Genesis 44:18-47:27 – Ezekiel 37:15-28 – John 4:5-26

This week's edition of The Set Table contains:

Questions and Commentary on Vayyigash
Chayyei Yeshua - A Devotional Commentary on the Besora Reading
In Summary
Looking Ahead

Questions & Commentary on Parashat Vayyigash

1. Who is Joseph according to this week's parasha? What spiritual lessons can we learn from Joseph's example?

David Nichol

In our parasha, after the reconciliation between Joseph and his brothers, we find Jacob setting out toward Egypt to be reunited with his long-lost son Joseph and escape the famine that is starving his home of Canaan and the rest of the region. As he leaves, God appears to him in a dream and gives him a message:

"Jacob! Jacob!" He answered, "Here." He said, "I am God, the God of your father. Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation. I myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I myself will also bring you back; and Joseph's hand shall close your eyes."

Genesis 46:2-4

This vision raises some questions. First, we know that Jacob in fact dies in Egypt. Is God's promise to bring him back referring to his burial in Canaan beside his fathers (50:7-14) or is it referring to when his descendants, the nation of Israel, are brought back four hundred years later? Along these lines, Nehama Leibowitz (New Studies in Genesis, 500), following Abarbanel, points out that before God says, "Fear not," we have no reason to believe that Jacob is afraid at all. He is going to see his beloved son, who he has just found out to be still living. Moreover, Joseph is vice-regent of all Egypt (outranked only by Pharoah himself!), so the family's material needs will be provided for. Why should he be afraid?  Leibowitz quotes the Ha‘emek Davar:

Jacob was afraid that his seed would be absorbed by the Egyptian nation. Only in the land of Israel could the unique Jewish spark be preserved down the ages. It was on this score the Almighty reassured him: "Fear not, for there I shall make of thee a great nation." Our Sages interpreted the phrase "great nation" to imply that the Jews would preserve their national identity, and not be absorbed into Egypt.

quoted in Leibowitz, 507

The Sages take very seriously the danger that Israel would be absorbed into Egypt and lose their distinctiveness as a nation. They credit the children of Israel with much spiritual endurance to maintain their identity for four hundred years in a hostile ("narrow") place. Similarly, Abraham and Isaac had taken steps to prevent their sons from intermarrying with the Canaanites, and even Jacob apparently discouraged intermarriage with the neighboring peoples (Exodus 34:8-11). Joseph even acted to keep his relatives isolated in the region of Goshen when he advised his brothers to report their occupation to Pharaoh as shepherds, an occupation "abhorrent" to the Egyptians (Genesis 46:34).

The life of Joseph is instructive in this matter. Why does Joseph, ostensibly the hero of the story, not have a tribe named after him among the tribes of Israel? We are reminded of the interesting scene where the brothers have lunch in Joseph's house. Because the Egyptians will not eat with the Hebrews (Genesis 43:32), Joseph eats by himself, his Egyptian associates by themselves, and his brothers by themselves. Joseph finds himself between the Israelite and Egyptian worlds, but not deeply part of either. By adopting an Egyptian name (41:43), an Egyptian wife, and Egyptian dress (42:8), has he given up or forfeited his Jewish identity? Were Jacob's tears on his neck partially tears of sadness, because his son looked like a foreigner (46:29; Ramban and Rashi disagree on whether it is Jacob or Joseph who is weeping)?

The narrative answers this question with a qualified "no."  While there may remain some emotional, or perhaps cultural, distance between Joseph and his brothers (see Genesis 50:15), and he does not live with them in Goshen, his sons, Ephraim and Menasheh, have Hebrew names, and Joseph is, in the end, buried in Canaan (Exodus 13:19).

So Joseph, a key part of God's providential working to forge a nation out of the 70 of Jacob's family who went down to Egypt, appears up close as a somewhat conflicted character, maintaining identities in two disparate worlds.  In this way, he reflects a struggle that is common to all Jews. Perhaps this is especially true of those of us living in the galut, or outside of Eretz Yisrael, but even in the Land we know that there is a galut that encompasses the whole world, and from which we will not be gathered until our Mashiach gathers us into complete redemption. May we, like Joseph did in the end, find our way back to our home one day.

2. Jewish tradition talks about two Messiahs: Mashiach ben David, the royal Messiah, and Mashiach ben Yosef, the suffering Messiah (b. Sukka 52a). How does the life of Joseph foreshadow the life of Messiah?

Nick Amic

In Jewish tradition the "sufferings" of Mashiach ben Yosef occur in three stages: 1. rejection; 2. humiliation & degradation; 3. assumption of others' wrongs. These three stages are followed by a fourth stage which culminates them all - exaltation. With the fourth stage, we come to the "second" Messianic personage - Mashiach ben David. How is Joseph's life a picture of each aspect of suffering of the Messiah?

Let's begin first with a brief recounting of the story. Our story opens up with the Torah's immediate connection of Joseph to Jacob: "These are the generations of Jacob: when Joseph was seventeen years old" (Genesis 37:2). It is quite clear that Joseph is favored and thus also given prophecy. He shares this prophecy with his brothers who immediately conspire to kill him. Although, there are those who speak out in his defense (37:21-22), they place him in a pit and leave him to die. He was then taken, placed in prison and numbered among the transgressors. Every step along the way Joseph encounters unwarranted suffering. On the subject of Joseph's suffering Rabbi Hillel Shklover, the grand-nephew and disciple of the famous Vilna Gaon offers an amazing insight from a section of Qol Hator listing 156 aspects of Mashiach ben Yosef:

Yosef recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him -- This is one of the traits of Yosef not only in his own generation, but in every generation, i.e., that Mashiach ben Yosef recognizes his brothers, but they do not recognize him. This is the work of Satan, who hides the characteristics of Mashiach ben Yosef so that the footsteps of the Mashiach are not recognized and are even belittled because of our many sins. Otherwise, our troubles would already have ended. Were Israel to recognize Yosef, that is, the footsteps of ben Yosef the Mashiach which is the ingathering of the exiles etc., then we would already have been redeemed with a complete redemption.

Qol Hator, Chapter 2, Aspect #39

It is obvious that Joseph was degraded and left to be "slain" (b. Sukka 52a). Yet, there is an additional aspect that has heretofore not been considered-the actions of Mashiach ben Yosef himself. It is on a deeper level that Joseph and Mashiach ben Yosef are connected. Joseph's descent into Egypt can be likened unto the descent of of Messiah. Like Joseph, he took "the form of a bond-servant" and "humbled himself" (Philippians 2:7-8). Both Joseph and Yeshua ben Joseph came to be exalted - one over all of Egypt, the other over all of creation (Philippians 2:9).