This issue of the FJMC Unraveller, a weekly commentary explaining the aspects of Jewish history, ideas and thought, is being sent to you by the Federation of Jewish Men's Clubs. We hope you enjoy it and find it intellectually challenging. As we marked this past weekend the transition into Hanukkah from Shloshim (the conclusion to one’s first month of mourning) for the eleven martyrs of the massacre at Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, I am again dedicating this Unraveller commentary (and my revisiting further below of an earlier one for the Jewish Theological Seminary) so that the FJMC international community might honor their memories through Torah study.
Indeed, I have reflected often in recent weeks upon what it means for us as Jews to wish upon the deceased that “their memory be for a blessing.” One crucial way that we make this adage into a reality is by telling the stories of their lives in such a way that we derive wisdom and guidance for how we might lead our own lives in the aftermath of their ascent from this world into what our Sages call the World-to-Come. However much the hereafter remains obscured from our human perception, we face that unknown next plane of reality by illuminating the lives that our loved ones led and drawing inspiration from their lived examples.
The late Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel z”l wrote in the preface to his novel, The Gates of the Forest, that “God created man because He loves stories.” Some have said that Jews took that idea and made it into a religious obligation to pay forward that favor, placing God at the center of how we narrate and elaborate upon the journeys our people have taken. Ever since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden, Noah and his family entered the Ark, and Abraham and Sarah left Haran – each of those episodes and so many others describe God’s explicit role in the Torah of how our ancestors moved from their birthplaces towards an unknown future. In fact, those initial origin stories give way to increasing sense of uncertainty with each generation that passes.
A prime counter-example to those early stories in Genesis is Joseph’s narrative. which begins in this past week’s Torah portion and every year coincides liturgically with Hanukkah. Unlike the life experiences of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, not once does God or an angel explicitly appear to Joseph or speak to him in the dozen chapters of Genesis that depict his tale of descent from the Promised Land into slavery and then imprisonment in Egypt before his eventual rise to the heights of power in Pharaoh’s royal court. Our protagonist, nonetheless, insists that his travails and later triumphs demonstrated not the arbitrary ups and downs of our human condition but rather the intended albeit circuitous outcomes of God’s divine providence. In Genesis 45:5-6, Joseph tells his brothers that “God sent me before you…to save your lives by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me…a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”
Joseph’s certainty of God’s hidden direction might seem surprising – after all, he does not explain in the verses above how he discerned “God’s hand” in his life. Neither do we gain greater clarity from the narrator’s phrase, repeated four times and book-ending Genesis 39, that “God was with Joseph” – how specifically and concretely was this so? One compelling answer comes from Rashi, the major medieval French commentator, who cites our Ancient Sages’ insight into a seemingly-incidental encounter.
In Genesis 37:15-17, Joseph comes upon “a man” who is “wandering in the fields” who asks our protagonist, “What are you looking for?” While Joseph answers regarding the literal whereabouts of his brothers, the early Rabbis hear the deeper figurative question posed here to Joseph and posit that this is one of several instances in which an unnamed “man” in the Torah actually represents an angel (in this case, the Angel Gabriel) hiding in plain sight. This becomes the pivotal moment in Joseph’s young life, for the guidance he receives in finding his brothers leads him into their betrayal of him, first throwing him into a pit and then selling him into slavery.
In Joseph’s hindsight at some point later, however, our Ancient Sages imagine Joseph reflecting upon his shortcomings and, instead of regretting that chance encounter, seeing that God had intended for Joseph to find his brothers in order to set him on the journey that unfolds. This tradition of rabbinic commentary upholds a principle of “measure for measure” that, in this case especially, means that we must endure at times hardship in order to earn our successes. That is not a perspective I would ever attempt to impress upon another person during their adversity, but I sympathize with that worldview given my own life struggles and attempts to make meaning out of them.
May we all be blessed to find and amplify light in our lives during this time of increasing physical and spiritual darkness. Our rabbinic tradition can provide us with road maps for this journey, but we must find our own way in traveling towards the destination. Rabbi Andy Shugerman, Executive Director |
