5771 פרשת ויגש

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us how Yosef revealed his identity to his brothers and sent them back to Eretz Yisroel to tell Yaakov Avinu that he was still alive and that he should come down to live in Egypt with all his children and their families.

 The Torah then tells us that after Yaakov was told that Yosef was alive he said that he wanted to go see Yosef before he died. The Torah then tells us that God told Yaakov Avinu that he should not fear going down to Egypt since I will make you a great nation there.

 The Siforno explains that God was telling Yaakov Avinu that even though I told your father Yitzchak not to leave Eretz Yisroel, I am telling you not to fear going down to Egypt as only there will Bnei Yisroel become a great nation. This is because if your children lived in Eretz Yisroel they would intermarry with the gentiles who lived there while if they were in Egypt they would not intermarry with the Egyptians as the Egyptians could not eat at the same table with the Jews.

 If we look at this Siforno a little more closely we can ask the following question. We know that over the history of the world the Jews were living in exile among the gentiles and we were certainly not as righteous as the immediate descendents of Yaakov Avinu who were great Tzadikim and nevertheless God told Yaakov Avinu that if his descendents stayed in Eretz Yisroel they would all intermarry while Bnei Yisroel over the history of the world lived among the gentiles and never completely intermarried. What is the difference between the immediate descendents of Yaakov Avinu and all the other generations?

 The answer could be that the immediate descendents of Yaakov Avinu were not yet a nation and due to that were incredibly susceptible to intermarriage of the nation as an entirety. However, after Bnei Yisroel received the Torah they became a nation with something very strong binding them to God which is the Torah. Once Bnei Yisroel received the Torah there was no fear that they would all intermarry during the periods of exile.

 We see from here an incredible idea in how the Torah ties us directly to God. Torah is not just doing Mitzvos and learning Torah rather it is the connection that keeps us bound to God. Even if we are not as great Tzadikim as those who lived in the previous generation, the doing of the Mitzvos and the learning of Torah keep us close to God. The more we realize that the Torah and the Mitzvos are our connection to God we will strive to more and more connect ourselves to Torah by doing the Mitzvos better so we will be connected more closely to God.  

פרשת ויגש 5770

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the final confrontation between Yehudah and Yosef which ultimately led to Yosef revealing himself to his brothers.  At the time of the confrontation the Torah tells us that Yehudah came close to Yosef.

 The Ohr Hachayim asks that this would seem to be redundant as Yehudah was already talking to Yosef so he must have been standing in front of him.

 The Ohr Hachayim gives several answers one of which is that when the Pasuk said that Yehudah came close to Yosef it does not mean physically but rather emotionally. Yehudah was trying to sway Yosef emotionally so he tried to create feelings of love and closeness towards Yosef so that Yosef would respond in kind to his request based on the concept of Shlomo Hamelech that a person will naturally respond in kind to the feelings that he feels emanating from another person.

 If we look at this Ohr Hachayim a little bit more closely this idea becomes more difficult to understand. The concept that a person will respond in kind to the feelings of another person makes sense when two people meet each other or know each other and do not have any ulterior motives. In that case a person will truly feed off the emotions of another person. However, in this case Yosef knew that Yehudah had ulterior motives and was probably expecting him to try to get close to him to sway his decision, so why would Yehudah think it would work?

 The answer could be that we truly underestimate the power of emotions to sway a person. A person naturally lets their emotions act before their logic. Due to this Yehudah felt that even though Yosef logically should have realized that it was all a ploy by Yehudah to sway him emotionally, his emotions would be impacted before his logic which would get him to agree to Yehudah’s request.

 We can learn from here several very important things. First of all, when a person has an argument with someone and he wants to appease him but he says to himself he will never forgive me since he probably thinks I want something from him, it is not true. If a person emotionally shows someone else feelings of love the other person will naturally respond in kind to him. This is also very important in the way we act to people in general. If we are always happy and show people we care about them, it will naturally have an impact on them and has the potential to minimize machlokes in our lives. On the other hand since our emotions are so powerful we must ensure that people do not Chas Veshalom convince us to do something wrong by talking to our emotions. When it comes to being close to someone and preventing machlokes we should follow our emotions totally, however before we act on a request even from someone we feel close to we should think twice to make sure we are doing the right thing and not just being unduly influenced by someone else.

 5769 פרשת ויגש

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah tells us how Yosef, after revealing himself to his brothers, brought his father and his brothers down to Mitzrayim to live. When describing his brothers to Pharaoh, Yosef told him that the brothers were shepherds of their own flocks who brought all their cattle down with them to Mitzrayim. The Rabbeinu Bechai gives two reasons that the Shevatim chose to raise sheep as their livelihood:

1. Raising sheep is a profitable endeavor that a person does not need to put a lot of effort into to make a living and can do so without sin.
2. The Shevatim knew that they and their descendents were going to be exiled and they knew that the Egyptians worshiped sheep, so they picked an occupation that would keep their descendents separated from the Egyptians so they would not be influenced by them.

The Rabbeinu Bechai continues and explains that most of the biggest Tzadikim and Neviim in the times of Tanach were shepherds. The list goes from Hevel to Moshe to Shaul and Dovid Hamelech. The reason that they all became shepherds explains Rabbeinu Bechai is that they wanted to be away from the city since there are many sins that occur in the city like Lashon Hara and theft along with many other sins that could be avoided by being outside of the cities.

 If we look at this Rabbeinu Bechai there seems to be a contradiction. The first reason seems to say that the Shevatim when choosing a profession concentrated on the financial aspects while the second reason seems to imply that they chose based on the spiritual aspects.  Furthermore, the Rabbeinu Bechai brings down that the reason that most of the Tzadikim were shepherds was to avoid the sins of Lashon Hara and theft which seems to only be mentioned as an afterthought not as one of the major considerations of the Shevatim.

 In order to answer this apparent contradiction, we need to reanalyze the first reason. The first reason has three parts to it.

1. Profitability.

2. Not requiring a lot of effort.

3. Avoiding sin.

  These three aspects on the surface do not relate to one another. However, if we look at them closely they really are connected. The whole desire of the Shevatim in truth was to pick an occupation that would help them grow in their Ruchnius. These three aspects made being a shepherd the perfect occupation. First, it was an occupation that enabled them to earn a livelihood. As we know from Chazal, a person should find an occupation that will support him so he will not have to Chas Veshalom get involved in stealing and cheating to support himself. However, even though a person must work to support himself he should not pick an occupation that requires him to work many hours which will not enable him to spend enough time on his spiritual growth. This is why it was so important for the Shevatim to have an occupation that enabled them to support themselves with a minimal amount of effort so they would have more time for their spiritual endeavors. Thirdly, an occupation should be picked that will as much as possible will allow a person to avoid sin. This is why as the Rabbeinu Bechai explained later the Shevatim picked shepherding since it keeps a person away from the cities where they will be less likely to be caught up in the sins of Lashon Hara, dishonesty, theft, and others of the same ilk.

We see from here a very important lesson. When choosing a profession in today’s day and age, the society in which we live inundates us with ideas telling us that we should choose something we like and something that will make us a lot of money so we can have the good things in life. However, this runs totally contrary to the Torah system of values. When picking an occupation, our focus should be on how this line of work will enable me to grow in my ruchnius. Will it require me to have long hours where I will not have much time available for my Avodas HaShem? Will I be in a proper atmosphere where I will not be exposed to being put into situations that will cause me to sin?

If we can learn from the Shevatim to keep the proper focus in our lives and to realize always that our purpose in this world is not material but rather to grow in our Avodas HaShem, then we should merit seeing the Yad Hashem in our lives constantly and truly growing to become Yirei Shamayim. 

פרשת ויגש 5768

 In this week’s Parsha the Torah describes to us the conflict between Yehudah and Yosef and the final conclusion of the conflict with the revelation of the identity of Yosef to his brothers. The Torah goes to great lengths to describe how Yosef spoke to his brothers to put them at ease so they would not feel bad about the fact that they had sold Yosef to Egypt. In describing their conversation, the Pasuk says as follows:

And now you did not send me here but rather it was God.

The Ohr Hachayim explains what Yosef was trying to accomplish with this Pasuk the following way:

He explains that Yosef wanted to remove from the hearts of the brothers the thought that Yosef hates us since we were so hard hearted to him.

The Ohr Hachayim continues and explains how Yosef accomplished this the following way:

For this reason Yosef told the brothers that in truth, at the time of the sale it was strange in the eyes of Yosef how the hearts of the brothers could have been so cold to him. It was worthy for Yosef to hate the brothers. However, after he saw all the events that occurred to him in Egypt he realized that even the original sale was from God and the brothers were the messengers of God and because of this, there was no reason to hate the brothers and to remove his brotherly love from them.

We can ask the following question on this Ohr Hachayim. I can understand that a person who saw that what he originally thought was a bad thing was actually God’s way of giving him great good will be able to feel that what he thought was bad was really good. However, even if we say that Yosef was not bitter about the sale since it led to tremendous good for him, however, here the hate towards the brothers was due to the fact that they did not act with the proper brotherly feelings toward him. How would the fact that the result of the sale was actually good for him impact on the fact that the brothers treated him badly and for that reason alone Yosef had a reason to hate the brothers?

In order to answer this question, we should try to understand what causes someone to hate a person that acts badly to them. The reason is that a person feels that their “enemy” tried to hurt them. However, if a person would know that the person did not want to hurt them, the hate would go away.

With this we can now explain this Ohr Hachayim. When Yosef realized the fact that the entire sale was God’s will for his benefit he also realized that the lack of brotherly feeling shown to him by his brothers was also from God. This enabled him to remove all feelings of hate for his brothers from his heart.

If we can work on ourselves to recognize that everything comes from God, we can bring many feelings of baseless love to Bnei Yisroel and through that merit to see mashiach in our days.

5767 פרשת ויגש

 In this week’s Parsha when Pharoh heard that Yosef had eleven brothers who came to Egypt, the Pasuk says the following:

 It was good in the eyes of Pharoh and the eyes of his servants.

 On this Pasuk the Sipurno says the following:

 That Pharoh felt that now that the family of Yosef will be moving to Egypt he would be a better leader since now his family was going to be living in Egypt he won’t be a like a foreign ruler and he will rule Egypt better.

 Let us examine this Sipurno a little more closely. From the time that Yosef was installed as viceroy in Egypt, he did nothing but good things for Pharoh and Egypt. In fact when Yosef first told Pharoh what to do, Pharoh said  there is no man as wise as you. On top of all this Yosef completely filled the coffers of Pharoh while making Egypt a world power. What was Pharoh thinking?

 The answer to this question can teach us a very important lesson:

 In truth nobody would argue that Yosef did tremendous things for Egypt. However, when he did them, they were the basic plans that had to be put into action to save the country. However, what will happen when the crisis passes and you are now down to the daily running of the country? Will Yosef still put all his energies into running the country as before or since it is not his country he will run it well but not necessarily with all his energies? This was the thought process of Pharoh.

The Sipurno is teaching us a very important lesson in how we have to deal with other people. Even Yosef who Chazal tell us was tremendously honest and did not take any money that came in from the sale of the food for himself, on some small level would not have worked as hard for the country if his family had not made it their home.

We in our daily dealings must realize that this feeling permeates our lives all the time. This can occur many times when we are actually doing a selfless act of chesed. Somewhere on a subconscious level we realize that it isn’t really benefiting me so when things get difficult we are more apt to cut corners. Whenever, we get that feeling we must always say, if I was doing this for myself would I do it this way.

If we can do chesed for others the same way we do it for ourselves, God should act towards us with that same amount of chesed and fulfill our wishes for good.