own emotional famine at the
arrival of his brothers. When Joseph first
saw his brothers after 22 years his initial reaction was to recall his dreams
(see Genesis 42:8), Rashi making the observation that this recall was aroused when
they bowed before him as opposed to being part of his current thoughts (see
Rashi on Genesis 42:8). Likewise,
although the Sfrono teaches that his brothers in that moment made the dreams
come alive it became a reminder on a profound level that Joseph would take on
the role as a redeemer that caused him to think hard about how he would react. Regardless, appealing again to Sarna, Joseph
was “caught in a maelstrom of emotions,” the brothers bowing before him did not
remind him of his rulership and current meaningful purpose, but instead his
“sense of contentment is shaken by unpleasant memories.”
Pirkei Avot 3:1 teaches, “Know
from where you come, and where you are going, and before whom you are destined
to give an account and reckoning,” words of wisdom that we can apply to
Joseph’s struggle. He did not only want
to forget where he came from and focus solely on where he was going, but in
giving account both to himself and his greater values in God, he came to
realize that the better choice was to not allow the pain of the past to have
power over his choices for the future. In
the end his personal pit taught Joseph that if he stayed in it he remained
stuck, and although by deed as opposed to words, Joseph rose above his past to
honor the future by making sure his brothers got the grain they sought instead
of the revenge they may have deserved. The
pit provides value or is nothing but a sieve.
The pits of life, and death, are inevitable, how they are encountered
are determined by each of us, the Torah teaches to be wise in choosing.
Shabbat Shalom
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