Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan - Vayigash

[Music] good evening today we are learning parashat vayigas we are on page 251 in the art scroll homage and last week we spoke about the 10 brothers coming to egypt because of the famine that joseph predicted and through that prediction he became the the viceroy the prime minister the president of egypt with paro being the king and uh josef is the president the ten brothers come searching for him and in order to buy food and joseph recognizes them and he decides to test them and he tests them again and again and again until finally he forces them to bring binyamin and then he puts a silver goblet like a like a silver kiddush cup into binyamin's bag and after they leave egypt to go back to yaakov he sends messenger to intercept them and to arrest them and they search their bags and they find that indeed the goblet is in binyamin's bag and they realize that they have been set up they now have a a great choice either to submit and go to a death or to become slaves or to fight and uh an important question is is asked we know that the the the children of yaku were very strong and not only that we know that they also had spiritual power so why is it that they're not using it avraham with just his servant eliezer and according to the simple shot uh with 318 soldiers he fought against the huge army yaakov single-handedly was able to lift a rock that took a whole village to pick up yaakov's two sons just shimon and levi destroyed the entire city yaakov with his children destroyed many nations why don't they just fight egypt fight joseph and win why are they saying we'll listen you taking shimon from us you're telling us to bring binyamin okay we'll do that we're not fighting now you are setting us up and you want to take away binyamin okay we will be slaves they're trying to negotiate as we're gonna see in this week's parsha but they're not fighting so here we learn about an important principle that you have to be normal you have to live your life as a normal human being a jew is not allowed to misuse spiritual powers a jew is not allowed to benefit from his knowledge of torah or his knowledge of mystical uh part of judaism a jew is not even allowed to say his name and position if he is threatened in order to avoid the threat and uh where we have cases in in the talmud where a certain famous rav was attacked and he did not say leave me alone because i'm i'm a great rav if he would just say it they would leave him alone they may have been thieves but they respected torah and rabbis they were observant jews besides their weakness of stealing but this rav did not admit and they beat him up and the question is asked why didn't he stop them and say leave me alone i'm such and such or another case in talmud that there was one rich person a very wealthy individual who loved to learn torah he had a lot of businesses with workers working in all of them and he didn't even manage it he had managers and he would learn torah the whole day and one time he was passing by his villages and the managers saw a guy walking not working and they thought he was a worker and they told him why you are wasting time you have to be working they grabbed him and they put him to work and he did not protest he did not say what are you doing i'm the the manager because for some reason he did not want to be treated differently just because who he is so even though the brothers are mighty they're powerful they're strong and they can take an entire egypt on and when they're not doing it they are humble they put their head down and say we're sorry we're gonna be slaves and uh in this week's torah portion we see how yehuda is trying to deal peacefully with yosef even though midrash says that you would have threatened joseph with with destroying the entire egypt this was just a threat they were not planning to use it and again why not because a jew is supposed to trust hashem a jew is supposed to live like a regular human being we have to go to work we have to do shopping we have to cook for ourselves we cannot expect miracles that all of a sudden money is gonna appear in my bank account and all of a sudden food will be delivered on my doorstep ready made and all my needs are gonna be taken care of my clothing is going to grow on me and will be laundered on me we cannot it would be wrong to have such um expectation even though hashem can do everything and he has done it when the jewish people were in the egypt in the in the desert for 40 years but now we have to be normal and just because we are jewish and we have a great status of being the chosen ones of hashem and we know hashem we are close to hashem and we serve him and we have great merits we cannot use them in this world we have to behave as as as citizens of the country as citizens of the world as dwellers of the physical world and we have to exert our muscles and our brain to earn our bread while knowing that in in reality everything is coming from hashem but we have to put in the effort nonetheless so that's what the brothers are trying to do and uh you may ask the question then why did avraham run to save lord through his miraculous power and why did shimon and levi destroy the city of shechem through their miraculous might and the same about shimsha the mighty jewish hero why sometimes it was permitted that's a separate discussion and there are always exceptions to the rule but as much as possible the jews try to be normal we try to be part of the regular natural world so yehuda approached joseph and said this is verse 18 on page 251 if you please my lord may your servant speak a word in my lord's ears he's speaking softly politely he's calling yourself my lord he says may he's asking for permission to speak and let not your anger flare up at your servant for you are like paro your power is like paro he's praising joseph he's giving him tremendous respect and joseph gives him permission to speak and now yehuda speaks and again midrash says that this in this conversation we see that that yehuda was attacking joseph verbally and he was threatening him but according to the simple explanation yeruda was speaking politely and respectfully so after joseph gave gives him the permission yehuda speaks in verse 19 my lord lord has asked his servants do you have a father or brother and we told him yes there is a young brother and uh you said to us bring him to me and we said we can't bring him because he he's the only one left from his mother his older brother died and they're saying he died because they are worried that yosef really died in egypt as a as a as a slave as somebody who comes from a different race semitic race as opposed to hamiltic race he will be mistreated and that's what happened joseph was thrown into prison if you would be any other guy he would probably die instead of prospering in prison in the foreign country we see what happens to our american prisoners in china in north korea in japan in iran they are tortured they are malnourished they undergo psychological abuse when they come out from there they're no longer human beings but joseph on enemy territory and in the prison of an enemy country he prospers but as far as the brothers are concerned they suspect that joseph is no longer alive so they say his brother died and he's the only one left from his mother but you're still cruel and you said if your youngest brother doesn't come i don't see my face again and he describes how they try to convince yaakov to let binyamin go and how yaakov didn't want at first and he said i lost my wife i lost my son from her and now this is the only boy that i have to remind me about my dear wife and to remind me about my other son and if he's gone that whole line my wife and all her children are gone i will not be able to survive it i will die immediately that's what yaakov said and you would have continues on on page 253 that if we don't bring binyamin yaakov will indeed will die not only that yoda says i took personal responsibility for our brother binyamin and if i don't bring him back i will lose i will lose my portion in the next world i will lose my and therefore yeruda makes a deal with yourself in verse 33. please let your servant remain instead of the youth as a servant to my lord and let the youth go up with his brothers you would have says i'm willing to sacrifice myself because i would only be sacrificing my physical life but i will be saving my spiritual life i'm willing to become slave for the rest of my life instead of binyamin and let binyamin go to his father i still trust that benyamin is innocent if if you if you woulda was convinced that binyamin really stole he could have said it wasn't my fault he caused it to himself who asked him to steal from the palace of the of the president but you was convinced that this was a plot this was a set up this accusation was was false and benjamin is innocent and he says i'm willing to be a slave even though it's false and i have the right to fight i'm not going to fight i'm going to be a slave let benjamin go and he told joseph yosef i'm older i'm stronger i'm more experienced than binyamin let me stay if you need more workers will do a better job now we go to chapter 45 page 253 joseph could not restrain himself in the presence of all who stood before him he couldn't handle it anymore we know that joseph cried many times in in uh parashat vayeshev in parashat miketz as well as in this week's parsha yosef cries a lot he is a very sensitive person some explain it that since he originally was supposed to be a girl he had a female soul originally so he still has some female qualities in him he was very beautiful almost like a woman and he was very sensitive almost like a woman so he cried a lot and we see that joseph cried while he was in the pit he cried when he was sold he cried while they were leading him to egypt and then when he ran away from them he went to rakhils his mother's grave and he cried on the grave and they were beating him up and he was crying and then he was sold to potiphar and we see that in this when he met his brothers he stepped aside and he cried and when binyamin came he went to a different room and he cried again and later when jacob is going to come he's going to cry now he's about to cry again and in in the parashat joseph is going to cry another few times so joseph is trying to control himself because he really wants to test the brothers to see if they still hate children of leia or whether they will protect binyamin and now finally he sees that yes they're really standing up for him they're really trying to protect him and he can no longer hold himself he feels he's about to cry and he says he called out remove everyone from before me and all egyptians left from the from the room he cried in a loud voice egyptians heard and pharaoh's household hurt he cried so so hard and he said i'm joseph and of course they were shocked it says his brothers could not answer him because they were left confused before him and he further said is my father still alive and the commentators say why is he asking them they just told him that your father is alive but he was suspecting that perhaps they're using it as as just a a a tactic to make him uh compassionate they're telling him oh we have an old father he's waiting for us but who knows maybe there is no father so now that he is revealing himself he wants to know is yaakov alive this is very emotional meeting of joseph revealing himself to his brothers i am joseph and they're shocked for 22 years they didn't see him and all of a sudden all their their past comes back the dreams what they predicted that yosef was going to be a ruler over them that they're going to bow down to them they're shocked and they see that they were wrong they see that they misjudged him they see that they sold him while he was innocent and they caused him pain for the past 22 years and they caused unnecessary pain to their father for 22 years it's too much to handle they're shocked they're confused they're paralyzed and joseph continues speaking to his brothers he says come close to me please and they were able to come close and he said i'm joseph your brother it is me whom you sold to egypt so he is rebuking them but at the same time he is using it as uh to show them that he knows the past that he is using it as a proof that he really is yourself because no one else knew that they sold their brother it is me whom you sold into egypt but now don't be distressed nor reproach yourself don't rebuke yourself for having sold me here for it was to be a provider that god sent me ahead of you and now he explains that the hunger was already for two years but there is another five years of hunger to come and if he wasn't the prime minister yaakov's family has died and the entire egypt would die and the entire middle east and all the countries surrounding egypt would die out verse 7 god has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival and now realize it was not you who sent me here but god he has made me a father to paro master of his entire household and the ruler throughout the entire land of egypt and now just give some instructions go to my father and give him the good news that your son joseph is alive god made him the master of all egypt and tell him to come down to egypt not to delay to verse 12 behold your eyes see as do the eyes of my brother being having that it is my mouth that is speaking to you joseph started speaking to them hebrew and he's telling them look no one else understands hebrew just the translator and and i that's the second proof that joseph is giving them number one that he knows that they sold him number two that he is speaking hebrew and midrash says that when he told them come close to me he wanted to show them the third proof and that is to show them his brit milan verse 14 then joseph fell upon his brother binyamin's neck and wept and binyamin cried upon joseph's neck then he kissed all his brothers and wept upon them and only then the brothers were able to speak to him and as soon as paoto heard about this in verse 18 he said bring your father and your household and come to me par was very happy because until now the president of his country was some unknown individual a foreigner and it was not so honorable for paro now when par found out that joseph has family great family 11 brothers and the great patriarch father yaakov he said this is exactly what i need in order to boost my image that my president is from such a an important lineage but not only that paro said if yourself the youngest brother is so brilliant so successful then imagine if i have all the jews in egypt how good it's going to be for my country and since then every country realized that that the jews bring prosperity to them and the country that welcomed the jews really had their golden age and the country which did not appreciate the jews that was the the last time we heard of of them so verse 21 the jewish people did so sons of israel and joseph gave them wagons and provisions for the journey to each one of them he gave changes of clothing but to benjamin he gave in addition 300 pieces of silver and five changes of clothing and to his father he sent 10 male donkeys laden with the best that egypt has to offer and 10 female donkeys laden with grain bread and food for the father for the journey so the the brothers came to the land of kanan to yaakov and they told him yosef is alive was shocked and he is the ruler over all the land of egypt but yaakov's heart rejected it he did not believe them but when they afterwards related all the words that joseph had spoken to them and he saw the wagons the royal wagons that jose had sent to transport him then imagine 22 years mourning for your son punish me why did i deserve to be punished like that daddy you middle class and all of a sudden your life changes around what you thought was bad turns out not only not bad it turns out the best you thought your son died shalom and you find out that he's alive and not only that he's a ruler of egypt only that he is the savior of the entire world and now you will go to see him to meet him and to live with him as royalty all of a sudden you look back and you say god i thought you were hurting me but really you were helping me really you were guiding me really you were building my future just like the brothers yaakov is shocked and the yakov and here he is called israel because his spirit of prophecy came back how great my son joseph still lives i shall go and see him before i die so israel set out with all that he had and he came to bear sheva why did he go to beyosheva in order to serve god where he slaughtered sacrifices to the god of his father yitzhak because avraham used to live in bear shepherd israel used to live in beer sheva and now yaakov came to bersheva to do what his forefathers did to serve hashem in the place where miracles happened uh to his forefathers and here god appeared to israel and spoke to him and he said yaakov yaakov and he said here i am now go to page 259. and he said i am the god god of your father have no fear of descending to egypt for i shall establish you as a great nation there i shall descend with you to egypt and i shall also surely bring you up and joseph your son shall place his hand on your eyes so here we we see even though we we didn't hear yaakov saying that he's afraid but hashem tells him don't be afraid must be yaakov was afraid hashem says to him have no fear of descending to egypt because yakov realizes that the prophecy that the jewish people are going to be slaves in the land not their own is about to happen and he's worried hashem says don't worry i will go with you just like for the last 22 years you were suffering because you thought i forgot about you you thought that what's happening is bad and it was really good same thing here the jewish people will be in egypt they will be enslaved and they will cry they will think that god forgot about them but i will be with them and i will bring them up and i will reward them their slavery in egypt will be a gift for them their slavery in egypt is what is going to build them up what is going to make a great nation out of them they will be after going through that slavery they will be worthy to receive the torah if they don't go through that they're going to lose their entire future and allah so go to egypt and become becoming to be becoming a slave is actually the best thing for the jewish people as hard as it may be as as painful and you have to watch how your children are being killed and how your husbands and brothers are being tortured with harsh labor but it's actually good so hashem says i shall descend with you to egypt and i shall also surely bring you up so yaakov with his children children came to the land of egypt and now the torah lists the 70 people that came to egypt reuven's children reuven had four children together with ruben that's five people shimon had six children together with children is seven so we have twelve lady had three children together with him it's is four so we have 16 total yehuda had five children but two of them died and so the remaining ones are only three and plus his um two grandchildren are listed so that's five with you that's um six so together it makes 22 people so far is four children with him is five so we're up to 27. zevolon had three children with him it's four together it's 31 and dina so together 22 people uh 32 people so far now some count yakov as the 33rd person and some count johaved the mother of uh moshe aron and miriam as the 33rd person so so far we have 33 people now we turn to page 261 and we have children of zilpah god and hashem god has seven children with him it's eight and a share has seven descendants with him it's eight so together it's 16 people from zilpah so you have 16 plus 33 that's 49 people so far now we have children of rahgel and we have yosef whose children are menacing fry so that's three people and uh yeah and binyamin has 10 sons with him it's 11 11 plus three that's 14 people so rachel had 14 people and 49 plus 14 that makes it 63. and bilhah the last wife had seven people seven people naphtali's uh duns dun had only one son so together with don that's two and naphtali had four children and together with him that's five so together it's seven people and all together it's 70 souls that came to egypt but of course we counted only the man ex with the exception of dina and perhaps your heaven so only two ladies were counted um there were the remainder 68 men and two ladies because we're counting um only the heads of the of families so total there were 70 families that descended we have a principle that a wife and a husband are one unit and therefore in torah whenever we have a census we only count men over the age of 20. that is because we assume that by that age they already have a family so when we count a man over the age of we're counting his whole family and we're counting how many families are there in the jewish nation because the the jewish nation the jewish nation is only as strong as our jewish families not individuals individuals are very risky an individual who doesn't have the support of his spouse can fall that is why teenage years uh the most dangerous years of of a person's life this is when his uh physical body is developing but he's not yet married most dangerous once he is married you can already breathe the sigh of relief it's much safer okay now verse 28 on page 261 yaakov sent yahoo ahead of him to joseph to prepare ahead of him in goshen verse 29 yaakov and joseph finally meet joseph harnessed his chariot and what went up to meet israel his father in goshen he appeared before him fell on his neck and wept on his neck exceeding excessively joseph falls on his uh and joseph cries and surprisingly only one person is crying over here and the question is who is crying so most commentators say that it's joseph who is crying what is yaakov doing in the meantime midrash says yaakov uses this opportunity to say shma because in shema we say you have to love your hashem your god with all your heart and with all your soul so yaakov says this is the perfect opportunity before expressing my love to joseph i will use this as my perhaps only chance to show that my love for hashem is greater than my love for anyone else afterwards surely yakov cried as well now page 263 israel said to yourself now i can die after my having seen your face because you're still alive joseph introduces the brothers to paro and he introduces yaakov but before that he prepares the brothers what to say in verse 33 and it shall be when paro summons you and says what is your occupation then you are to say your servants have been cattlemen from our youth till now so that you may be able to settle in the region of goshen since all shepherds are abhorrent to egyptians so yosef is trying to protect the brothers from um governmental service that they should not be enlisted into the army and they should not be enlisted into the government that they should be separate in their jewish community not mixing with idolatrous egyptians and he uses the excuse that that egyptians don't eat meat because they serve sheep and cows they they idolize animals and therefore they cannot uh eat together with meat eaters and they cannot even live next to meat eaters so he uses this excuse to isolate the jews in their own land now chapter 47 verse 2 from the least of his brothers he took five men and presented them to power he chose the the shortest the weakest brothers not to impress para so much that he shouldn't hire them and he shouldn't take them as his generals for the army and also not to put iron around them and they had that conversation power asked them what is the occupation they said that we are shepherds and the paro said to joseph verse 6 let your your your father and your brothers settle in a region of goshen but paro still is trying his luck and he says if you know that there are capable men among them appoint them as ministers ministers over the livestock that belongs to me now the question is why does paro have his own life stuck did we say that egyptians don't like shepherds and they idolize animals so we can give a few answers one answer is that this was a livestock that was used for idols another answer that paro just like many politicians nowadays behaved in a different way than the rest of the population he had animals while the rest of the population didn't um another answer given was that egyptians only served small animals like goats and sheep but they did not serve cows and therefore they were allowed to eat cows unlike india where it's the opposite in egypt they only served goats and sheep and they didn't eat them and so here when we speak about livestock specifically cattle specifically cows and bulls okay different answers now verse seven joseph brought yaakov his father and presented him to paro and yaakov blessed paro and para asked yakov how old are you and jacob answered the days of the years of my sojourns have been 130 years i spend 130 years on this planet on earth however few and bad have been the days of the years of my life now our sages say that these words that yaakov said were not good yaakov should not have complained and for every word that he uttered a year was taken away from his life he was punished for complaining that's how serious complaints are we have to take this to mind and um make sure we only say good things because hashem does not like complainers hashem created the world to give us pleasure he is showering us with all the blessings and if we fail to realize them we are denying god what he deserves we are instead of enjoying and saying thank you we're complaining hashem says what do you mean i'm taking care of you i'm protecting you i'm making sure that your future should be bright and now you have to go over through some bumps some tests but all that is for your benefit don't complain so yaakov lost many years of his life yaakov again blesses paro and leaves verse 13 joseph saves the world from famine there was no bread in all the earth for the famine was very severe joseph gathered all the money that was to be found in the land of egypt and in the land of canaan through the provisions that they were purchasing people had to spend all their money for food and egyptians came to yosef and said give us bread why should we die in your presence will we have no money and joseph said bring your livestock so they brought their livestock to joseph and joseph gave them bran in return for the horses sheep cattle donkeys and they were able to survive that year and when that year ended they came to him again and said we have no money and we have no animals only have our bodies and our land so they said let us become slaves to you but at least feed us but joseph said no i will acquire your land for your food but you can stay on your land thus joseph acquired all the land of egypt for paro for every egyptian sold his field because of the famine has had overwhelmed them and the land became parrots but josef said you know what i don't want you to become slaves because slaves don't work so well slaves just like in the communist countries where everybody is treated like a slave nobody wants to work and eventually the communist country becomes poor like it happened with russia and all the other socialist countries and and now it's happening to north korea because if i'm just working for somebody i don't want to work hard so just told them remain free people i'm gonna give you a plot of land for each family work the land and give 20 to paro from now on and for the rest of history that's going to be your tax but you're free and realizing that they're free they will work harder because whatever they earn they get 80 of it so it's worth it for me to work hard but in order they shouldn't uh feel comfortable on their land on their own land and forget that they ever sold it he resettled them as for the when when in uh in verse 21 on page 267 as for the nation he resettled it by cities from one end of egypt's borders to the other only the land of the priests he did not buy since the priests had stipend from paro imagine that in such a country as paro as as as egypt three and a half thousand years ago they already recognized that somebody who is in the service of god deserves to be supported by public funds supported by the government why because they recognize even the idolatrous egyptians ancient egyptians recognize that not by bread alone the man lives a human being needs spirituality in his life and unlike some modern countries which tries to separate religion and the government which try to suppress religion in egypt they supported religion and they they even paid a stipend and they absolved the priests from paying taxes and it's interesting that that later the jewish people benefited from it the tribe of levi as future priests they accepted upon themselves to have the role of uh the spiritual leader of the jewish people of yaakov's family and so paro did not enslave them the tribe of levites was not enslaved because of this rule that they had since the priests had a stipend from paro and they lived off their stipend their power had given them therefore they did not sell their land so yourself said to the people look i have acquired you this day with your land for powder here's seed for you sow the land and when you gather the harvest you will give a fifth twenty percent to paro and the other four parts shall be yours as seed for the field and food for yourselves and for those in your household and to feed your young ones and they were very thankful they said you have saved our lives we're even willing to be slaves to power but thank you for giving us our freedom so joseph imposed it as a stat statute till this day regarding the land of egypt that paro received a fifth only the priests that and their land did not become paras and the the final verse in this portion thus israel settled in the land of egypt in the region of goshen they acquired property in it and they were fruitful and multiplied greatly they enjoyed the benefit of being related to the royal family and god bless them as a prelude to the egyptian exile and slavery that they should multiply and and grow miraculously from 70 families they grew into millions and all through the the slavery and killings they were only growing and growing we finished the pasha if you have any questions you may ask somebody is asking uh the question that i don't quite understand if you can explain it more the question is why was yaakov punished for complaining didn't hana complain to i don't remember hannah complaining if you can clarify how did she complain um okay now let me see okay very good if there are no more questions um tomorrow is a fast day the the tenth of te vet assarab tv we mourn three events that happened on the 8th 9th and 10th of tibet all these three days are considered days of mourning but we fast on one of them the last one we we fast because uh the torah was translated into greek we also uh mourn because ezra ezra described died a different time period but but the same date 8th 9th and 10th of tibet and finally jerusalem was besieged surrounded which eventually led to the breaching of the walls and destruction of the first temple so this is a very serious fast whoever can must fast all healthy men and women have to fast only if you're sick or a pregnant or nursing uh woman doesn't have to fast children don't have to fast but all adults who are healthy have to fast and this is a unique fast that happens on friday and we continue the fast until we make kiddush friday night may everyone have an easy fast meaningful fast may we we see the rebuilding of yerushalayim and of dash may we see the coming of mashiach and uh may all the the fast days turn into holidays by zad hashem thank you for listening have a good night and shabbat [Music] shalom