Vayeshev, וַיֵּשֶׁב "And He Settled" Genesis 37:1-40:23

Vayeishev / Jacob Dwells With Joseph 5783

Poetic notes on the parashat Vayeishev*

Jacob dwelt with Rachel

He loved her like Adam loved Eve

And so he laboured for her

And in a mystery Jacob redeemed Adam’s love for Eve,

that first human love that had broken,

Jacob laboured for Rachel until he dwelt with Joseph

Jacob loved Joseph with his love

of the covenant of God

He loved him with the joy of his victory over Esau

To Jacob, his natural love for Rachel

was finally redeemed and elevated to the level

of his love for Leah,

whom he loved through his covenant faith

It is the truth that in the end

Jacob dwelt with Joseph in the house of Judah,

in the house of Judah and Tamar,

in the world of Peretz, their messianic child

But was not Leah hated?

It was the mystery hatred of the human healing crisis

It was only the hollow hatred that arises from pain,

the pain of concealment and labour

This is the pregnancy of Israel’s glory to come

This is the labour of barrenness

and misdirection for the sake of salvation and kindness

Rachel’s barrenness seemed almost

a redirection to Leah’s fruitfulness

In this passing labour pain,

God’s glory was concealed, but only for a moment

For the blink of an eye it was concealed

that in the eternal plan Rachel and Leah were one

Jacob’s whole life was sorrow and trouble,

but his soul was a womb of glory

Within this concealment there is sharp piercing loss

For the fear of the loss of love is a sharp edged sword

It seemed Leah had stepped out of place in a way

Was she in the way of the great romantic love

of Jacob and Rachel?

Somewhere a light shines out of pregnancy,

no matter how concealed, no matter how hard the labour

Somewhere in this story of Rachel and Leah,

of Judah and Tamar,

of Joseph’s loss and of Jacob sorrow,

of Joseph and his brothers,

there is concealed a Tzaddik, a Righteous One, with no feet

When a child comes and asks him,

“How come you have no feet?”

He answers,

“There are many among you who have no feet,

no feet of faith to walk upright through this world”

When the the child says to him,

“But you are walking upright with no feet!”

He answers, It is because God is with me

God is with even those who have no feet

When they desire to walk upright in the world

and find that they cannot,

then they will find Him

They will find he is there with them

and is ready to help them to walk upright

Then they will awake from the nightmare

in which they were criminals”

The child will say to him,

“Blessed be Hashem, the Holy One, the Only One!”

But if that true and natural love of Jacob for Rachel

is a redeemed love, and is, in the end,

one and the same love as Jacob’s love for Leah,

then, in this the love of Adam for Eve is redeemed

For Jacob’s love for Leah was created out of nothing in this world,

It was created only out of the covenant

of the eternal life promised to Abraham,

It is because Adam’s love is redeemed in Jacob’s love

that it is allowed to suffer God’s judgment

and come face to face with death, and live

It is for the sake of God’s covenant love

for Abraham, Isaac and Israel...

That love which Adam and Eve betrayed

will live again eternally

That pain of loss will be turned to joy

For this redeeming love,

this covenant love,

is the love God planted in Abraham and Sarah

What was concealed in hatred for Leah

is dissolved into holiness when Judah is born

And Judah is saved in the house of Joseph

And Joseph is saved in the house of Judah

To Jacob, the firstborn son of Rachel meant all of this

When he was sold into the hands of Ishmael

his grief was the grief of a miscarriage of hope

Ishmael was Esau's secret power

As long as Ishmael had a claim on Abraham,

Esau’s claim on Isaac was even more!

And so it was

when the covenant family set foot in the promised land,

they found it hard to settle down,

for there was trouble within and without

That trouble would spin Dan and Naphtali about

Asher and Gad would turn inside out and upside down

And then finally Simon and Levi

would also spin around the menorah-like coat of Joseph

The righteous family desired nothing more

than to dwell in the land of holy tranquility

The World to Come was promised and prepared for them

They looked for it to come to them from Above,

in the place of Jacob’s ladder

They desired nothing more

than to wait it in a land without violence and troubles

But troubles and exiles were made to be overcome

They were made for a people like Israel,

for a people who were made for the redemption of Adam

Through the strength of God,

Israel would make the glory of redemption known

Abel’s blood had power to scream from the ground

because it had the strength of the world to come

It was Abel’s blood that cried

Yet it wasn’t Able but the sinner who actually died

The rule is that redemption purifies the blood

It reclaims the soul from the mud

This rule would be established by Jacob with Joseph

They had desired to dwell in a land of holy tranquility

But Joseph had been blotted from sight

and buried in mystery and a cursed time

In truth, Joseph was exiled only from the ways of this world

He was concealed on the path of redemption

It was the sinners in Joseph's story

who went into a living purgatory

Judah wandered in a wilderness of remorse

Many would wait and languish there,

until the Kabbalah of Judah and Peretz was encoded

Then the mystery of the tribe of Dan unfolded,

when Dan would judge his people

He had at first judged Joseph without mercy

In the end, he would judge him as the only hope of mercy

For Jacob’s prayers would build the House of God

His prayers would build the twelve gates of Israel

And when the gates of prayer were open,

then all the work would stop

And Dan and his brothers would quietly pray to their God,

while they openly spoke to Joseph to say,

"Our brother, our life is in your hands!"

For how else

could a testimony of just and righteous mercy be given in Jacob —

unless those who laboured to build God's House would stop

and start with repentance

and confess and testify and say,

"We cannot finish on our own

We are completely dependent on strength from God

to overcome the adversary,

the adversary within and without,

to lay the corner stone in its rightful place,

to build the wall, to build the city, to build a House for God"?

How could God's House be built without such words?

Then Joseph, the tzaddik, the foundation of his brothers,

will answer Dan and the other tribes,

“It was not you who exiled me

It was God who sent me to save a great multitude alive”

Judah said the same to defended the face of Tamar

Just so, it is when we defend one another’s face that

Mashiach will come

For just as the concealment of Joseph's soul from the world

was ended when Rachel gave him to Jacob,

so the concealment of Joseph being hidden with God in Egypt

was ended when Judah gave him to Jacob

And so it was that in the merit of Joseph

God would return Jacob from exile both in Haran and in Egypt

God would return Jacob whole and complete to Bethel

Then many families of people shall go out and say:

“Come, Let us go up to the Mountain of Hashem,

To the House of the God of Jacob”

Jacob’s pledge at Bethel

will be heard to the ends of the earth and to the end of time

His pledge that all his twelve sons

will have their own gate of prayer

in the city of the House of God

The guarantor of his pledge would be Joseph

and Joseph’s guarantor would be Judah

And this is the secret that Jacob concealed in Joseph, saying,

"I have given you one portion over and above your brothers,"

which he sealed by giving Joseph the many coloured cloak

While at first they misunderstood and envied Joseph

the twelve tribes would be unified in the end

in the Rock of Israel

This rock is the mystery of the thirteenth gate

to the House of God,

that comes in the merit of Dinah and was entrusted to Joseph,

and was meant to revolve in the time to come

among all the twelve tribes,

as a light to illuminate a gate of prayer for the nations

When the double edged sword comes against you,

with Jacob remember,

Mashiach encompasses all prayer

Your attachment to him safeguards all your prayers

Your faith surrounds you

All the prayers of the righteous are a sword for Mashiach

He will turn back the sword that comes against you

Let us pour out our souls to God with Jacob like water

Let us pray all our days that at least once in our life

we speak purely one word of truth before God

For the seal of the Holy One is Truth

This can be done through the light of Joseph

which Jacob saw even in the darkest depth of darkness

In answer to the prayer of truth,

Benjamin will be honoured by Judah

In answer to the prayer of truth

out of the invisibility of darkness Dan shall stop and turn

for mercy from the God of Joseph

Dan will take his place in Israel

Eternal thanksgiving is waiting in Judah, as is written,

“O House of Jacob, come, we can go in God’s light.”

For in Bethel Joseph shall live again

And Jerusalem, the city of God’s House,

will lay from mountain to sea and from river to river

And the hospitality of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob

shall welcome all peoples into their home

They shall host an eternal celebration of truth with thanksgiving

Then Adam and Eve shall sing the songs of Israel

And Mashiach shall open his Torah and begin to read