Vayigash, וַיִּגַּשׁ  "And He Approached"  Genesis 44:18-47:27

Vayigash / The Wheel of Miracles 5783

Poetic notes on the parashat Vayigash*

God is not a designer of many wool garments

The resurrected are all clothed in fine linen

God did not make many skin garments for Adam

The secret of the tachash skins is private,

as is the secret of the High Priest's wool

The meaning of these garments is hidden for a time,

like the final meaning of Joseph's dreams

It is a treasure buried in a place of God,

buried there for an inheritance for his children

In this is the lesson

that we were born into the world to learn

Until you can love people at a distance 

you can’t love them perfectly close up

When this lesson is learned,

we will graduate with robes of white linen,

spun by God’s own hand

The angel said to Abraham

"Do not slay the boy!"

The ram was concealed in the thicket

So too, truth is concealed until we are worthy of it

But it is revealed to one immersed in the sea with Moses

The daughter of Asher

comes to Israel when his heart is dying

Israel’s heart was dying without Joseph

Only the hidden meaning of the dreams of Joseph 

could keep the heart of Israel alive

Hashem could have created the world without personal investment

He did not

He did it with the choice of love

and he planted a garden of choice east of Eden 

and planted an Adam there

He looked at his garden and at his Adam

He was thinking about tzedakah and about crime

He was thinking about Joseph and about holocausts

He was thinking about that Jew the son of David and about broken children

and about mothers and about the Torah learning of children

And he said to the Adam, eat freely of the provision of all the garden trees

but of the fruit of the wild tree of the knowledge of good and evil,

which has taken root right in the middle of the garden trees,

do not eat of that fruit

Joseph was there in the garden with his Messiah 

But alas, Israel was prepared to give himself over to his death bed

There the daughter of Asher finds him

There he is revived with her words:

"Joseph is alive!"

This occurred on the wheel of miracles

Its axis is wool — Its rim is linen

There are no spokes

There is nothing in between but the hand of God

Before the miracle of Joseph's heart breaking

and breaking and breaking in Egypt,

and healing Israel from there,

there was another miracle spinning from the spinning wheel

When Judah was still becoming Judah,

with Tamar and Peretz in his heart,

Judah stood face to face with Joseph

Judah did not know him

Joseph was concealed in a Pharaoh’s cloak

and Judah considered him to be like any other man

He was just a man who was the equal of Pharaoh

But he was a man who was obsessed with Benjamin

Judah wondered about this Egyptian prince and his obsession

Was this obsession for evil, or for good?

Judah would find out

This viceroy had shown himself, 

shown his colors to these Jews

He had shown himself both treacherous and considerate

One face seemed to be a lie that served the other

Only one face was true

Which one would it prove to be?

Did the kind face serve the treacherous?

Or did a ruthless face serve a kind but hidden one?

Like a lawyer before a jury seeking truth,

Judah forcefully stated the facts of the case

He would lay them out bare before the world

For Judah had placed his own bones upon the altar

as collateral for the life of Benjamin

Truth does not fear power

Judah would allow the conscience of this prince of Egypt 

to explain the impossible,

the impossible accusation that Benjamin was a thief

Judah said to the stranger, the unknown Joseph:

“You are the equal of Pharaoh”

What was the message between the lines?

Equal for good, or equal in evil?

Its up to you to say, you who have shown us two faces

If you treat Benjamin well,

my words will justify you

God will do good to you and to Pharaoh,

and Egypt will be saved

If your intention toward Benjamin is evil,

my words will be your prosecutor

The God of my father is the God of Abraham

He will dispose of your Pharaoh like waste

and will consume all his power,

as he disinherits all in the world who are evil

Understand this well, prince of Egypt

God did not chose to be the God of Israel

out of hatred for Egypt,

but out of His love for his creation

He saves the world through uncompromising judgment

His mercy is just

Be just, therefore, toward Benjamin 

and God will be merciful toward you!

Thus it was that this son of Leah

rose up and spoke with truth like a sword

on behalf of the lastborn son of Rachel

Before Judah had entered the arena with Joseph,

he had assessed the situation well

How inscrutable the unknown Joseph was to him

How arbitrary and aggravating

was the behaviour of this viceroy of Pharaoh

Entering the combatant ring,

Judah had been immediately pinned to the ground by his opponent,

like his father was pinned to the ground by the angel,

When the dawn approached,

like his father, Judah took hold of his opponent

and would not let him go,

unless he would turn from being an enemy,

and confess the truth of God and become a friend...

Judah overturned the world with the truth

that Benjamin was not a thief

Judah knew that, with the power of this truth,

the viceroy of Egypt could show that mercy could be justice

And it was simply for mercy that Judah pleaded,

that he, himself, might be allowed to be a substitute for Benjamin

If it was only to dominate Israel that Egypt wanted,

then Judah himself, Israel's strongest, 

would become Egypt’s slave

It turned out that

while Judah was set to let

the conscience of the viceroy speak,

it was the conscience of Joseph’s brothers

that was about to explode

and to expose all the truth before all the world

For Joseph wept and Hashem wept with him

and Hashem's tears certainly went down into Egypt

and they felt Hashem’s tears in their hearts

and those tears lifted their hearts up again

revealing for all to see the reason 

for the contradictory acts of the hidden Joseph

Then, their eyes being lifted up by the kindness of Joseph’s face,

the conscience of his brothers could speak to him

For Joseph became strong and private with them

He became mysterious like the tachash skin,

mysterious like the Kohen Gadol’s ram's wool,

private like the hub of the wheel of miracles

He sent the whole world away from them

It was a family matter

He spoke quietly to them again, saying,

"I am your brother whom you sold into Egypt"

Jacob and Joseph cut their nails

and corrected and healed

and sealed everything with a soft and tender touch

There would be no embarrassment in Israel,

even until the end of days

This is what Jacob did by doubling and dividing Joseph

into Ephraim and Manasseh,

so that the gentiles would wait and humbly pray

and would not lust too much for their gate of prayer in Israel,

which was being kept in its place for them by Dinah

It was her gate in the heavenly walls 

of the Temple of Jerusalem

There she kept their inheritance in the glorious House of God

For in the day that Hashem speaks

and the heavens and earth hear the truth,

every soul will know rebuke

and thankfully receive correction,

in a moment of the greatest kindness,

in the opening of the floodgates

of eternal knowledge and love

And our exile from God will be finished