Miryam's Space

A New calendar new year approaches. Perhaps we think about New Years resolutions, What are some of yours? Can we really change? What must the foundation be for our change? Perhaps theses 3 steps: Admit our truth, our imperfections, learn from experience, speak: redefining who we are out loud.

What about bigger changes of making the world a more just and kind place?

That also requires recognizing our common errors, and speaking truth to power. This week’s news saw truth under attack. A news story by 60 minutes was pulled that was so painful to watch. Climate change science is being removed from government websites. Everything is not ok. To the voice in me that says “People don’t change, and the powers that be are too strong: why should we even try?” Torah comes at this time of year to show us, yes, people, can and do change. And when they present their truth from the heart, everything can change.

This week we read the climax of the Joseph saga in Parashat Vayigash in Hebrew, meaning “and he drew close”. It is the face off between two brothers: Yehuda in one corner, and Yoseph/ tzaphenat in the other

Yoseph

In Gen 41:45, last week’s parasha:

And Pharaoh called Yosef’s name: Tzafenat Pane’ah/The God Speaks and He Lives,
and he gave him Asenat, daughter of Poti Fera, priest of On, as a wife.
And Yosef’s [influence] went out over the land of Egypt (Gen 41:45)

Pharoah gives him a name and makes a match-a wife, things a parent does

Tzaphenat dresses like Pharoah, speaks Egyptian, pretends not to understand Hebrew, has a divining cup, He names his firstborn Menashe/He-Who-Makes-me Forget,
meaning: God has made-me-forget all my hardships, all my father’s house. (Gen 41:51) Joseph even enslaves people, they are forced to give up everything, becoming serfs in exchange for the rations he has saved in preparation for the famine. He enslaves one of his own brothers, Simeon, until they return with beloved Benjamin. Even in power, he does not send a messenger to his father!

What about brother Judah? He’s the one who said “let’s sell him as a slave” He is not the firstborn, Reuben is, Yet it is he that steps forward in this, the climax of the Joseph story. This approach was not something the old Yehudah could do! The one who guarded his terrible secret, and had no empathy for either his brother, or his father, who was inconsolable thinking Yoseph had died. Yehudah contains the letters of G8d in his name יְהוּדָה YHUDH. He is the one tribe of Israelites whose kingdom survived, named the Lion by his father’s blessing.

Yehuda approaches Yoseph who he believes Is the grand vizier of Egypt, akin Pharoah: he draws near. Proverbs 27:19

(19)As face answers to face in water,So does one’s heart to another’s.

Emmanuel Levinas teaches us that only by recognizing the face of the other can humanity survive. I always thought it was a drawing near in love, by appealing to love to reunite a family. But the commentators knew differently. This is a chutzpadick approach, this took courage, this was war!

See Rashi 44:18:3, S’forno and Or haChayim 44:18:1

Yehuda’s speech is found Here

Here is my aha moment, reading the comments this time around:

Judah’s approach to Pharoah foreshadows Moses’ approach to a different Pharoah 400 years later, a Pharoah who did not know Yoseph. That Judah’s redefining himself accroding to his personal truth is what leads to Yoseph defining himself: I am Yoseph! Od avinu Chai: does my father live?

Judah has shown us that change is indeed possible. But for his internal change to change outside conditions, he must reveal his truth, and have the courage to go Face to Face with the powers that be. Those powers happen to be his brother Joseph in a deep masquerade. Judah’s truth reaches down to pull the truth from Joseph’s deep well. Each brother defines himself by his words. May we define ourselves according to our deepest truths, and bring about the change needed in our fractured world