madlik

So welcome, Rabbi. Usually, before we start, we go over, what did you do in your week? Or in this case, what did you do over the Christmas vacation? But I saved that for the podcast. Because I don’t know about you, Rabbi, but when I was in the yeshiva, on Christmas night and Christmas day, we didn’t learn Torah.

We didn’t want to give z’chut. We didn’t want to give credence, we didn’t want to give brownie points to Jesus, to Christianity, and learn on that day. So there were some that would actually tear the toilet paper for the rest of the year for Shabbat. Was called Nitul Nacht.

1:05   Rabbi Adma Mintz That’s funny, right?

GS: And it was called Nital Nach… what does that mean?

AM Nobody knows. I want to tell you something. Nobody knows where that phrase comes from But that’s what it’s called. Christmas Eve is called nitl nacht.

GS So I got an email a week or two before Christmas from an organization called Torah on the Move. Is that what it is? Torah in Motion. And you are one of their scholars. I am. They.

AM I am. They had an amazing Christmas Day Program

GS So it’s called a Yom Iyun, a day of focus and depth, and it was called Judaism Encounters the World, December 25th online Yom Iyun. So yours truly paid, I made a contribution, and I had nothing else to do on Christmas morning, so there was no tree, there were no presents to unwrap, so I went on to five hours of this Yom Iyun.

AM Wow, you’re amazing. Okay.

3:02 So tonight’s podcast is really influenced by what I learned on that Yom Iyun. Most of it was about Judeo-Christian relationships. The first talk was from a rabbi, Dr. Yaakov Negan, who is a rabbi and a doctor, but he’s a director of Ohr Torah Stones Institute for Interfaith Dialogue in Beit Midrash. I’ve actually met him.

AM He grew up on the Upper West Side. He’s a fascinating guy, isn’t he?

GS He is, and he received ordination from REITS, which is Yeshiva University, and a Ph.D. In Jewish philosophy from the Hebrew University, and he is an expert on Jewish-Muslim relationships. And I’m actually going to play a little snippet from his introduction, because even though the most of what we’re going to talk about is Christian-Jewish relationships and how it affects the text of our Pasha and also Bereshit, I think he said something that so resonates with me that I want to play it, and I want to get your response to it.

So here we go

If religion is part of the problem, Religion, therefore, must be part of the solutions in our conflicts. Now, the first part is undeniable. The genocidal, anti-Semitic atrocities of the Hamas are done in the name of religion. They even called their attack the Al-Aqsa flood. So religion being part of the problem, I think there’s a consensus about that. That second step, therefore religion should be part of any solution, that might be more controversial. John Lennon, for example, thought the way to get world peace is by imagining no nations and no religion too.

4:24   Rabbi Dr. Yakov Nagen  If religion is part of the problem, Religion, therefore, must be part of the solutions in our conflicts. Now, the first part is undeniable. The genocidal, anti-Semitic atrocities of the Hamas are done in the name of religion. They even called their attack the Al-Aqsa flood. So, religion being part of the problem, I think there’s a consensus about that. That second step, therefore religion should be part of any solution, that might be more controversial. John Lennon, for example, thought the way to get world peace is by imagining no nations and no religion too.

Religion is making so much problems, so let’s just get rid of it. But the problem is, first of all… Religion and identity are so fundamental, you can’t just imagine them to go away. They’re a reality. You have to deal with them.

GS I have to say, I mean, Rabbi, you know, I am not a, I wouldn’t consider myself a halachic Jew. But one of, I believe that religion, like love, like aesthetics, is part and parcel of the human psyche (condition). And that it can never be ignored, lest of all by me. I love it. I love the way that man, women, humankind learns, interacts, and figures out who we are based on how we understand our relationship with something spiritual. But I also believe, As this rabbi just said, that if I was getting a major in political science, if I was going into diplomacy, I think that every diplomat should have a minor in religion.

Because it’s so clear to me that whatever you call it, whether it’s something that we should try to run away from, or it’s, as I believe, it’s part of our human nature, you can’t ignore religion, and it is such, in the words of the Talmud, it is a som ha-chayim, or it’s a som ha-mavet. It is either a drug for good or it’s a drug for death. And that’s one of the things that drives me in my learning on a regular basis, because I really believe that religion and our religion, it’s a responsibility.

It’s important. It has outcomes, and it affects the world. Is that how you read what he just said? I mean, do you agree?

7:19 AM Absolutely. Read it. I mean, you know, he quotes John Lennon, imagine no religion. But, you know, the world wouldn’t be better with no religion. Like you said, religion makes us who we are, whatever our religion is. And, you know, the question is, he said it, how can religion be part of the solution? And that’s a hard thing because to respect someone else’s religion is very, very difficult. You know, to, to, to respect their politics, to say that a group is on a land and therefore that’s their land and they can’t be thrown out of their land, that’s pragmatic.

But to accept other people’s religion, to imagine that there are different truths, that’s a very difficult thing for people.

GS So one of the lectures that was during this day of learning was from Rabbi Dr. Martin Lakshin, and the subject of the lecture was Christian Influences on Jewish Biblical Interpretation. And as someone who has a weekly Parsha podcast, I was focused on, was he going to use any verses from our Parsha? And lo and behold, he did. And this is a scholar who literally, as per his title, He, you know, I have many times, we have many times, as we’ve studied text, we don’t have any parameters. If there is a Christian scholar, whether it’s Kierkegaard or whoever, that says something fascinating about a verse or a concept that we’re dealing with, It could be a Muslim.

We’ve dealt with very Muslim how the Koran deals with the Akedah and other things. We love the fact that our tradition, our scripture, is studied by millions, I would say billions of people. But the purpose of his talk was that actually there are Christian influences on great Jewish scholars. So that’s how we get to our parasha. We’re in Genesis 49. As I said in the intro, this is the last parasha in the book of Genesis. And Jacob called his sons and said, Come together, that I may tell you what is to befall you in the days.

The Enigmatic Reference to Shiloh

10:01 GS Assemble and hearken, the sons of Jacob, hearken to Israel your father. And he blesses Reuben, who was his firstborn. And then he blesses Shimon and Levi. And then in verse nine, he talks talking about Judah, who we all know the tribe of Judah is where King David came from, where the Messiah is understood to come from So in verse nine, it says, Judah is a lion’s whelp. Oh, pray my son, have you grown? He crouches, lies down like a lion. This is the Lion of Judah. Like a lioness, who dares rouse him?

Then in verse 10 it says, the scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet. So that tribute shall come to him, until he comes to Shiloh, and the homage of peoples be his.” So all of a sudden, it seems that everybody is interested in what this enigmatic reference is, until he comes to Shiloh. And that is the title of today’s class. So, Rashi says, until the King Messiah will come, who will be the kingdom? And thus too, Rashi continues, does Onkelos render it.

A Midrashi interpretation is Shiloh is the same as Shai? Lo, a present unto him. The bottom line is it’s one of the many verses that we have where the translation is not altogether clear. We have an enigmatic reference to a word named Shiloh, and Rashi references the Messiah.

AM Just, we have to say one thing, this is poetry, because these are the blessings that Jacob gives to his son. So, you’re right, often in the Torah we don’t know what something means, but when it’s poetry, in every language, you know, poetry always means something beyond what the words themselves mean.

GS Absolutely. And this particular piece of poetry was captured by the Abraham religions. So if you look at the Latin Vulgate, it says, “‘The scepter shall not be taken away from Judah, nor a ruler from his fire, till he comes that is to be sent.’ So it thinks of Shiloh, maybe as there was a—the scribe missed a Shilach instead of a Shiloh, and he that is to be sent. According to Muslims, they believe that Muhammad is called Shiloh. So lo and behold….

AM Based on this verse!

GS Yes, Absolutely! We have a verse that all three quote-unquote Abrahamic religions are looking at as a prophecy for their particular Savior. Now, the scholar that I quoted, this Rabbi Dr. Martin Lakshin, uses this as an example. His belief, he is a scholar in the Rashbam. The Rashbam was the grandson of Rashi, correct? Correct. Yeah. So he, in his lecture, tried to show where the Rashbam was influenced, was aware, interacted, communicated, engaged with Christian scholarship. So, in this particular pasuk, the Rashbam says, the exegesis refutes the view of the heretics, especially that of the Christians, who claim that shiloh, spelt here with a hey at the end, and the city known as Shiloh, spelt in the scripture as Shiloh with a vav, as in Samuel, are not the same.

The one same verse. The point that needs to be made is that the Rashbam is engaged in what typically we would call polemic, which is that he’s aware of Christian commentaries on this verse, and he takes pains to explain why they are wrong. But if you want to talk about the beginning of a conversation, the conversation has started. He says Yakov, as opposed to the view of the Christians, did not elevate the position of Yehuda to that of being a savior, beginning at this point in time, but he predicted Block go on and on.

He brings this verse initially to show that the rash Bam is engaged with christian interpretations, and he brings, actually, two other verses from our apasha that talk about how literally the Rashbam engaged both with Christians and, believe it or not, with his grandfather. One day, my grandchildren will listen to this podcast and they will learn that the Rush bomb talked Tora very, not deferentially, with his grandfather. He says uh in uh forty nine nine that uh it says that, and my son Yehudah is saying that after you have risen from dealing with the spoils No enemy will dare.

He says, all those who understood Yaakov, referring to the sale of Joseph in this verse, do not understand the sentence structure, nor paid attention to the tone signs. He is referring to his grandfather.

AM To Rashi, yeah, that’s funny.

GS In 49.9 it says, from the prey literally tearing, from the deed which I suspected you when I said, Joseph is torn to pieces. He says again, he refers to Rashi and says a difference. So, the one thing that this scholar on Rashbam establishes is that number one, that the Rashbam was aware of other interpretations of the Torah, and two, was not afraid to not only disagree with his grandfather, but to stake his own path. And I’ve included in the source sheet literally screenshots of the slideshow that…

17:50 AM Yeah, It’s a great slideshow. That’s a great addition.

GS …that this Martin Lachschin sent us. And, you know, Rosh Bam was 1080 to 1160, and there was a seminary called the Victrines, And he goes at great lengths to show that it’s clear that they were influenced by the Rashbam, and the Rashbam was influenced by them. And the source that he brings, since we’re ending Genesis, is the story of the three angels that come to Abraham, if you recall, before Sarah and Abraham realize that they can have a child, before the angels go to Sodom and talk about the destruction.

And all of the Jewish commentaries are challenged by the fact that the verses start in Genesis 18, by God appeared to him. So, God is talking to Abraham, and three men who were angels come to him. And then he said to the chief angels, And it goes on and on. And Rabbi, you and I, we did a whole session on Ha Nat, or Him on welcoming the guests, because the rabbis learned from here, how can you be talking to God and then turn to three men or three angels that are coming and tend to their needs. And the Midrash says this is a problem, but it teaches us a profound lesson, which is that accepting and welcoming guests is like being makabel the shechina.

But like any great Midrash, what it is doing is it’s addressing a problem. And the Rashbam looks at this problem And he makes a radical, an absolute radical interpretation, which is that there were three angels, and the first angel was called Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. And he stayed with Abraham, and the other two angels left. And the reason why it is so radical is obviously we’re talking about three, which reminds us of the Trinity, and Justin Martyr talks about the first angel was an insight or a reflection of God who stayed with Abraham, and the other two were reflections of God who left.

The point that this scholar made was that the Rashbam may have been influenced or may have seen things in a similar fashion and was not off-put, by the interpretations of Christian scholars who were studying the same text, and who came to a different solution. It wasn’t so much that we Jews leave our God to be accepting of guests. Rather, God was perceived in three ways. And his point was, and this was the point of ultimately of his whole discussion, was that we can’t always look at when Jewish scholars quote Christian scholars, it’s not always polemics.

Perspectives on Interfaith Conversations

21:39 GS Sometimes it’s a conversation, and sometimes as two peoples who are infatuated and are focused on the same text, we can learn from each other.

AM Again, we’ll take each little piece, but on the whole, and I’m sure he talked about this, it’s amazing to think about France in the 1100s, when the Rashbam lived and when Rashi lived, the period that he’s talking about. Because that’s during the Crusades. That was a time when Christians would go into Jewish communities, Jewish towns, and they would literally put a knife to the Jews’ throat and say, convert to Judaism or we’re going to kill you. So, on one hand, that’s going on, but literally parallel to that, like parallel train tracks, we have conversations going on in the academies between Rashbam and the Christian scholars of Bible.

So it’s really something amazing just to imagine that both of these things are happening at the same time. And the truth is, if we’re allowed to take it to modern times, you know, you talk today about all the problems in America and American universities and anti-Semitism and all the terrible things, and then you read articles and things that are going on and conversations and classes that are going on and how much, you know, how much knowledge is being exchanged and how much Jewish knowledge is being exchanged.

You have to understand that sometimes these things can go as parallel train tracks. The fact that there’s bad things happening doesn’t prevent the good things from happening.

23:23 GS I love the fact that you put it into context, and we are going to end tonight with the ending of Rabbi Yaakov Nagin, who started our conversation about exactly what you’re discussing, which is even though these terrible moments in Jewish-Muslim relationships, there is conversations going on. So I love that you put it into context. But I want to give you the whole spectrum of what I experienced on Christmas with this Yom Ha’iyyun. There is a very primal, pivotal, seminal thinker, Rabbi Menachum HaMeiri.

Who is a game-changer in relationship to relationships with Christianity and Islam. And he’s quoted, but he was – I renewed my interest in him, and Menachem Hameiri has something to say about every time in the Bible that it talks about avada zara. Which at the end of the day is strange worship, or avodat kochavim, worship of the stars. And what he says, and he’s not totally unique, Maimonides says similar things, but nonetheless he is pivotal and a paradigm changer in what he says, is gedurim b’darchei hadatot.

He establishes a category, and he says that if non-Jews have a religion that is moral and that respects human life and the fact that we are all created in the image of God, that is the most important thing, not the particular variations of how they worship or what they worship, or their rituals. And so much of Jewish halacha and Jewish theology prior to him, and even after him, had been focused on, is there an idol? Is there something that looks like a human being in Christianity? What is the focus of their worship?

And he really was a paradigm changer. And he said that really what is important in distinguishing between the them and the us, between the monotheists and those who in the Bible are characterized as idol worshipers, has less to do with theology and more to do with the way of living in terms of respecting humanity and respecting that humanity is created in the image of God. And one of the speakers, to my absolute wonder and surprise, quoted and says that Rabbi Riskin is one of The foremost scholars who has put forward this, and he has, and it’s in the source sheet, says, and therefore, while we can say that Christianity, and we can say that Islam, in their most classical interpretation, are totally within the realm of Meiri’s understanding of what an acceptable monotheistic religion is, once they cross the border and start killing people and start engaging in terrorism and start lacking that respect for human existence, that’s when you draw the line.

And it just seemed to me it was so important for our understanding today about who our allies are, who our friends are, where there is potential to move forward, and where the lines are that we can pass.

27:45 AM I couldn’t agree more. Again, you know, it’s so amazing to take that class of Professor Lukshin and, you know, about Rashbam in the 1100s, and to say that that’s exactly what we’re talking about today, you know, during this difficult time in Israel. That’s an amazing thing, isn’t it? But that’s, you talked about, you know, the power of religion. That’s the power of religion. It’s above time. It’s relevant always. And it’s a powerful fort that’s.

GS The key. So the Meiri I had heard of before. What I had not heard of before was the following Rav Yaakov Emdin. So in Pirkei Avot, Ethics of the Father, Chapter 4.11, Rabbi Yochanan Sandler said, Every assembly, a kol knisiah, that is for the sake of heaven, will in the end endure, and every assembly which is not for the sake of heaven will not endure in the end. So, actually, I’ll be honest with you, I think in the lecture they called, called machloket, called every argument, but it took me a little bit of research to find that Rav Yaakov Emdin’s commentary was not on that verse or that part of the Mishnah Avot, but it was 4.11, this aknisiyah shehi l’shem shumayim.

And Rav Akom Emdin comments on the teaching in Pirkei Avot. And he interprets this to refer to Christianity and Islam, who have emerged from us and built their altars on the foundation of our divine religion. Compared with the nations of the world who preceded them, who did not recognize God, their gathering, their kinesiot, is considered for the sake of heaven. He places all three faiths of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam into one category by referring to the three us, the three of us, l’shaloshtam.

He talks about the three datot ha-elohit. It is amazing to me that you have a – Rav Achum Emden is a powerful rabbinic authority, and he saw Pirkei Avot as an argument that is for eternity or for a long time was between the three religions of Abraham. And I had never heard that before, but it is, you know, when this time of year comes, there’s a lot of memes going around that say to those who claim that the Jews are colonizers, that Jesus actually was a Jew, and he was born in Bethlehem.

There’s a lot of that going on. But the flip part of that is that we Jews, at this time of year, and we look to what Judaism spawned, and what our tradition spawned, and it spawned Christianity, and it spawned Islam. And you have this Rav Yaakov Erendon who talks about that the arguments that we’re having have the potential not only to last long, But ultimately, I would hope to potentially be resolved. I had never heard of this Yubav Yakov Emdin before.

31:34 AM Neither have I. That was a great source. This was great. I’m happy, I’m sorry that I didn’t listen to those classes because they sound amazing. This was really interesting, and again, you know, we talk about Torah, we talk about Jewish history, but we’re really talking about today. So, thank you, Jeffrey. Next week, this week, Chazak, Chazak v’Nitzchazek, we finish the book of Breshit. And next week we look forward to starting the Book of Shemot with you. Next week, Thursday, we’re going to do a Lunch and Learn at 1 o’clock.

We can’t wait to see everybody.

32:07 GS Fantastic. And as I promised, we were going to end with Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Nagin, who ended his talk by talking about how actually there is a silver cloud, even in these terrible days, when you look in terms of Judaism and Islam. So with your permission, I’m going to go ahead and play that now. Yes, great.

Acts of Heroism and Unity

32:32 Rabbi Dr. Yakov Nagen He heard about when the massacre began, he realized he had to get there fast. He took his minibus and under very heavy fire, people tried to stop him. He went in, he contacted the people that he was in touch with, he managed to squeeze 30 people into his minibus, and since he’s a Bedouin and knows all the side roads, he drove them out. He drove them out through the side roads, managed to save not only the 30 people there, but led a convoy of cars after him. He saved dozens of lives. And as I told him, when I met him, there’s a phrase, and the Mishnah.

He heard about when the massacre began, he realized he had to get there fast. He took his minibus and under very heavy fire, people tried to stop him. He went in, he contacted the people that he was in touch with, he managed to squeeze 30 people into his minibus, and since he’s a Bedouin and knows all the side roads, he drove them out. He drove them out through the side roads, managed to save not only the 30 people there, but led a convoy of cars after him. He saved dozens of lives. And as I told him, when I met him, there’s a phrase, and the Mishnah.

Says, if you save a life, it’s like you saved the world. They said, you truly are Yusuf al-Sadiq. And I was with him again in the city of Rahat, the imamim of the south, together with a group of Rabbani. We spent a day volunteering together in the municipality of Rahat with Israeli flags everywhere. We packed, half a day we packed food packages for all the refugees of the area from Otef Aza. Then we did a joint study and then we were with Palel together. So yes, the evil is real, it’s there, it’s demonic, but there are other forces and we must know to get our victory in a global world we must know how can we bring reality in a better place in a long process and maybe end with the words the eternal people do not fear a long journey.

34:54 GS And with that, we end this week, and we end the book of Bereshit. So it is a long journey. We do not give up. We continue to learn. We continue to be open. And we look forward to next week, beginning the book of Shabbat Shalom.

Geoffrey Stern: So Rabbi, we had off for the last two weeks for Hanukkah. We just lucked out. Hanukkah was from Thursday to Thursday. I hope you enjoyed the vacation as much as I did. I do have to thank two Madlik listeners, Henry and Howard, who actually reached out to me and they said, what, no notice? Where are you? We need our Madlik podcast!

Adam Mintz: Makes us feel important.

Geoffrey Stern: That’s right. So for all of you who missed us, we missed you too, and it’s wonderful to be back. I should say that during the week of Hanukkah, I lost a very favorite aunt, Adele Suslak. And since tonight we’re going to be talking about being lost, passing away, not being present, I gotta say that one of the fascinating things about this woman was that she had a tradition every, absolutely every milestone, every birthday anniversary of a very large family, she would reach out and call you, send you a text, And in the last year and a half, when she wasn’t feeling that well, what you would ultimately do on a birthday, you would say, did Adele send you a text? Did Adele call you? And I have a feeling that years going forward, we’re going to remember Adele on our birthday. And that, to me, is an irony, a delicious irony, of being present when you’re not here anymore. And that’s the kind of thing we’re going to discuss tonight. So this is for you, Adele. How are you, Rabbi?

2:40 Adam Mintz: Well, thanks. That’s really a sweet story. It’s all about your aunt. And, you know, that’s true, you know, about being present, being present when you are and being present when you’re not is really a good topic. And actually, it’s a good topic for the end of the year, like you said, because people kind of reflect on, you know, what the year was and what the year could be. So I’m looking forward to tonight’s discussion.

3:02 Geoffrey Stern: Yeah, I mean, we associate these feelings  maybe with Christmas when everybody’s celebrating, but I was having dinner with a friend during Hanukkah, and he says, you know, I kind of got depressed this week. I was thinking of all the things that I’ve done. What difference does it make? So I do think it has something to do with, on the one hand, the darkness, and on the other hand, there are celebrations going on. And so it is a unique week to talk about this. So let’s just jump into the Parsha. We’ve been gone for a few weeks, but now we’re at Joseph, Prince of Egypt.

Joseph, Prince of Egypt and the Impact of Absence

3:37 GS: His long-lost brothers have shown up. They do not yet know the relationship, who he is, and we’re in Genesis 44.18. (18) Then Judah went up to him and said, “Please, my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not be impatient with your servant, you who are the equal of Pharaoh. (19) My lord asked his servants, ‘Have you a father or another brother?’ (20) We told my lord, ‘We have an old father, and there is a child of his old age, the youngest; his full brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother, and his father dotes on him.’

So, you know, I’ve always talked about how amazing our scripture is, the Torah is, in creating these dramatic moments. And this is a dramatic moment. Joseph is alive. He’s talking to his brothers who don’t know who he is, and his brothers say directly to his face, our brother is dead, meaning to say, you are dead.

And so that’s what triggered my thinking about that wonderful movie called A Wonderful Life, where this guy is depressed, about to jump off a building and end his life, and this angel comes and explains to him what the world would look like if he wasn’t there. And here is this Joseph. He’s meeting his family and he hasn’t been there all these years. And it kind of creates that same kind of dynamic where you’re looking at your life and you’re not there. I mean, I was just very impressed by it.

What about you, Rabbi?

5:43 AM I mean, obviously that’s everybody’s favorite movie, especially this time of year. And I think, you know, that’s a great connection in this week’s Parsha. I think that’s something that’s great to talk about. So let’s look at the sources and let’s go.

5;57 GS Great. So Rashi is struck by the fact that Judah said his brother is dead, which is clearly a lie, at least from Rashi’s perspective. So Rashi says he uttered this untruth out of fear. He thought If I tell him that he, meaning Joseph, is alive, he may say, bring him to me. So they’re trying to excuse, and it seems like almost universally all of the sources talk about Yehuda the Tzadik. How could he possibly lie? And this is the mainstream approach of the rabbis. I need to say that in Genesis 42, a few chapters ago, again this came up, and they replied while being interrogated by Joseph, And they replied, We, your servants, were twelve brothers, son of a certain man in the land of Canaan. The youngest, however, is now with our father, and one is no more. So there they didn’t say he was dead. They used more of a euphemism that, of course, I think was more truthful. But one or the other, the point is, you wonder whether he’s lying or he is telling the truth. I mean, for all intensive purposes, is Joseph not dead to all of them? And if you sell a child as a slave, you know, Maybe you are on fair ground thinking that he probably died. It was a death sentence. But it’s fascinating that there is a challenge here.

I just love, from the perspective of Joseph looking at them and hearing this, this thing about “enenu”. He’s not here. He wasn’t here for us. He’s not here for us. He’s not a part of our life. He’s not a part of our narrative. Kind of interesting, don’t you think?

8:01 AM I would ask the following question. So what happens? They sell Joseph so they probably think that Joseph is alive somewhere, but that he’s irrelevant because he’s been sold into slavery. We don’t have to worry about him. We don’t have to think about him. He’s gone. Do you think after all of this back and forth with this viceroy of Egypt, you think that the brothers began to wonder a little bit? That’s what I want to know. You know, whether this guy is Joseph, whether Joseph is behind the scenes, like, it just seems like too many things are going wrong.

And like the things that are going wrong are the things that hit them, you know, closest, you know, closest to what matters to them. Get to feel like maybe, just maybe, they’re beginning to wonder a little bit. I don’t know. I’m just raising that as a possibility. Jacob sees the coat, so he assumes that Joseph is dead. But the brothers don’t necessarily assume.

9:11 GS I mean, you don’t even know if Judah told the other brothers what he did.

AM You have no idea. That’s what I’m pointing out. You just don’t know.

GS So of all the commentaries, I found the Maharal, who’s normally very metaphysical, Kabbalistic, but in his commentary, and he’s doing a commentary on Rashi, so it’s kind of a super commentary, He says, he puts into the brother’s mouth, we believe that he died because he set out and had a future and did not come. He didn’t come back to us. He’s never written. He’s never been in touch with us. And that is why we said that he is no longer. He adds almost a midrashic approach that when the ten siblings came to Egypt, They each entered a different gate, so that maybe they wouldn’t be identified as a tribe, as a group, so they could be like a sleeper cell. But in this interpretation, they entered from 10 gates because they were looking for their brother. And they determined, hu enenu, he’s not here. But certainly I think what we can all agree about is whether they were convinced at this point that he had died or not, it’s clear that he wasn’t a part of their life. And it’s just fascinating to think of Joseph looking upon this. All the questions, all the discussions that we’re having right now have to have been going through Joseph’s head as well.

Do they recognize me? Have they been thinking about me? Does my father believe that I’m alive? And from that perspective, I’d love to look at it from Joseph’s point of view, where it’s kind of this surreal scene where you’re looking at your life, but you’re not there. You’re looking at your family, but you’re not there, and you’re watching this dynamic. And we know ultimately, he exposes himself, but how long he drew this out to experience this kind of subject that we’re exploring today, which is how do you look at a world when you’re not there?

How do you evaluate your impact on a world? And I think that’s just – it comes out of the drama set by the text.

11:33 AM I think that’s good. I think that’s 100% right. I mean, I was pointing out also, the drama is, there are so many ways to read the drama of the text. Isn’t that what makes it so exciting?

GS Absolutely. Absolutely. So I thought, and maybe you have some more stories or insights, that I would use this as a way of looking at two famous stories from the Talmud that came to the top of my head, where it’s almost a back-to-the-future type of moment, where you get a character who gets to go, in these cases, into the future. And see the world without him, and then in a surprising, charming, delicious moment, realize that he’s made an impact. And they kind of tie into it from that perspective that I’m playing.

Honi Ha’ama’agel and the Carob Tree

12:32 So the first is about a famous guy called Honi Ha’ama’agel. Honi the Circle Maker, and what he was ultimately was a magic worker who could bring rain. He would draw a circle, and he would stand inside of the circle, he would pray to God, and at a time of drought, he had this amazing power that he was able to bring the rain. But the story that I am going to quote from Tainit 23 is where he saw a man who was planting a carob tree. And Honi said to him, this tree, after how many years will it bear fruit?

The man said to him, it will not produce fruit until 70 years have passed. Honi said to him, ìs it obvious to you that you will live seventy years that you expect to benefit from this tree? He said to him, That man himself found a world full of carob trees. Just as my ancestors planted for me, I too am planting for my descendants. So, ultimately, he was like saying, we don’t all get to harvest the fruits of our labor, but I’m harvesting the fruits of my ancestors’ labor, and they will harvest the fruits of mine.

So Honi sat and ate bread, and fell asleep and a cliff formed around him and he disappeared from sight and slept for seventy years. When he awoke he saw a certain man gathering carobs from that tree. Honi said to him, Are you the one who planted this tree? The man said to him, I am his son’s son. Honi said to him, I can learn from this that I have slept for seventy years, and indeed he saw that his donkey had sired several herds during these many years. Honi went home and said to the members of the household, Is the son of Honi Hamagel alive?

They said to him, His son is no longer with us, but his son’s son is alive. He said to them, I am Honi Hamagel. They did not believe him. He went to the study hall, where he heard the sages say about one scholar, His halakhot are as enlightening and as clear as in the days of Honi Hama’agel. For when Honi Hama’agel would enter the study hall, he would resolve for the sages many difficulties that they had. Honi said to them, I am he. But they did not believe him and did not pay him proper respect. Honi became very upset, prayed for mercy, and died. Rava said this explains the folks saying that people said either friendship or death, as one who has no friends is better off dead.

Wow, what a powerful Story!

15:34 AM That’s amazing.

GS I mean, at so many different levels.

AM There are so many things, what’s it about?

GS Well, I mean, I think at the most basic level, it is that lesson that we plant and others harvest, and we harvest that which previous generations planted. But it also talks about the worlds that we want to be a part of You know, if we’re talking about mortality, When it is a time for people to be harvesting that which we planted, maybe that’s not a time that we are still alive. I mean, I think it’s just fascinating that no one knew who he was, even though he was recognized and quoted, and “either friendship or death”.

He who has no friends is better off dead. Just kind of, and it’s interesting in terms of, I mean, the magic of it, obviously, the fact that it associates sleep with death. We know from the Talmud that sleep is 160th of death and that every morning when we wake up, It’s like we’re being reborn, which is a beautiful metaphor, too. Obviously, sleep is a time of dreams, and Joseph has given us enough dreams in the last few weeks for us to understand. So it’s all of these things combined, but I think it’s just kind of beautiful in terms of putting a kind of a context of what it means to have an impact on the world, what it is to be part of a world, and what also it means to have the world go on without you.

17:20 AM I like that last point. What does it mean to have the world go on without you? Right? That’s a pretty that’s a pretty powerful idea, isn’t it? That the world went on. There? It you know he was he was done and the world went on. That’s a very striking idea to me.

GS It does, I think, resonate a little bit with the Joseph story in that he wasn’t recognized. Here Honi comes and it’s future generations and he’s not recognized. But he is quoted. He’s part of the narrative, but he’s not quite part of the narrative. I find that fascinating. And then just this sense of him trying to get an answer to a question. I mean, the whole thing begins because Honi has a question. He asks the carob planter a question, and then this magical moment happens that puts him to sleep and lets him go into the future.

You know, when I was thinking about Talmudic stories, Midrashic stories, where you would go into the past, all of them, and they have many, where people, Elijah will go visit maybe Abraham and Sarah in Kevah HaMachpelah, but they’re kind of in heaven. You know, it’s an otherworldly thing. Here, you really have that back-to-the-future type of dynamic, where he’s not going to another world. He’s staying within this world. He’s being fast-forwarded, but he gets enlightened, and he gets an exposure that, you know, none of us can get unless we’re dreaming, unless we’re sleeping, unless we’re imagining.

19:12 AM So, you know, let’s just go back to Joseph for a minute. The idea of dreams, right? You know, all these parshiot that we’re studying are all the parshiot of dreams, and every dream is fulfilled. Pharaoh’s dream is fulfilled, and the, you know, and the butler’s dreams are fulfilled. The only dream that’s not fulfilled is actually Joseph’s dream. And you just wonder about that, that maybe all the story that we read this week about the brothers coming is all a fulfillment of Joseph’s dream that his father and his brothers will come and bow down before him.

So you talk about Honi HaMa’agel, you talk about fulfilling dreams. Maybe that’s what we learn from the Torah, all about fulfilling dreams.

19:57 GS And the dream somehow enables you to see the world from the outside, to have a totally different perspective on your interaction with the world. You’re kind of floating above it. You’re a part of it, but you’re not a part of it. It’s just, I love the playfulness also of it.

So the other famous story that came to mind was Moses goes up to Sinai, and he sees God adding these tale’ tagin, these crowns on the letters. And any of you who have looked at— You know,

AM We still have the crowns on the letters, of course.

GS We do, if any of you have seen a Sefer Torah and if you haven’t, get yourself an Aliyah and go up there and you’ll see that on top of the letters there were these beautiful calligraphic crowns. Moses says, master of the universe, he goes, what’s the purpose of these crowns? And God says, there is a man who is destined to be born after several generations, and Akiva ben Yosef is his name. He is destined to derive from each and every thorn of these crown mounds upon mounds of halachot. And so, the beautiful story then has Moses fast-forwarded in a time capsule to the Talmudic Academy of Akiba, and they put him in the eighth row because he’s not the smartest of the students.

That’s where the new students sit. He sat at the end of the eighth row in Akiva’s study and did not understand what they were saying. So unlike Hani, where Hani was in his prime and they were quoting him, here there’s a little bit more drama. Moses is dumbfounded. He doesn’t have a clue what Akiva’s talking about. Moses’ strength waned as he thought his Torah knowledge was deficient. When Akiva arrived at the discussion of one matter, his students said to him, My teacher, from where do you derive this? Rabbi Akiva said to them, It is a halacha LeMoshe M’Sinai It is a law that was transmitted from Moses at Sinai. When Moses heard this, his mind was put at ease, as this, too, was part of the Torah that he was to receive.” So here, again, you have, like Choni, going into the future. But unlike Choni, he’s not the master of the universe. He doesn’t have a clue what’s going on. He feels as though he hasn’t made his mark. He is nothing. And then, in this magical moment, Akiva’s asked, how do you know this? And he says, it’s a halacha from Moses at Sinai.

And it reminds me, there was a great movie with Harrison Ford [Regarding Henry]. This big time lawyer goes out to buy a pack of cigarettes, he gets shot in the head, and he obviously is recuperating, he loses all of his mental acuity, and he’s sitting a year or two later into his rehabilitation with his daughter, and she’s reading him a book, and he’s looking at her in absolute awe, and he says to his daughter, how do you know how to read? And she says, dad, you taught me how to read…. So, it’s this ability to make an impact on the world when we don’t even realize it.

It’s an ability to give other people the tools and the capacity for them to go beyond us. And I think that that makes this so special.

AM Is that the ultimate humility? Is that what it’s about? Is it about Humility?

23:50 GS Humility? Well, I mean, I think on the one hand, it’s humility to understand that you don’t have all the answers, and the carob tree doesn’t end with you. But on the other hand, it’s amazing sense of appreciation that what we create goes beyond us, and that there are others who will take it further.

AM Humility, isn’t it? Absolutely.

24:14 GS So I just found those two stories to be quite amazing. The other story that doesn’t come from the Talmudic or the Midrashic period is by a favorite book of mine by Agnon, and it’s called The Crooked Shall Be Made Straight. I’ve quoted this story before, but basically it’s of a nebuch, of a loser of a husband who can’t make a living and he leaves his wife and he becomes a beggar. To be able to beg, he gets a letter from a great rabbi who says, yeah, you can give this guy money. And one night, he’s such a loser, he can’t make ends meet, he’s at a bar, and the guy says, I’ll give you two drinks if you give me that letter. And he gives the guy the letter, and then two days later, the guy is dead. He dies, and he has the letter in his pocket. And to make a long story short, his wife back home gets word that her husband has died. She gets remarried.

The nebuch husband comes back to the town one morning to say, I just have to come home, see my wife. She’s going to greet me. But everybody’s going to a festivity and they’re going to the Brit of his wife’s son from the new husband. And if he is alive, that child is a mamzer, is a bastard.

And so you have this irony of him having to be, to do the last good thing that he can do in his life is to be legally dead. And it’s this fascinating thing about, again, watching your life go on without you and knowing that maybe the greatest contribution that you can make is not to be there. And I just found the irony of it so fascinating and of course, Agnon as always is bringing verses, and he’s a lot to do with Jacob, but you can’t help but think of this, where here Joseph is in a similar situation, where the fact that he’s not alive permits certain things, lets them divulge (and process) certain things.

I just think the dialectic is kind of so, so fascinating. And it just gives you an insight, I think, not only to the playfulness of the rabbis and Agnon, our authors, but this sense of, and it’s not, you know, one of the things that struck me is none of these have to do with death, life after death, and this spiritual type of thing. It has more to do with What is the world with us? What is the world like without us? This week I fulfilled a task (mission) that my dad wanted me to do. I finished selling the property that he wanted me to sell. And I just felt he was looking at me, and I had finished my shlichut, he had asked me to do something, and I did it. We plant the carob tree, we harvest the carob tree, it’s something that, it has a spiritual sense to it, but it also has, I don’t know, a familial, a different sense to it, and I just feel it very strongly this time of year where we’re looking at connections and who we are and who we’re not.

27:48 AM So I think that’s beautiful, all of these examples that you give and then you connect it to, you know, to your father. The idea of being present, it all goes back to the story you told about your aunt, right? The idea of being present when you’re not here anymore is a very strong idea. I’m jumping one parasha. But the Rashi says on next week’s parasha, when Jacob dies, Rashi says, Yakov, avinu lo meyt, that Jacob, our father, didn’t die. Because it doesn’t actually say he died. It says he curled up, but it doesn’t actually say he died.

Jacob continues. He’s always kind of there. You know, Elijah the prophet also doesn’t die. Elijah the prophet is there every Saturday night when we make Havdala. Elijah’s there in a Brit. There’s an idea that you’re present even when you’re no longer present. And the story you told about Moshe in the back of the Beit Midrash of Rabbi Akiva, not only are you present after you’re no longer alive, but you’re important when you’re no longer alive. That’s what that story adds for us, right?

That without you, we wouldn’t understand anything. That’s amazing!

29:03 GS So I started by saying this time of year, some of us get a little, I don’t know, whimsical, maybe a little, even tinge of depression, and we ask, what is our purpose in this world? But I said, in this time of our lives that we’re in a war, and young people are being killed before their time. And you can’t help but ask, along with their parents, along with all of Israel, what would have been had they lived? What mark would they have made? What were they robbed of? So there’s an amazing podcast by Daniel Gordis, and what he does is to bring stuff from the Israeli media that we might not necessarily see.

And in this week’s episode, he brings a will written by a soldier who was killed. And I want to end by reading that.

The family of Sergeant Shay Arvas, z’’l, who served as a combat medic in the Givati Tzabar Battalion and who fell in October in the armored personnel carrier incident in the northern Gaza Strip, received his personal belongings this week, including a “will” he wrote on his phone two weeks before his death. “Just in case…”, is how his last letter opens, the last letter he left, detailing his love for the country, his belief in the cause and his request to his family to continue their lives and be happy.

To my beloved Adar, my dear mother, the best father in the world and all my brothers, Chen and Tami Ray and Amiri, Or and Niv, Ran and Moriah, Emily and Ari and Tal and Stav and the immediate family. I want you to know how much I miss you and I love you, and the truth is that I was happy to do what I do to save people and protect the country because it’s something I always wanted. Something that has always been a part of me since I was little and now I had the opportunity to do it and give of myself to the country as well. So you know that all this was not for nothing and was worth it. All the people of Israel will continue this tradition, and love the country because people didn’t just die here for nothing, and there are people who have to protect it.

The family of Sergeant Shay Arvas, z’’l, who served as a combat medic in the Givati Tzabar Battalion and who fell in October in the armored personnel carrier incident in the northern Gaza Strip, received his personal belongings this week, including a “will” he wrote on his phone two weeks before his death. “Just in case…”, is how his last letter opens, the last letter he left, detailing his love for the country, his belief in the cause and his request to his family to continue their lives and be happy.

To my beloved Adar, my dear mother, the best father in the world and all my brothers, Chen and Tami Ray and Amiri, Or and Niv, Ran and Moriah, Emily and Ari and Tal and Stav and the immediate family. I want you to know how much I miss you and I love you, and the truth is that I was happy to do what I do to save people and protect the country because it’s something I always wanted. Something that has always been a part of me since I was little and now I had the opportunity to do it and give of myself to the country as well. So you know that all this was not for nothing and was worth it. All the people of Israel will continue this tradition, and love the country because people didn’t just die here for nothing, and there are people who have to protect it.

And all I could think about when I read this was the end of Private Ryan, where they spent so much precious life to find this Private Ryan and to spare his life.

And as the head of the battalion (Tom Hankes) is dying in his arms, he says to him, “Earn this. Just earn it”.

And in a sense, I think what this sergeant is saying, that he says he’s not dying in vain because he did what he wanted to do, protect us. But now his family, his country, his people have to go on living, but in a sense, they have to earn it. His absence, it’s the opposite of maybe A Wonderful Life where he’s shown, had he not been there, look what would have not happened. Here, this young soldier at the beginning of his life is lost.

And his absence has to drive everybody in the family and everybody in the country that he protected to be more, to be better, to be united, to love. Anyway, that’s what I took from it.

AM Thank you so much for sharing that. I had read it also and it’s just so – there are no words. You can’t really say anything. But this was an amazing topic. It’s a great way to – we’re still going to have one more this year because next Thursday night is still this year. But it’s a good – it’s really something to think about at the end of the year and I hope that everybody will enjoy Shabbat and the parsha. And our hearts and our thoughts are with everybody in Israel, and we hope, please, God, to share good news next week.

This week was amazing. I can only wait to see what next week is going to bring us in terms of the class. Shabbat Shalom.

34: 29 GS Shabbat Shalom. It is a wonderful life, but that is both something to cherish and something to be challenged by. So let us do both and try to be better because of it. Shabbat Shalom.

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