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Parashat Vayehi
Essays and Articles:
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Yosef’s Brothers Yosef – Yaakov Truth and Midat Hadin Versus Truth and Love Or Love’s Power Neutralizes Brute Force Yaakov Turns Quantity to Quality
Translated from Hebrew by S. NAthan l'ilui nishmat Esther bat mordechai
“Shimon and Levi…tools of robbery are their weapons…Cursed is their rage for it is fierce, and their fury for it is harsh. I shall divide them…I shall scatter them among Yisrael.”
Rashi: “I shall separate them from each other, so that Levi will not be counted among the tribes, and thus they are effectively divided. Another interpretation: You have no poor people, or scribes, or teachers of little children, except from Shimon, so that they will be scattered; and the tribe of Levi he made to roam from granary to granary for the gifts and the tithes, thus giving him his scatteredness in an honorable way.”
Yaakov blesses Yosef and his children before he blesses the remaining tribes, and in this way Yaakov appears to be continuing his preference for Yosef over his brothers, and in no way retracting his previous position, of preference as shown with the striped coat, despite the entanglements and hazards that were caused to his preferred son by this preference.
It begs – “darsheni” – explaining. It is overly simplistic to try to explain Yaakov’s attitude by the excuse that he never knew and never found out; to the end of his days, he remained ignorant of the fact that Yosef had been sold by his brothers, and therefore never understood the danger of preferring one child over all the other children.
It appears that a deeper secret is hidden here – and it is not only the preference for Yosef that continues. Yaakov continues in this vein, preferring Ephraim to Menashe the first-born, thereby repeating the trick that he himself had used to acquire the brachot from his father, despite his being younger than Esav.
Yaakov stands on his convictions, despite Yosef’s attempt to correct his father, and to change the arrangement of the children under his father’s hands.
Yaakov prefers to bequeath to his children – not the blessings, the key to blessing which he himself received from his fathers Avraham/Yitzchak, for these he passes on to Yosef alone.
To the rest of his children he bequeaths a profound insight into their character, a sharply discerning view, and a definition of the original that is unique to each one of them, that sets each one apart from the others, and he conveys the message to them – that unity is preferable to uniquenesss.
Wherefore all this? Yaakov is preparing his children for a long and harsh exile, which may bring about the blurring and the erasing of the unique image. The overall character of this exile will be one of brute force, which will blur uniqueness.
Yosef is the only one who knows the true secret of love.
It does not appear that Yaakov attempts to hide his preference for Yosef. On the contrary. He appears in this way to be demonstrating to the brothers the great power that is in love, that turns quantity to quality, and quality to quantity, with quality emerging unharmed:
“I have given you one shechem over your brothers – and this I took from the hand of the Emorite, with my sword and my bow.” I have turned instrumental, brute force into quality, “through my prayer and supplication.” (Bekashti, my bow, = bakashati, my supplication.)
Also, the brachot do not possess a merely instrumental, utilitarian value. Rather, and chiefly, they reflect the person receiving them, far more than they reflect the person giving them. Furthermore, if the giver of the blessings would bless someone unworthy of them, they would bring him no benefit.
It appears that this principle is adequate to explain Yaakov’s priority over Esav for receiving Yitzchak’s blessings. Thus chronological order – which belongs to a quantitative/instrumental perspective – does not determine the quality of each child. Menashe the first-born reflects the quantitative order of things. He is the first of… Whereas Ephraim reflects quality.
Thus Shimon and Levi have yet to shake off the plague of brute force, and therefore Yaakov seeks a cure for how to turn their quantity – brute force – into quality.
Brute force is created by a unity among individuals. Quality is created by the uniqueness of each individual. Therefore, one must divide and conquer. “I shall divide them among Yaakov, I shall scatter them among Yisrael.”
After Yosef’s death, the Children of Yisrael in Egypt, began to trade quality for quantity: “And Yosef, and all that generation, died, and the children of Yisrael multiplied and spawned and increased very very much.”
Only the tribe of Levi did not merge with them and preserved its own quality, and constituted an example to all the other tribes, whose uniqueness had blurred, to become just the children of Yisrael, as a result of a blurring and obscuring enslavement.
Only whoever has not been devoured into the brute-force framework (military service?) is capable of preserving his own quality – his own style of clothing, his own language, his own name, and only he can avoid assimilating (promiscuity).
System Failure: The instrumental dimension is created under conditions of quantitative pressure. When the individual is devoured by the mob. As a substitute for relating to the individual, to his uniqueness and to his unique needs, to his human sensitivity – the system comes instead, the mechanism, and not only at the level of practical bureaucratic applications, but even in education.
The situation in Israel today: Conditions of pressure, security, economics, immigration, etc. Systems and mechanisms intensify and increase and proliferate and become substitutes for doing and being. Even entertainment and culture have lost their quality and have turned into a function of popularity, of “rating.” Leaders and directors are supplied by the security system. A “Sabra” past replaces personal quality, and takes control even over intellectual endeavor. (Example: The Authority for the Investigation of Antiquities.)
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