Parashat HaShavua - Vayigash

כִּ֤י עַבְדְּךָ֙ עָרַ֣ב אֶת־הַנַּ֔עַר מֵעִ֥ם אָבִ֖י לֵאמֹ֑ר אִם־לֹ֤א אֲבִיאֶ֙נּוּ֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְחָטָ֥אתִי לְאָבִ֖י כָּל־הַיָּמִֽים׃ וְעַתָּ֗ה יֵֽשֶׁב־נָ֤א עַבְדְּךָ֙ תַּ֣חַת הַנַּ֔עַר עֶ֖בֶד לַֽאדֹנִ֑י וְהַנַּ֖עַר יַ֥עַל עִם־אֶחָֽיו׃ (בראשית מ״ד:ל״ב)

I am responsible for the boy.  I promised his father that I would bring him back from Egypt.  Let me stay in the boy’s place. (Genesis 44:32)

This week’s parasha can be seen as the dramatic peak of the Joseph cycle.  Joseph, whose identity is still hidden, orders that Benjamin (who he of course has framed as having taken his silver goblet as a test of the brothers) remain in Egypt while the other brothers are free to go.  Benjamin’s life hangs in the balance until Yehuda steps up.  He says: 

כִּ֤י עַבְדְּךָ֙ עָרַ֣ב אֶת־הַנַּ֔עַר מֵעִ֥ם אָבִ֖י לֵאמֹ֑ר אִם־לֹ֤א אֲבִיאֶ֙נּוּ֙ אֵלֶ֔יךָ וְחָטָ֥אתִי לְאָבִ֖י כָּל־הַיָּמִֽים׃ וְעַתָּ֗ה יֵֽשֶׁב־נָ֤א עַבְדְּךָ֙ תַּ֣חַת הַנַּ֔עַר עֶ֖בֶד לַֽאדֹנִ֑י וְהַנַּ֖עַר יַ֥עַל עִם־אֶחָֽיו׃

I am responsible for the boy.  I promised his father that I would bring him back from Egypt.  Let me stay in the boy’s place.

In this moment, Yehuda is seen as a ba’al teshuva, a master of teshuva, according to Rambam’s highest standard for complete teshuva: 

זֶה שֶׁבָּא לְיָדוֹ דָּבָר שֶׁעָבַר בּוֹ וְאֶפְשָׁר בְּיָדוֹ לַעֲשׂוֹתוֹ וּפֵרַשׁ וְלֹא עָשָׂה מִפְּנֵי הַתְּשׁוּבָה

“when you are in the same situation as when you committed the sin and you make a different choice this time.”

What enables Yehuda to change, to protect his younger brother this time?  In his article, “Two Models of Transformation,” Jon Levisohn offers two ways of thinking about change, both of which are based on the famous story of Rabbi Akiva:

How did Rabbi Akiva start out? He was forty years old and had never studied anything. Once he stood at a spring. He said, “Who engraved this stone?” They told him, “It was the water, which drips upon it every day.”

Rabbi Akiva immediately drew a conclusion about himself: “If something soft (like water) could chisel its way through something hard (like stone), then surely the words of Torah, which are as hard as iron, can penetrate my heart, which is flesh and blood!” Immediately, he turned to studying Torah.

There are two very different ways of understanding Rabbi Akiva’s transformation into a Torah scholar.  First we could see this moment as a sudden epiphany, a revelation or moment of clarity that in a flash changes Rabbi Akiva’s understanding of himself.  In the same way, we can imagine Yehuda looking at Benjamin and having a sudden revelation, a petite madeleine moment, transported back in time to a painfully similar scene from his past and realizing that he must now act differently.

What is so interesting about Rabbi Akiva’s epiphany, though, is that it is a realization that is itself about the slow pace of change.  It is his recognition that water, over time, can change the form of rock, that makes him believe that he can also change.  I can also imagine Yehuda, in all the years since Joseph’s sale, thinking about that moment over and over again, turning it over in his mind, until he finally is comes to terms with the fact that in his impulsive jealousy, he did a very cruel thing and that he does not wants to be that person anymore.

As educators, we seek both kinds of change, in ourselves and in our students.  We labor for the moments of revelation, the AHA moments, when you can see in a student’s eyes that a new idea has really taken hold.  We also strive to be like the water, shaping our students over the years that they are at Heschel, from Kabbalat Shabbat in Kindergarten to studying Heschel’s words in high school.  

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Anne Ebersman
Director of Jewish Programming N-5 and Director of Hesed (Community Engagement) and Tzedek (Social Responsibility)