Boulder Aish Kodesh

As we look toward the background of the rift between Yosef and his brothers, we find crossing patterns. The brothers, on one hand, fail to see Yosef for who he is on many levels – as one made in the image G-d, unique and of infinite value (to paraphrase R’ Yitz Greenberg). They also fail to see the tzaddik that he is, the charismatic leader and visionary who will bring the entire family to the next stage of their evolution toward true nationhood. Further, they should have seen him as one of the irreplaceable twelve sons of Ya’akov. They all knew that there were supposed to be twelve – it had been prophesied in the family as far back as Parshat Vayetze (29:34, Rashi there). In short, they fail to see his face – they see him only for the rupture he has created around himself. They see him not as being his own thesis, but as an antithesis, as a problem that must be removed.

Yosef, on the other hand, emphasizes that uniqueness, that “face”, too much. We find this in his נערyouthfulness, which Rashi describes as playing with his hair, batting his eyelashes, etc. We find this in his brazen report concerning his dreams – he does not at all seem concerned with whether the other brothers want to hear of his dreams – “listen to this dream I dreamt…” Yosef and his brothers will each need to go through a rectification of their inability in these areas – the brothers to recognize that individuality as valuable, and Yosef to recognize it as potentially dangerous.

By not honoring each other’s unique manifestation of humanness, by not honoring our own uniqueness, we do not relate to one another as people per se, but as a series of statistics. We cease to be humans to one another, and become the canvas for each other’s projections. We find this problem being dealt with from the earliest moments of the Parsha in the unlikely guise of Pharaoh.

Pharaoh’s necromancers and advisors, notes the verse, are unable to interpret his dream “for him”. As Rashi explains (41:8) they interpreted his dreams, but he did not feel that the interpretations were relevant specifically to him. In fact, R’ Simcha Bunim of Pschischa writes that this was his underlying question to Yosef: not only don’t I know what my dreams mean, I do not know why my advisors cannot tell me what my dreams mean to me. Pharaoh hears in Yosef not only an interpretation that fits him, but he hears in Yosef that special quality that he lacks in his current advisors – someone who sees him directly.

But it is not clear that Pharaoh sees himself directly. Pharaoh’s telling of his dreams differs from the way the dreams actually were in many subtle ways. The most blatant, perhaps, is that, in his dream, he is standing upon the river. But in his telling, he is standing on the banks of the river. The Kli Yakar discusses the discrepancies between the dreams and the telling thereof in great detail and wisdom. He points out that the Nile is not merely a river, but a god to the Egyptians. Thus, for Pharaoh to be standing on the river would be true chutzpah, and a disturbing dream indeed.

In fact, Pharaoh’s relationship to his god(s) is complex. The Mei Hashiloach brings a Midrash that has Pharaoh wondering if, in fact, he stands upon his god or if his god stands on him. The Mei Hashiloach translates this as a question of whether he can trust that his impulses are given by his god, and therefore do not need to be scrutinized, or whether he still must clarify his urges before expressing them.

R’ Simcha Bunim has Pharaoh seeing himself not as a person whose job is to be king, but as someone who completely identifies with his role to the point where the name ‘king’ is, to him, his personal name. His identity, in these readings, is one of confusion between his role as person, his role as king, and his role as god. This would make his dream, and the way he tells it, as an indication of that ambiguity – he does consider himself a god, but he is not ready or willing to say it. He sees himself as ‘king’, not as a person who is king, and therefore invites that sort of relationship from his advisors. He should not be surprised that he has not found someone who speaks directly to who he is, as he himself has worked so hard to present a false personality for people to relate to. And he should be pleased to have Yosef, who has clearly been working on this exact point for some time, to become his second in command, for Yosef will ostensibly help Pharaoh clarify this point of difference between role and identity.

Yosef shows a deep ability to have power but maintain his individuality and personality. While he wields as much, if not more, power than Pharaoh, it is a job for him, and not a persona. R’ Simcha Bunim brings this in context of a Midrash that has Resh Lakish discussing two important theological concepts that we learn from Pharaoh’s convoluted example. One is that we should be ‘above’, as it says ‘and you shall be only above’ (Devarim 28:13). The Midrash puts a question in G-d’s mouth: ‘Above, like Me?’ And answers for G-d: ‘My greatness will be above your greatness.’ And we learn this from Pharaoh, who says ‘You shall oversee my house…’ but he continues ‘I am Pharaoh’. R’ Simcha Bunim interprets this as meaning, ‘I am Pharaoh. I identify completely with my role as bearer of power. But you will bear that power not as who you are, but as what you do.’ And from this, R’ Simcha Bunim teaches us that our holiness is not an essential aspect of who we are, but is a manifestation of capacity to receive and reflect holiness that is showered upon us from above. Thus one does not identify with one’s powers, but recognizes that power, and other aspects of personality, are retractable, and mutable, influences from without that seem to arrive by osmosis. The more one is able to distinguish between the two, the more one will be able to distance one’s self from taking offense at any intrusion upon that power.

Pharaoh’s unwillingness to tell Yosef his dream as it really happened betrays a personal ambiguity that manifests as inter-personal mistrust. The identification of self with role often brings with it a perception that others make the same identification of you. Pharaoh perpetuates the role he himself is ambiguous about. And he simultaneously seeks resolution through Yosef. For, as R’ Simcha Bunim explains it, Pharaoh, by telling Yosef that he has not found anyone who could successfully interpret his dream “to him”, is expressing to Yosef a desire to be seen not just as ‘king’, but as a human being. Thus, he tells his advisors, “Is there any other man who has the ruach Elokim in him?” And we know that ruach is the capacity to relate to each person as a unique individual, as Rashi explains in context of Moshe’s request that Hashem appoint a leader over Israel, “a man who has ruach in him.”

Yosef’s sense of the essential uniqueness and particularity of others manifests in several ways. It is noteworthy that he gathers up the produce grown surrounding each city to be stored within that particular city, as opposed to exporting that food and importing other food. Rashi explains there, “…for every specific land grows its particular fruits, and some soil from that place is added to the produce to prevent it from rotting.” A land, like a person, has a particular disposition, chemical or otherwise, that manifests in its produce and in the capacities of locals to properly digest that food. People in a particular area might develop an immunity to micro-organisms in the water that would make a visitor sick.

So, too, a person is most nourished by the ground from which he or she comes – spiritually and physically. A teacher, for example, must be able to guide in a way that is specific to the receiver. To be more precise, a true teacher helps the student to learn from his or her self. The family and situation into which a child is born are the most ripe with meaning for that child as he or she grows. But since the child resides within that system, he or she is often unable to be consciously affected by the meanings latent within that family or system. The true teacher will help a person internalize the meaning of all that surrounds that person in his or her life situation. This is similar to what Yosef did, by nourishing each city with the produce that surrounds it.

Thus the skill of a true teacher lies not in memorization of a set of facts, or even in the mastering of a certain philosophy or wisdom. The skill of a true teacher lies in his or her ability to see exactly what the student needs by studying the student closely. The true teacher has no specific lesson to teach. He or she is not only capable of taking on the vocabulary of the student, but can embody the very lesson that the student needs to learn. Yosef was able to perceive exactly what his brothers needed in order to break through their barrier to relationship. And through this he exemplified a capacity to modulate toward a way of being that had been totally unnatural to him – the way of not expressing one’ self in favor of what the receiver needs to receive.

Because Yosef has refined himself to such a degree in this sense, he has mastered the capacity to teach anyone and everyone this universal message of true relationship. It is clear, then, that he intended that everyone who came down to Egypt to buy food would have to come before him. This should be shocking – since Egypt was the only place around that had food, one can imagine that many thousands of people would come to buy food. But Yosef, knowing his capabilities to relate in a pure and direct way, and aware of his capacity to help people move toward that, seems to want everyone who came to buy food to have to face a person, and not just a vending machine for grain.

When his brothers finally come down to Egypt, Yosef accuses them of being spies. This is not merely an empty accusation meant to entrap them – it is also a deep statement Yosef is making about their way of life. Malbim explains that there are two kinds of spies – torim and meraglim. Torim are sent to decide whether a place would be desirable to live. Meraglim, though, as Yosef describes, are meant to find the ‘nakedness’, i.e. vulnerability, of the land. They are sent to supply information that would facilitate a military attack. Yosef is accusing them of a style of relationship that does not look for relationship; it does not gravitate toward good points – it looks for weaknesses, for a way to conquer.

The brothers seem to sense intuitively that this is the issue at hand. As they stand accused, the say to each other, “We are guilty on account of our brother. We did see his agony, as he begged us, and we did not listen. Therefore this has come upon us.” They neglected to see Yosef as their true brother, or even as a human being, and therefore, in their eyes, this situation was a just, though indirect, punishment. But, again, they failed to see the face of the situation. They correctly associated it with what they had done wrong, but they failed to see within the situation itself a direct correlation to what they had done wrong.

Yosef set out to demonstrate to them the error of their ways directly. One way he accomplished this was through returning their money they used to pay for grain. This must have been an extremely mysterious signal to the brothers, and it was one that only Ya’akov saw the significance of. Money is an indication of abstract value (see Daniel Boyarin’s writing on this subject for a more in-depth analysis). Any time a person, trait, object, or situation is taken out of its context within the human realm and assigned a value as compared to other people, traits, objects, or situations, this is like a monetary transaction. It is most painful when a person is broken down into their constituent parts and thus evaluated. The infinite value of one created in the image of G-d is overshadowed by an estimation of how useful, or potentially damaging, that person is. This is the approach the brothers had taken until now and, by returning the money, Yosef was trying to tell them that that approach is denigrating. After all, they sold him for a pair of shoes.

They must then return and report to their father. Reuven’s offer to have Ya’akov kill Reuven’s children if Binyamin is not returned intact is a blatant indication of an inability to perceive humanity. Reuven relates to his very own children as bargaining chips in a deal to be made, and not as human beings. Understandably, Ya’akov realizes that it is not yet time to send Binyamin down.

Yehuda steps up and offers himself as a guarantor if Ya’akov will send Binyamin with him down to Egypt. This is the first sign that we see some movement among the brothers toward Yosef’s goal of real relationship. Yehuda understands that a person cannot be replaced by another person, and that nothing can replace a missing son. All he can give is his total commitment in the form of eiravon – a guarantee on a loan. Rabbi Henoch Dov Hoffman writes deeply of this concept. The root of the word eiravon is eiruv – mixing. It implies a deep sense of the mixing of two people’s separate existences into one existence. Here, it implies a sense of destiny intertwined and inseparable. Yehuda tells his father that he is completely personally invested in Binyamin’s well-being. He is fully aware that he cannot give his father anything in return, for people are not currency or objects that can be replaced. When Yehuda says “I see no difference in ‘value’ between myself and Binyamin; I see no way of perceiving my life as any more valuable than his,” then Ya’akov knows that the time has come.

Ya’akov agrees to send Binyamin down to Egypt. But he tells the brothers to bring a gift – some fruits from their homeland. To paraphrase Rav Daniel Kohn, Ya’akov saw in the returning of the money that this purveyor wanted something more from the brothers than mere money. What was required was not abstract currency but concrete humanity – a sense of the personal. Certainly some honey and a few peanuts would not be valuable in currency to someone in such an important position. But anyone would see in that type of gift a real giving of self – this gift says, “This is who I am. Who are you?”

We see Yosef straining himself to complete the test and to push his brothers to the very brink. It is as challenging for him as it is for them. But he must see in them a clear demonstration that they get the point: a human life cannot be reduced to any value. He must see in them that they see absolutely no difference between the ‘value’ of one life and the ‘value’ of another, for every human life is unique and infinitely valuable.

This demonstration would bring the story full circle. It started because the brothers saw Yosef not as an infinitely valuable human being, but as an amalgam of values, some helpful but most detrimental. By using a simple, almost mathematical, equation, they deduced that Yosef was harmful to the family and should be gotten rid of. In the end, Yehuda shows that there can be no such equations – he cannot create a simple comparison between Binyamin’s relative value to the family and his own relative value to the family, for there is no relative value when we are speaking of beings created in the image of G-d.

This is the fixing of yesod, the Divine manifestation associated with Yosef that implies relationship. One of its implications is sexuality. When sexuality is merely a function of body, or physical attraction, then the partner has been broken into parts. The ‘partner’ is not needed as a totality, but is merely playing a role.

True relationship, sexual or otherwise, requires holistic interaction. But when one has an ambiguous relationship to one’s own roles and mistakes role for self, as Pharaoh did, then one leaves one’s self incapable of holistic relationship regardless of the holism of the partner. In such a situation, one needs a friend like Yosef – someone who is whole in himself, and is willing to compassionately help bring others to their own wholeness.