Rabbi Andrea's Sermon 4th Jan 2025 / 4th Tevet 5785

Yehudah and Joseph

This week's Torah reading begins in the middle of the action - so let me recap what happened before.  

Joseph has planned to frame his brothers.  He hid a precious goblet in their sacks so that he could accuse them of being thieves or even spies.  They haven't recognised him. Just imagine how they feel—lost, powerless, anguished. 

They are in the hands of a very powerful man, very enigmatic. He was welcoming at the beginning and has now turned out to be cruel. 

As compensation for the attempted theft, Joseph has demanded his brother leave their younger, Benjamin, in his own hands so that he can turn him into a slave. This is how last week's Torah portion ended, on a cliffhanger, right in the middle of the action.

The action continues this week with Yehudah's speech defending himself and all the brothers: a masterful piece of literature, each sentence shows how divided, perplexed, troubled, and yet hopeful the brothers are. 

But let us focus on the conclusion.  Yehudah told Joseph that if the brothers came back to their father without Benjamin, their father would die in sorrow. Yehudah asked Joseph to allow him to remain a bondman instead of Benjamin, asking how he could go up to his father if Benjamin was not with him.

At this point, Joseph cannot control his emotions. He bursts into tears and reveals his identity to the brothers. 

Let us stop here for a moment and picture the scene. 

Yehudah in front of Joseph. They are brothers, but how different they are and what different trajectories their lives have taken. 

Joseph had a fantastic career at Pharaoh's court as a civil servant, in the world's most influential and vast empire. He is at the top of the world. He rules in place of the King. He directs the economy, the agriculture, and the allocation of resources. 

Just a few years before, Joseph was in Pharaoh's prison because of a scheme played against him when the mighty wife of a State Officer accused him of rape. And now, he is one of the most influential people in the world! 

Yet, and this is a prefiguration of things to come in history, Joseph had paid the price for such a remarkable career. 

His wife is not Jewish, nor are his sons. Pharaoh -his boss- has chosen a wife for him. Joseph changed his name, behavior, language, clothing, and thinking. 

In other words, Joseph is a very assimilated Jew: he is the first assimilated Jew in history.

On the other hand, Yehudah is clearly not assimilated! In the previous chapter we have seen his determination to become a parent and then a grandparent. This is very, very Jewish. 

Yehudah's name has the same root of todah and of our prayer, Modim anakhnu. It means "giving thank".  Gratitude towards God, gratitude despite misadventures and pains: this is a Jewish feeling. Gratitude towards God and not towards kings: this is a very Jewish attitude! 

Let us delve a bit deeper into Yehudah's personality as it emerges from the speech. In the speech there is very little in it that we readers don't know.  It is a recapitulation of the whole story, of the series of events seen from the point of view of the brothers of Joseph. 

Joseph, mind, knows everything. He has recognised his brothers and had prepared a scheme to frame them and force them to leave Benjamin with him. 

(Why Benjamin? Because Benjamin is the son of Rachel, like Joseph. Rachel had only two sons: Benjamin and Joseph indeed. All the others are sons of Leah. Joseph intended to keep Benjamin at court with him, breaking the family unit). 

In Yehudah's speech, there is almost nothing that we -and Joseph- do not already know.  Except one thing: its conclusion. (Gen 44:33): "Take me as your slave, and let my brother go, because my father cannot survive the loss of him". 

Yehudah offers himself in slavery to allow Benjamin to return home.  

Rambam explains that at this moment, Yehudah provides a clear example of teshuva, repentance.  He finds himself in the same situation: the possibility of losing one brother.  And rather than making the same mistake, he does the opposite; he eventually does the good thing: he refuses to lose Benjamin and offers himself instead. 

There is a very profound aspect of Yehudah's teshuva.  He acknowledges that one brother, Benjamin, is dearer to his father than himself! 

That was precisely what he could not accept -in the past- about Joseph.  Like all the other brothers, children of Leah, Yehudah hated Joseph because Joseph was the favourite.  Now Yehudah has learnt to accept it. It does not mean it's right; it is just a reality.  

As soon as Joseph realises how his brother has changed, all his revenge schemes go into crumbles. 

Joseph was planning to destroy the family unity.  That is not surprising. Joseph thinks and acts like an Egyptian, and family bonds mean nothing in Egyptian culture.  Family connections are without value; family love must be replaced by loyalty to Pharaoh and to Egyptian laws.  In Egypt, people have no name; the name of the role they play in the totalitarian machine of the State replaces the name that is given by their parents.

Picture the scene. On one side, we have Joseph, the powerful State Officer, the Jew who serves non-Jewish power, the Jew who has lost connection with his family and his culture. 

On the other side, there is Yehudah, the Jew who does everything he can to keep the family together, the Jew who struggled to accept the limitations of his own family, and in the end, he has learnt to deal with it.  

By showing that he has learnt to accept reality, Yehudah moves Joseph to tears, and the identity that Joseph has built, his career, his success, and the honour he has acquired in the eyes of the Egyptians... all of this goes into crumbles.  Joseph reveals himself. And asks, with his voice broken by tears, "Is my father still alive?"

On one side, Joseph. On the other side Yehudah. The title of the Torah portion is: Vaygash, "and he came close".

We are all familiar with Jews who serve a foreign power. Jews who deny their connection with Judaism. Jews who pour venom against the Jewish people and -these days- against the State of Israel, perhaps floating some resounding slogan such as "peace" or even "Jewish values" (think of the perversity: to use "Jewish values" to condemn the Jews!).  

Like Joseph in this story, they are rewarded with honour and wonderful careers and they become powerful and influential.  Often, like in the case of Joseph, there is some trauma in their past; they feel they have been betrayed by their brothers and sold away, and there are very legitimate reasons for these grievances. 

This is why it is entirely pointless, in my opinion, to engage in any kind of facts-based discussion.  What's the point of pointing at facts and evidence when you are dealing with a traumatised person who does not want, can hardly see the facts? Nor he can feel empathy for his or her own people...

Then something happens - October 7, or perhaps the wave of antisemitic hate that started on October 8.  It is another trauma, and some of these Josephs come to terms with this weird fact of being Jewish.  

In contrast, others (as we have seen) continue to dig the rabbit hole - they double down their attack against their own people, hoping to keep the positions and honour they have achieved by doing so at the beginning of their careers. 

It happens; we have seen it, and it is still happening.  But remember: Joseph did not change his mind because Yehudah persuaded him rationally.  Nor was the impact of antisemitism that triggered the change in Joseph's psychology. As a high officer and a top civil servant, Joseph knew how to deal with antisemitism. He had encountered antisemitism in his own career and made it anyway. 

Joseph changed because he saw that his family was there for him. 

He saw that his father had not changed and that his father still loved him.  He witnessed that his brothers have grown up and learned to accept his father's limitations as well as theirs.  

Can we learn something from this story, something to apply to our reality? I think we can. And it's this: we should not waste our time and energies to run after the Josephs of our time. 

We must make clear that they do not speak in our name when they preach about "Jewish values" and the like.  But apart from that, let us concentrate on our own Judaism and Jewish practices, study, pray, and celebrate together; let us work together toward our collective spiritual growth. 

In other words, let us be the descendants of Yehudah. Let us be Jewish, and proudly so.

Rabbi Dr. Andrea Zanardo, PhD