From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2004 1:26
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Vayechi,
5764
You
May Think That This Is the End
By
Rabbi Joshua (endlessly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
This
week's parsha marks the end of the book of Bereishis. In the very last verse of
the parsha, we read, "Yosef died at the age of one hundred and ten years…. and
he was placed in a coffin in Egypt" (Bereishis 50:26). Rabbi Ya'akov Yosef, who
served as chief rabbi of New York from 1888 until his death in 1902, notes that
we would expect the book of Bereishis to end on a good note. Why, then, does it
end with Yosef's burial? He answers that the main purpose of the book of
Bereishis is to teach us the midos, the good character traits, practiced by our
ancestors. Yosef, he continues, had good reason to harbor resentment against his
brothers, and perhaps even to take revenge from them. However, when, after
Ya'akov's death, they feared that some latent resentment emerge, and they asked
him forgiveness for what they had done, he embraced them, spoke to their hearts,
and told them that he would sustain them in Egypt. However, says Rabbi Yosef, it
is only after a person dies that we can know if he ever actually takes action
against someone who has wronged him. Thus, the Torah tells us that Yosef died
and was placed in a coffin in Egypt, thereby indicating that he retained his
conciliatory attitude toward his brothers until he died. This attitude of
forgiveness serves as a model for future generations, as well, and is therefore
a fitting end for Bereishis, which teaches us proper character traits, as a
prelude to the giving of the Torah that we learn about in the following book,
Shemos. I would like to present another way in which the burial of Yosef, as
recorded in the last verse in Bereishis, can be considered as ending the book on
a good note.
As we noted above, Yosef's brothers feared,
after Ya'akov's death, that Yosef might then express his resentment against them
for what they had done to them. As the Torah records it, they said to each
other, "Perhaps Yosef will nurse hated against us and then he will surely repay
us all the evil that we did him " (Bereishis 50:15). They then tell Yosef that
their father had commanded that he forgive them. Yosef cries, and tells them not
to fear, that it was all part of God's plan. He then tells them, "So now, fear
not. I will sustain you and your young ones" (Bereishis 50:21). The
midrash, citing these words of Yosef, says that, as a reward for saying this to
his brothers, Yosef's descendants were given the mitzvoh of Pesach Sheni, as it
says, "And there were people who were made impure by a human corpse" (Bamidbar
9:6). Pesach Sheni is an opportunity to bring the Pesach offering on the
fourteenth of Iyar, granted to people who for various reasons were not able to
bring the offering at its regular time, a month earlier, on the fourteenth of
Nissan. What does Pesach Sheni have to do with Yosef and his brothers? Rabbi
Mordechai Rogov, in his Ateres Mordechai, explains that the korban Pesach can
only be eaten as part of a group, and thus generates friendship and love among
the Jewish people. This is exactly what Yosef did when he embraced his brothers
and reassured them after Ya'akov's death. I would like to suggest a different
explanation of this midrash.
Why, in fact, did Yosef's
brothers feel a need to ask Yosef forgiveness after Ya'akov's death? Hadn't they
expressed regret to him before, when Yosef revealed his identity to him? Yosef
at that time told them not to feel sad over what they had done, so apparently
there was an attempt at reconciliation already. Why did they need to try again?
The midrah relates that on the way back from burying Ya'akov, Yosef stopped off
at the pit, in Shechem, into which his brothers had thrown him, and made a
blessing, praising God for having performed a miracle for him at that place.
Rabbi Meir Zvi Bergman, in his Sha'arei Orah, conjectures that the brothers felt
that since Yosef did this in front of them, he must harbor some resentment in
his heart, and they still needed to appease him. The Midrash HaGadol points out
that when Yosef expressed his desire to be buried, eventually in the Holy Land,
he addressed this desire to his brothers, as we read, " And Yosef imposed an
oath on the children of Yisroel, saying, 'God will surely remember you, and you
will bring my bones out of here" (Bereishis 50:25). Why did Yosef tell this to
his brothers, and not to his children? The midrash explains that Yosef was
telling his brothers, 'you caused me to be taken out from Shechem and you must
bring back there.' Perhaps this was, in fact, what Yosef was hinting to his
brothers when he gazed into the pit in Shechem on their way back from Ya'akov's
funeral.
After Yosef's brothers asked him for
forgiveness following Ya'akov's death, and Yosef spoke to their hearts and
reassured them, he offered them a way of finally correcting the wrong they had
done. They had brought about his forced departure from Shechem, and now they
were bidden to bring him back there. This was, in effect, a second chance to
repent. Placing him in a coffin before he died can be considered a kind of
preparation for his eventual burial in Shechem, and thus a correction of the
original misdeed. In fact, the rabbis tell us that the people who were impure
due to contact with a human corpse, and therefore could not bring the Pesach
offering on the fourteenth of Nissan, were the people who were carrying Yosef's
coffin. Thus, the people who were agents for Yosef's brothers in realizing their
second chance to atone for their sin against Yosef, became the agents through
whom the mitzvah of Pesach Sheni, the classical case of being afforded a second
chance to perform a mitzvoh, was given. Yosef taught his brothers that it is
never too late to correct one's ways, and it was through this very process by
which he taught them that the mitzvoh of Pesach Sheni was generated. The first
book of the Torah, then, ends by teaching us that a person always has a second
chance, and what we may think is an ending really is not.
Please
address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following
address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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