From the Desk of Rabbi Yoseph Geisinsky

Parasha Vayigash

"Unconditional Love and Kisses"

Dear Friend,

Two adventurers John and Jack were hunting for gold in the desert. After roaming all day long under the hot sun, they set up their tent and fell asleep. Some hours later, John woke up his friend.

"Jack, look up at the sky and tell me what you see."

Jack looked up and replied, "I can see millions of stars."

"What does that tell you?" asked John.

Jack thought for a minute and said.

"Astronomically speaking, it tells me that there are millions of galaxies and potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, it tells me that Saturn is in Leo. Time wise, it appears to be approximately a quarter past three. What does it tell you?"

After a moment of silence, John spoke.

"It tells two things to me. First is that...you are an idiot."

Jack looked at John, surprised. "Why do you say so?" he said.

"Because it has still not occurred to you that someone has stolen our tent." replied John.

In our Parsha The story of Joseph revealing himself to his brothers after decades of bitter separation is, no doubt, one of the most dramatic in the entire Torah. Twenty-two years earlier, when Joseph was seventeen years old, his brothers despising their younger kin, seized him by force, threw him into a pit, and then sold him as a slave to Egyptian merchants. The brothers would later confess that Joseph was begging them for mercy but they did not heed his cry.

In Egypt, he was falsely accused of attempting to violate his master's wife. He was convicted and sentenced to a twelve-year prison term. From the age of eighteen until the age of thirty, Joseph lived in a dungeon without a single visitor or friend in the world.

From prison, he rose to become viceroy of the country that was the superpower at the time. After several encounters with his brothers as the disguised Prime Minister of Egypt, the moment was finally ripe for reconciliation.

"Joseph could not hold in his emotions," “He dismissed all of his Egyptian assistants from his chamber, thus, no one else was present with Joseph when he revealed himself to his brothers. He began to weep with such loud sobs that the Egyptians outside could hear him. And Joseph said to his brothers: 'I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?' His brothers were so horrified that they could not respond.

“Joseph said to his brothers, ‘please come close to me’. When they approached him, he said, ‘I am Joseph your brother – it is me whom you sold into Egypt.

“’Now, be not distressed, nor reproach yourself for having sold me here, for it was to preserve life that G-d sent me ahead of you … G-d has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival in the land and to sustain you for a momentous deliverance.”

“It is not you who sent me here, but G-d. He has made me Pharaoh’s vizier, master of his entire government and ruler of all.”

How are we to understand Joseph’s emotional response to his brothers?

One can only imagine how much bitterness and resentment such a man would ordinarily harbor in his heart. One would have expected that Joseph would have been so angry that he would never forgive his brothers. What did Joseph do? When Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, instead of rage and revenge, Joseph ends up calming his mortified brothers: “Do not be distressed!” I mean, Joseph is the one who should have been livid and his brothers should have been soothing him, begging him for forgiveness, and beseeching him to atone for their act. Instead, it is Joseph who is the calming voice, telling them not to be distressed!

A single change altered the entire story for him.

“’Now, be not distressed, nor reproach yourself for having sold me here, for it was to preserve life that G-d sent meahead of you … G-d has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival in the land and to sustain you for a momentous deliverance.”

“It is not you who sent me here, but G-d. He has made me Pharaoh’s vizier, master of his entire government and ruler of all One word changed in the narrative: From “sold” to “sent.” I was not sold; I was sent. This is how Joseph chose to tell and experience his story.

The difference is dramatic: When you are sold, you are a passive victim. Slaves are sold. Houses are sold. Companies are sold and objects are sold. When you are sent, you are an active participant; you are chosen to be sent somewhere, because you possess the resources and skills to fulfill a particular mission for which you were sent.

The story goes that some time ago, a man punished his 3-year-old daughter for wasting a roll of gold wrapping paper. Money was tight and he became infuriated when the child tried to decorate a box to use as a Chanukah gift. Nevertheless, the little girl brought the gift to her father the next morning and said, "This is for you, Daddy.”

The man was embarrassed by his earlier overreaction, but his anger flared again (he did have a very bad temper) when he found out the box was empty. He yelled at her, stating, "Don't you know, when you give someone a present, there is supposed to be something inside?”

The little girl looked up at him with tears in her eyes and cried, "Oh, Daddy, it's not empty at all. I blew kisses into the box. They're all for you, Daddy.”

The father was crushed. He put his arms around his little girl, and he begged for her forgiveness‫.

Only a short time later, an accident took the life of the child. The father kept that gold box by his bed for many years and, whenever he was discouraged, he would take out an imaginary kiss and remember the love of the child who had put it there‫.

In a very real sense, each one of us, have been given a gold container filled with unconditional love and kisses, from our children, family members, friends, and from our Creator, G-d. There is simply no other possession, anyone could hold, more precious than this. Joseph woke up each morning, he looked at his life, sometimes he saw nothing but an empty box…but when he looked deeper, he found inside the emptiness a kiss. He found there the love of G-d, who sent him to this place, to these conditions, and who was there with him in these circumstances to transform darkness into light. When his tent was stolen, he could suddenly see millions of stars.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbo Yoseph Geisinsky