Parashat Vayigash

Parashat Vayigash
by Rabbi Isaac Mann

This week’s Torah portion Vayigash begins with a dramatic confrontation between Joseph, Pharaoh’s viceroy, and Judah over the fate of Benjamin, in whose sack was discovered Joseph’s silver goblet. The Egyptian leader insisted, as we learn from last week’s parashah, that the “thief” Benjamin remain a slave in Egypt while Judah offered to remain in his stead and allow Benjamin to return to his elderly father.

In his plea to the Egyptian ruler, not knowing of course that he was their long-lost brother Joseph, Judah recounts their previous conversations as well as those that took place with their father over the issue of bringing Benjamin down to Egypt. The entire tone of Judah’s monologue is very plaintive, pleading with the ruler in almost a begging manner to show mercy and compassion for a bereft father. Judah was the supplicant entreating the all-powerful lord.

While this appears to be the plain sense of the text, we find a very different approach in the Midrash, as found in Rashi’s commentary. Instead of a subservient petitioner, the Midrash portrays Judah as approaching Joseph ready to condemn him as a liar and even if necessary do battle with him (see Rashi to 44:18).  Focusing on Judah’s opening statement comparing Joseph to Pharaoh (ki kamokha ke’Faro), Rashi dutifully acknowledges that this is meant reverently (“you are as important as the Pharaoh”) according to the p’shat (plain sense), but then he cites several Midrashic interpretations that include comparisons far less exalted – “you are like a previous Pharaoh who was struck with leprosy as a result of trying to bed his great-grandmother Sarah,”  “ you are like Pharaoh in that you too promise and don’t keep your promise,” and finally “you are like Pharaoh such that if you provoke me I will kill you as I would Pharaoh.”

The obvious question is what evidence, as well as motivation, does the Midrash have in interpreting the above phrase in a manner that is radically different from the literal meaning.  Rashi already suggests in his comment on the phrase that Judah uses at the beginning of his soliloquy “and let not your anger be kindled against your servant,” which refers to himself (see 44:18), as suggesting that Judah used kashot, namely tough language. If such were not the case why would he have to apologize so to speak for what he was about to say. One could also suggest that the very term vayigash (and he approached) gives a sense of a non-gentle encounter. A pegishah connotes a close encounter or meeting that might involve a kind of clash. If Judah’s approach to Joseph was merely one of a supplicant to a master, then the Torah could have used the term vayikrav (and he came near), which has no confrontational connotation.

More important is the question of motivation. I am grateful to Rabbi Morris Besdin, of blessed memory, from whom I heard a very convincing answer. He suggested that the Rabbis saw in the encounter between Joseph and Judah a foreshadowing of Jewish Biblical history. Arguably the most significant internal crisis of the Jewish nation in the post-Davidic period was between Judah and the Northern Kingdom. The split that took place after the death of King Solomon was led by Jeroboam from the tribe of Ephraim. Indeed “Ephraim” became synonymous with the ten tribes of the Northern Kingdom. David and his descendants were of course from the tribe of Judah. That breach between the two parts of the Jewish nation was never healed. Even in Messianic times, Jewish tradition teaches of a messianic figure coming from Joseph (Mashiach ben Yosef) who will precede the final Messiah (Mashiach ben David). The struggle between the two tribes became a major theme in our history.

Who triumphed in this struggle? Judah and his tribe. The Ten Tribes were dispersed by the Assyrians and were scattered, while the inhabitants of Judah, later called Judea, remained in place and retained their identity even after their own exile. In the messianic  tradition mentioned above, the Joseph messiah is portrayed as a warrior who will be killed only to usher in the ultimate Davidic messiah.

The Rabbis saw the encounter between Judah and Joseph in our parashah in the light of later history. It wasn’t just the two individual brothers struggling with each other – it was the future being played out. The two major tribes in our history were confronting one another. Judah could not appear to be the weaker of the two pleading his case before his mightier, more powerful brother. Such an image would run counter to all that we associate with the later struggles of these figures. Thus the Rabbis, with some help from the language of the text, turn the tables and allow for Judah to show his strength. He is no longer the timid supplicant appealing to his all-powerful brother, but instead the courageous defender of his father and the mighty forebear of the Davidic dynasty and ultimately the true Messiah.

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Rabbi Isaac Mann is on the rabbinic faculty of AJR. He is the rabbi of the Austrian Shul on the Upper West Side and serves as chaplain at Metropolitan Hospital and Bronx-Lebanon Hospital.