|
|
January 9, 2004/Tevet 15 5764, Vol. 56, No. 16
Subjugation must precede redemption
RABBI SHLOMO RISKIN
Vayehi/Genesis 47:28-50:26
"Jacob lived 17 years in the Land of Egypt." (Genesis 47:28)
This last of the Torah portions of the Book of Genesis begins as a parsha stumma, a "closed portion," which means that there are no open spaces in the Torah scroll parchment separating the last words of Vayigash (last week's portion) from the first words of Vayehi.
Why is this?
Rashi explains: "Why is this portion closed? It is because when Jacob our father died, the eyes and hearts of Israel were closed from the pain of subjugation which then began. Another interpretation is that (Jacob) wished to reveal (to his sons) the (final) redemption, but it was closed off from him."
Both of the reasons offered by Rashi are interdependent and interrelated. Jacob did not merely wish to give his sons "far away" intimations of an ultimate redemption. And he had reason to believe that the necessary conditions for redemption had basically been met.
After all, Jacob was nurtured on the story of an awesome vision of Abraham, wherein God tells Abraham, "Know well that your offspring shall be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed ... and they shall return here in the fourth generation." (Genesis 15:13-14, 16)
Now Jacob himself had gone into exile to his uncle Laban, with whom he was a stranger, by whom he had been enslaved for 20 years, and by whom he had been sorely afflicted. And these 12 sons were indeed the fourth generation (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph). Jacob had anxiously anticipated that he could announce from his deathbed that his children could return to Israel and be redeemed.
But why was it impossible for Jacob to announce redemption? I believe it is because redemption depends upon subjugation, while Jacob is the very personification of majesty. He demonstrates this when he meets Pharaoh. Contradicting protocol, it is the foreign Jacob who controls the conversation, blessing Pharaoh both at the beginning and the end of their brief meeting. The majestic Jacob - heir to the distinguished heritage of Abraham and Isaac - cannot possibly imagine himself accepting a blessing from an Egyptian idolater.
Joseph, on the other hand, expresses a very different state of mind. When he realizes that he must fulfill his vow to his father and bury him in Hebron, he is forced to stoop to the level of an obsequious petitioner, begging the servants to explain to Pharaoh that his father adjured him to bury him in Israel. Joseph suddenly understands with painful clarity that he is, after all, only a foreigner in Egypt, subject to the charge of dual loyalty if he seems to express too strong of a Hebrew or Israeli identity.
This is why I believe our sages felt that with the death of Jacob came the beginning of the Israelite subjugation; it was at the point of the necessary request concerning Jacob's burial in Israel that Joseph understood that he had to be most circumspect in expressing his identity. Therefore he - and his entire household - was indeed subjugated.
In the final analysis, Jacob is the proud Jew from Israel, while Joseph is the Diaspora Jew who, despite his high office, remains the suspected outsider. From Egypt the best we can hope for is survival; only from Israel can emerge the necessary majesty that leads to redemption. Hence, at the conclusion of Genesis, with the Israelites still in Egypt, the time is not yet ripe for redemption because the subjugation has begun.
Rabbi Shlomo Riskin is the spiritual leader of Efrat, Israel.
|
