I have a friend named Bill (father was Jewish, mother was Christian) who although he was raised with a bit of both faiths made Christianity his religion of choice. Bill developed what I want to call the Jewish itch and during the week of Hanukkah one day proudly said to me, “Rabbi, it’s the fifth night of Hanukkah; I am heading home to light my candles.” This reminded me of a teaching from the Talmud (Shabbat 23b) by the Rava, Abba ben Joseph bar Ḥama, who taught, "the Hanukkah lamp takes precedence due to publicity of the miracle," Bill wanted to display his Jewish identity for all to see just like Jews put the Hanukkah lights in the window to publicize the holiday. While yes this may be a Jewish story in the end it is a people story because identity is important. The story of identity is a part of this weeks Torah reading, Parasha Vayigash.
Joseph, born and raised as Jacob’s son in the tradition of his great-grandfather Abraham, took on a new identity as a slave before his identity as a prisoner. Once he is taken out of prison and elevated to be Pharaoh’s right hand man, Joseph takes on yet another new identity. Last week Joseph was given the Egyptian name “the sustainer of life,” or “Tzafa’nat-Panei’ach” and has two children whose names are about Joseph forgetting his past. His first son is named Manasseh, which means, “God has made me forget my past,” and his second son is called Ephraim that means “God will make me fruitful in this land of affliction,” the “me” being Joseph of course. Joseph seeks to forget his past while viewing his current blessings to be birthed in a land of his afflictions, even though he seemingly has everything; his new identity is that of an Egyptian. It is as an Egyptian that Joseph oversees the grain that his brothers came to Egypt from Canaan to buy during the famine.
One of the most moving scenes in Vayigash is when Judah makes an impassioned plea to whom he knows as Tzafa’nat-Panei’ach regarding the fate of his brother Benjamin and his father Jacob. The same Judah who helped master-mind Joseph’s slavery is now a man of compassion and love for his family, willing to step up for Benjamin in a way he did not do for Joseph. The power of that change seemed to be the final prying back of the layers of Joseph’s hidden Jewish family identity, in that very moment saying to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumbfounded were they on account of him” (Gen. 45:3). Upon their reunion, aside from the confusion were tears, yet our tradition does not always read those tears in a positive light. Rashi, based on a Midrash (Gen. R. 93:12), teaches that the shared tears, between Joseph and Benjamin in particular, were over the future destruction of the Temples that would be built on Benjamin’s territory, itself as a direct result of the sale of Joseph into slavery (cf. Zohar Chadash, Vayetzei 57). To me those tears were about self-discovery of family and reconnection. Rabbi Shlomo Riskin reminds us that when Joseph wept he did so “dispute his legitimate reasons [not to yet] one can never really escape ones family, ones dwelling, and ones earliest influences.” The issues of abandonment and anger were not powerful enough to erase Joseph's Jewish identity, or his family ties, even from their broken past.
That is how I see my friend Bill's personal Jewish awakening, not all that different than Joseph, Bill's misplaced identity for many years is becoming meaningful as he finds its value and wholeness. The Hanukkah lights for Bill became what Rabbi Isaac Luria called an “entrance-way” back to Torah, but really it is an entrance way back into the community and its traditions, something that seems to be acting like a spiritual DNA for Bill. Let me leave you with a little drash on identity. This new month is called Tevet or טֵבֵת in Hebrew. The like word Tabat or טַבָּת in Hebrew means “in good condition,” or being in the “right way," or something that “you benefit” from. Bill benefited from his celebration of Hanukkah, beginning the new month looking to return to his past and culture, experiencing a new beginning in his Jewish life and identity as he rediscovers his Jewish self. I came across a wonderful quote that I’d like to end with; “Nothing of me is original, I am the combined effort or everyone I have ever known.” Identity is an integral part of who a person is, shaped by family, community and religious traditions, so when Joseph tried to hide from it he found out that did not work. There is truth to the saying, You Can Run but You Cannot Hide.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Adam
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