Avodah Mailing List

Volume 25: Number 437

Tue, 30 Dec 2008

• 1. Re: Rav Aviner on Amen Meals (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 2. Re: women lighting candles (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 3. Re: Rav Aviner on Amen Meals (Rich, Joel)
• 4. Re: pach hashemen (T6...@aol.com)
• 5. Re: Did Yosef Forgive His Brothers? (Micha Berger)
• 6. Re: chanukah and other things not in the Mishna (Micha Berger)
• 7. Re: Cameras on Shabbas (Micha Berger)
• 8. Re: pach hashemen (Micha Berger)
• 9. Re: Modern Day Sifrei Torahs (Micha Berger)
• 10. Re: priorities in halacha (kennethgmil...@juno.com)
• 11. Re: Rav Aviner on Amen Meals (Zev Sero)
• 12. Re: pach hashemen (Alan Rubin)
• 13. Re: Rav Aviner on Amen Meals (Micha Berger)
• 14. Re: Rav Aviner on Amen Meals (Rich, Joel)
• 15. Re: Rav Aviner on Amen Meals (Zev Sero)
• 16. chiasmus between Yehuda's speech to Yosef and Yosef's response (Michael Poppers)
• 17. Re: pach hashemen (Moshe Y. Gluck)
• 18. pach hashemen (Eli Turkel)
• 19. Two Ways of Dealing with Society (R' Yaakov Medan) (Micha Berger)

R' Joel Rich quoted Rav Aviner:
> Q: What is Ha-Rav's opinion about "Amen Meals" (participants
> take different types of food, recite a blessing before
> eating and those who hear the blessings answer "Amen")?
> A: This is a new creation. It is permissible ... Why do
> women do this? In order to increase merits for themselves,
> for the sick, for young women to find mates, etc... But if
> people want to increase merits they do not have to invent
> new venues.

Is this really such a new thing?

To me, it sounds extremely similar to the practice of some men who who
recite Birchos Hashachar out loud, which I've been told is for the specific
purpose of accruing zechus to the people who answer Amen. (I'm not talking
about the chazan, but about people who say these brachos aloud from their
seat in shul.)

Akiva Miller

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Last week, I asked:
> Can anyone offer a citation for where "ishto k'gufo"
> appears in the context of Ner Chanuka? Or is just
> another "phantom maamar chazal"?

Over Shabbos, someone showed me that this idea appears quite clearly in MB 671:9.

Akiva Miller

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R' Joel Rich quoted Rav Aviner:
> Q: What is Ha-Rav's opinion about "Amen Meals" (participants take 
> different types of food, recite a blessing before eating and those who

> hear the blessings answer "Amen")?
> A: This is a new creation. It is permissible ... Why do women do this?

> In order to increase merits for themselves, for the sick, for young 
> women to find mates, etc... But if people want to increase merits they

> do not have to invent new venues.

Is this really such a new thing?

To me, it sounds extremely similar to the practice of some men who who
recite Birchos Hashachar out loud, which I've been told is for the
specific purpose of accruing zechus to the people who answer Amen. (I'm
not talking about the chazan, but about people who say these brachos
aloud from their seat in shul.)

Akiva Miller

____________________________________________________________
============================================================
Yes, I've heard of that but that's not the main focus of gathering.
Question: If one eats not because they are hungry but specifically in
order to make a bracha, do you still make a bracha? 

KT
Joel Rich
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From: "Moshe Y. Gluck" <mgl...@gmail.com>
>>I was thinking  that maybe they didn't bother recording the Neis of the 
Pach Shemen because they  were Melumad in Nisim in the Beis Hamikdash - like the 
Mishnah in Avos and the  Gemara in Yuma record. In the context of the daily 
Nisim in the Beis  HaMikdash....<< 




>>>>>
 
All those miracles were in the Bayis Rishon.  There were no  open miracles in 
the Bayis Sheni -- with the single exception of the pach  hashemen.  This 
miracle was therefore seen as a throwback to earlier  times and a brief sign of 
Hashem's favor, a momentary ray of sunshine in the  darkening gloom.
 

--Toby Katz
==========



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On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 04:08:41PM +1100, Rabbi Meir wrote:
: R Micha says from R' Bachya that Yoseif did forgive his brothers. He did not
: however articulate that mechilah; and suggests that the problem wasn't
: obtaining Yoseif's mechilah, but HQBH. 

: My understanding of the R Bachya 50:17 seems not so. I offer my loose
: translation: "Whoever has hurt another, is not forgiven until the victim is
: appeased, even though he has repented...."

We disagree over the translation of ratzon. They gained Yoseif's ratzon,
which I took to mean that the relationship was healed.

He did not, however, grant them mechilah. I was thinking of that in
terms of his letting them know they were off the hook. I now realize
that's more based on the Yinglish "granting someone mechilah" than
any historically authentic turn of phrase.

Ratzon takes the offended person as an object.
Mechilah is something the offended person does to the one who offended
him.

Which was the kind of thing I pictured. But again, I realize after
reviewing the words inside that I didn't think it through before forming
that picture.

The bottom line is that until we know what R' Bachya meant by ratzon vs
mechilah, we really can't know that he meant by this.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Take time,
mi...@aishdas.org        be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org   unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm

On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 01:51:07PM +0200, Eli Turkel wrote:
: A discussion of why Chanukah and other topics are not in the Mishna
: see
: http://seforim.traditiononline.org/index.cfm

More permanent link:
http://seforim.traditiononline.org/index.cfm/2008/1
2/27/Eliezer-Brodt-The-Chanukah-Omission
or http://kitzur.com/a2ld

The blog entry assumes that Rebbe wrote down the mishnah. It seems from
Tosafos that they held the mishnah was composed/redacted by Rebbe, but
not actually written out physically until about the same time the gemara
was.

This is relevent WRT the answer I found compelling from our previous
discussions of this point, that Rebbe simply didn't include Chanukah
because there was already a code of its halakhos in Megillas Taanis.

Quoting:
> To clarify, in the standard Megilat Tannis there are two parts one
> written in Aramaic which are various fast days and one part written in
> Hebrew which includes a lengthier description of the topic. The Mahritz
> Chiyus and Radal say that the Aramaic part was written very early when
> it was not permissible to really write Torah Shel Bal Peh but at a later
> point when it was permitted to write than the Hebrew parts were added.
> Mahritz Chiyus says it was after the era of Rabenu Hakodesh. To
> clarify, in the standard Megilat Tannis there are two parts one
> written in Aramaic which are various fast days and one part written in
> Hebrew which includes a lengthier description of the topic. The
> Mahritz Chiyus and Radal say that the Aramaic part was written very
> early when it was not permissible to really write Torah Shel Bal Peh
> but at a later point when it was permitted to write than the Hebrew
> parts were added. Mahritz Chiyus says it was after the era of Rabenu
> Hakodesh.

1- Why would it be any better in Aramaic?

2- According to Tosafos, none of this was actually in writing. The times
in question are those of redaction. Therefore, there is no motivation to
use anything but straightforward Hebrew.

BTW, to continue:
> Indeed, the Gedolim who first suggested that MT is the reason why Rabbenu
> Hakodesh did not include it in Mishnayois were not aware of this point
> that it was written at two different time periods. However R. D. Horowitz
> in an article in Haples turns the historical difficultly on its head
> when he argues that the person who wrote those Hebrew parts was Rabbenu
> Hakodesh. [8] In fact, in one of the editions of Megilat Tannis it says
> on the Shar Blat Megilat Tannis which is Mesechet Chanukah (the original
> edition with the Pirush ha-Eshel). The problem with R. Horowitz point
> is that it seems most likely that it was later than Rabbenu Hakodesh.[9]

> [8] Mahritz Chiyus, vol. 1, pp. 153-54; Radal, Kadmos Hazohar, p. 269.
> Haples vol. one pg. 182.

> [9] The time period of the MT and the two versions (and the nature of
> the work in general) have been discussed by many just to cite some ...


Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Time flies...
mi...@aishdas.org                    ... but you're the pilot.
http://www.aishdas.org                       - R' Zelig Pliskin
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Fri, Dec 26, 2008 at 10:23:35AM -0800, Harvey Benton wrote:
: Some people wait to open a refrigerator on Shabbas, until
: they can actually hear the motor running, so as not to trip the motor circuit.
: However, the simple act of opening a fridge, whether or not the motor is on at
: the time, causes warmer air to enter, thus necessitating that the motor will
: run longer.? People however DO open
: refrigerators on Shabbas, so affecting electricity usage might not be a
: problem.

That's pesiq reishei le'achar zeman or gerama. No statistics issue --
the camera will definitely conduct eletricity differently, unlike the
thermostat which may or may not trigger. And the trigger is immediate.

With thermostats bichlal, the question is how likely does it need to
be in order to be assur. E.g. my thermostat (as is quite oddly true
of many US homes) is right near my front door. Opening the door blows
cold air on it. R' Dovid Cohen didn't let us use the water fountains
in camp, since the likelihood of triggering the refrigeration unit was
too high. (The faucet was manual.) However, when I asked him, RDC said
the same was not true of his front door.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger                 Life is complex.
mi...@aishdas.org                Decisions are complex.
http://www.aishdas.org               The Torah is complex.
Fax: (270) 514-1507                                - R' Binyamin Hecht

On Mon, Dec 29, 2008 at 02:04:06PM -0500, T6...@aol.com wrote:
: All those miracles were in the Bayis Rishon. There were no open miracles in
: the Bayis Sheni -- with the single exception of the pach hashemen. This
: miracle was therefore seen as a throwback to earlier times and a brief sign of
: Hashem's favor, a momentary ray of sunshine in the darkening gloom.

I would have argued the exact reverse. How many people saw how much
oil burned for 8 days? Only kohanim who were ready to serve and in the
Heichal could have seen them fill it.

This is very far from the national nature of the events commemorated by
the regalim or Purim.

I would propose that this is why CHanukah isn't founded upon the miracle
of the oil. There is no mention of that miracle until the gemara, until
we lost the things the Rambam tells us Chanukah gave us -- freedom from
oppression, opportunity to freely serve Hashem, and autonomy.

"Mai Chanukah?" wasn't a basic question "What is Chanukah?" When do we
ever see such alef-beis level questions in the gemara? Rather, I would
argue it was "Now that we lost everything and back in galus, what is
Chanukah *to us*?"

To provide a ledoros meaning to the already codified holiday, Chazal
turned to the neis shemen. After all, that's the aspect of the story
that was actually codified.

I believe that moots the Beis Yoseif's question. It means that we have
8 days of Chanukah to mark the pseudo-Sukkos they held at the Chanukas
habayis. The length of that duration was set by the time it took to
make the oil and the length of Sukkos - Shemini Atzeres. But having to
map the length to the length of the neis was only a problem after the
recasting of the holiday in "Mai Chanukah".

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Weeds are flowers too
mi...@aishdas.org        once you get to know them.
http://www.aishdas.org          - Eeyore ("Winnie-the-Pooh" by AA Milne)
Fax: (270) 514-1507

On Sun, Dec 28, 2008 at 09:19:12PM -0800, Harvey Benton wrote:
: Kiddusin 30a mentions the Vav of Gachon as the middle letter
: of the Torah.? Also discussed there are the
: exact number of words and verses in the Torah.??
: For our purposes, what comes out, is that at the very least, that at the
: time of the Gemara they were not expert in chaser and yeter. 

Gachon isn't nearly close. It can't be resolved by cheseiros and yeseiros.
That said, R' Meir wrote that we aren't beqi'im, and that's a generation
before the mishnah.

I think the Rambam's point is semantic. After all, the ikkar includes
the process of TSBP.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             A sick person never rejects a healing procedure
mi...@aishdas.org        as "unbefitting." Why, then, do we care what
http://www.aishdas.org   other people think when dealing with spiritual
Fax: (270) 514-1507      matters?              - Rav Yisrael Salanter

The OP quoted the KSA as saying that a silver menora is beautiful, and questioned making such a universalistic presumption.

R' Moshe Gluck commented:
> I think we've discussed before that the KSA was written for
> a specific community. I don't think it's outrageous to
> suggest that R' Shlomo Ganzfried knew that in his community
> the norm was that silver Menorahs were considered beautiful.

If the topic was about something was paskened verbally, I'd surely agree with you that he intended it only for the community within earshot.

But when writing such things, and then publishing them, I think we should
ask: When a work is published, what were the author's reasonable
expectations? He probably did not expect it to be available worldwide, but
what about Europe? Could have foreseen that it would become popular outside
of Hungary? For that matter, did the MB - or any other acharon - know how
widespread his words would become?

In our generation, I have seen seforim where the author stresses that he is
not intending to pasken for anyone, but that he is simply offering his view
for those who have nowhere else to turn. (Rav Dovid Feinstein's Hagada Kol
Dodi comes to mind.) Even more, some authors are making an effort to be
more inclusive, and to point out how these communities hold this way, but
those communities hold that way. (The SSK has an entire chapter which is
relevant only in Chutz Laaretz.)

I think these trends to be a good thing, but I could be wrong. My
subjective opinions are undoubtedly colored by the universalistic society
in which I live. The whole point of this thread is that Chazal SEEM to have
NOT shared that universalistic view, when they made various presumptions.
So the question is: Were they justified (or even more correct than us) in
holding such self-centered views? Or were they simply calling shots as they
saw it, and would not object to our variations?

(For homework, please consider: Was Tefilas Zakkah (Erev Yom Kippur)
written for ALL the Jews of the author's community, or perhaps only for a
particular subset of them?)

Akiva Miller

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Rich, Joel wrote:

> Question: If one eats not because they are hungry but specifically in
> order to make a bracha, do you still make a bracha? 

So long as one still gets the benefit, either of the nutrition or the
taste, then yes.  And, once again, this is nothing new: on Shabbos one
is supposed to eat fruit in order to make up the 100 brachos, and on
Yom Kippur people try to make up as many of the brachos as they can by
smelling things (since there's a limit to how many asher yatzars a
person can make, especially on a day when he's not eating or drinking
anything).

-- 
Zev Sero                                Have a brilliant Chanukah
z...@sero.name

R' Eli Turkel wrote:

 > Hence, this quoted verison of megillat taanait does not mention the
 > miracle of the oil.
 > Note that megillat taanait was composed towards the end of bayit sheni
 > and so is the first written word since Tanach and precedes the writing
 > of the Mishna by some 150-200 years

 > In the manuscripts that we have there are various verisons of megillat
 > taanait (or rather the Scolion  which is like a gemara on the Mishna).
 > Even the one that quotes the lighting of the menorah only mentions
< that they found tahor oil and lit it for 8 days. The version we all
 > know appears for the first time in Masechet Shabbat and is not based
 > on megillat taanait or pesikta rabati which are the earlier versions
 > that discuss chanukah (not including non-chazal sources like sefer
 > makabim)

Megillas Taanis might date to the the end of Bayis Sheni but that is 
just a list of dates when we have or do not have taanis or hesped. The 
Hebrew commentary, the Scolium is of a much later date. The story of the 
Pach Shemen, of how many days it took time taken to fix the mizbeach or 
the seven spears is in the Scolium but not in megilas taanis itself. I 
have not been able to find  a definite date for the composition of the 
Scolium and have come across anything from 200 to 700 CE quoted. So I do 
not think it is accurate to claim that the Scolum to Megillas Taanis is 
the earliest non-chazal source that discusses channukah.  The Scolium 
may post-date the Gemara.

I have seen a version of the Scolium which refers to a miracle that a 
jug with sufficient oil for one day only lasted for eight days.

As for pesikta rabati, I believe that was composed in the ninth century 
so it is also not an early source.

That is not to say that there are not problems with the Pach Shemen 
story, but these are primarily from non-Chazal sources, ie Sefer 
Makkabim and Josephus who says that he does not know why channukah is 
called the 'Festival of Lights'. The Scolium provides an alternative 
understanding but does not necessarily come earlier any other chazal source.

Alan Rubin

The problem I have is not the newness of the idea (whether these
things are really new or not) of "Amein meals", saying Pereq Shirah,
women gathering to be able lifrosh challah with a berakhah, giving the
husband of an expectant woman pesichah, it's the contemporary motivation
that underlies the popularization of all these practices.

Today it's more and more commonplace to adopt new practices in order to
get things out of it. It's a little beyond al menas leqabeil peras. Here
isn't not mitoch shelo lishmah ba lishmah -- the entire activity only
exists for the sake of gleaning reward.

Smelling things on Yom Kippur is to fulfill the notion of 90 berakhos
a day. There is a duty you're supposed to fulfill daily, and why not
try for it on YK of all days? I don't see the comparison.

Why people are saying pereq Shirah, for example. Our grandparents would
have said Tehillim -- but that has no segulos attached.

In contrast, shemiras halashon has gone from being about bein adam
lachaveiro to a rite to invoke whenever things go wrong. A more pure al
menas leqabeil peras example. (And the fact that it's usually a woman's
only campaign started when things go wrong has made at least one woman
in my extended family feel like they're being singled out as the target
of blame for the community's ills.) And yet the machsom lefi programs
did reduce LH overall, it seems to me anecdotally, so how against them
can I get?


In The Lonely Man of Faith, RJBS writes about the rise of Adam I, the man
who comprehends, masters and utilizes the world. The Adam of Bereishis
pereq 1, the pinacle of creation who is told "vekivshuha". In contrast
to Adam II, who seeks redemption through community and covenent, by
partnering with the Almighty, by seeking a mate, etc...

Adam I subverts religion. "A family that prays together stays together"
might have been a successful ad campaign in getting some people to
church. But it made prayer a means to an end. It is functional. Not
covenental - redemptive.

I also recently mentioned a number of times R' Elchanan Wasserman's take
on BB 1Ob, as per R' Bachya and numerous rishonim in between. The gemara
says that nachriim only do good for the sake of self-glorification. REW
says that this kind of giving for the sake of self-agrandizement is the
definition of pagan religion. Doing things in order to manipulate
heaven.

The Litvak in me is bothered also by the whole practical qabbalah aspect
of much of it as well. It defies the attitude toward "tamim tihyeh"
that I was raised with.

In my mind, all of the above is intertwined. A basic picture emerges
(in my mind, I'm not claiming objectivity) of a pagan approach (REW)
of Adam I (RYBS) utilizing religion to get what he wants. A shift from
a tefillah mindset to a locheish al hamakah one. A departure from the
historical concept of Avodas Hashem.

I think therefore there is reason to speak up against these hafrashas
challah gatherings or berakhos parties and the like not because they are
assur or mutar, but because risk causing a distortion of the traditional
notion of the role of mitzvos.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

PS: With thanks to RnTK for being my sounding board of a less developed
version of the ideas I wrote here. (Not saying she agreed with them;
rather, her corrections to that version are reflected in what I wrote
above.)

-- 
Micha Berger             The purely righteous do not complain about evil,
mi...@aishdas.org        but add justice, don't complain about heresy,
http://www.aishdas.org   but add faith, don't complain about ignorance,
Fax: (270) 514-1507      but add wisdom.     - R AY Kook, Arpilei Tohar

 


Rich, Joel wrote:

> Question: If one eats not because they are hungry but specifically in 
> order to make a bracha, do you still make a bracha?

So long as one still gets the benefit, either of the nutrition or the
taste, then yes.  And, once again, this is nothing new: on Shabbos one
is supposed to eat fruit in order to make up the 100 brachos, and on Yom
Kippur people try to make up as many of the brachos as they can by
smelling things (since there's a limit to how many asher yatzars a
person can make, especially on a day when he's not eating or drinking
anything).

-- 
Zev Sero                                

=============================================================
Would you say the same thing by taking a drink solely for the purpose of
taking medicine?  
KT
Joel Rich
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Rich, Joel wrote:
> Zev Sero wrote:
>> Rich, Joel wrote:

>>> Question: If one eats not because they are hungry but specifically in 
>>> order to make a bracha, do you still make a bracha?
> 
>> So long as one still gets the benefit, either of the nutrition or the
>> taste, then yes.


> Would you say the same thing by taking a drink solely for the purpose of
> taking medicine?  

That is precisely the basis of what I wrote above.  When taking medicine
that is either nutritious or tasty, one does say a bracha.  (See OC 204.
Also OC 202, for examples where the fact that one is eating something
only for its medical benefit affects the choice of which ingredient is
the ikar and which is the tafel; there is no question of not saying a
bracha at all.)


-- 
Zev Sero                                Have a brilliant Chanukah
z...@sero.name

This probably is a thought that someone has enunciated before, but just in
case it's worthy of publication: I'm seeing chiasmus between Y'hudah's
speech (1-44:18 through the end of 44) and Yosef's response (45:3-13).  As
an example/teaser, Y'hudah uses the word ayin-tav-heih twice (verses 30 and
33 -- two p'suqim intervene between those two p'suqim), and so does Yosef
(verses 5 and 8 -- again, two p'suqim intervene between those two p'suqim).

All the best from
--Michael Poppers via RIM pager
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From: "Moshe Y. Gluck" <mgl...@gmail.com>
>>I was thinking that maybe they didn't bother recording the Neis of
>>the Pach Shemen because they were Melumad in Nisim in the Beis
>>Hamikdash - like the Mishnah in Avos and the Gemara in Yuma record.
>>In the context of the daily Nisim in the Beis HaMikdash....<< 
?
>>>>>
R'n TK:
All those miracles were in the Bayis Rishon.? There were no open?miracles
in the Bayis Sheni -- with the single exception of the pach hashemen.? This
miracle was therefore?seen as a throwback to earlier times and a brief sign
of Hashem's favor, a momentary ray of sunshine in the darkening gloom.
-----------?

Not so - Yuma 21b and Avos 5:5.

KT,
MYG

<<I was thinking that maybe they didn't bother recording the Neis of
the Pach Shemen because they were Melumad in Nisim in the Beis
Hamikdash - like the Mishnah in Avos and the Gemara in Yuma record. In
the context of the daily Nisim in the Beis HaMikdash, the miracle of
the war victory was much bigger than the miracle of the Pach Shemen,
and Chazal didn't see fit to record it until later generations who
were forgetting about the Neis of the Pach Shemen.>>

I am not sure if this is related to the answer of R. Yoel bin Nun.
He says that the main idea behind Chanukah is the miracle of the
military battles. So the
pach hashemen was not mentioned since it was secondary.
However in Bavel there was no connection to military victories since
the Temple had
been destroyed, there was no independent Jewish state and they were
subject to the Persians.
ence, in its absence the miracle of the oil became the central feature
of Chanukah

-- 
Eli Turkel

The following email was just sent by YHE's ("Gush"'s) Virtual Bais
Medrash. It is someone notes of a sichah given by RYMedan (one of 4 RY,
ever since 2 were added in 2006).

He identifies Yoseif's approach with that of contemporary chareidim,
unlike RYBS who identified him with MO. But in any case, it's a talk
given to one community about the validity of *both* approaches.

-micha

----- Forwarded message from Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org> -----
Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2008 09:58:36 -0500
From: Micha Berger <mi...@aishdas.org>
Subject: Fwd (off...@etzion.org.il): VBM-SICHOT69 -11: Parashat Vayigash
To: Yitz Weiss <yi...@aol.com>

Sichot
Sicha of HaRav Yaakov Medan shlit"a
Translated by Kaeren Fish
Yeshivat Har Etzion

Two Ways of Dealing with Society

Our parasha concludes the lengthy story of Yosef and his brothers:
Yaakov's entire family joins Yosef in Egypt, where Yosef will take care
of them during the years of famine, and the process that will eventually
lead to the Egyptian exile will be set in motion.

When the brothers ascend to Yosef, he tells them: "I shall go up and tell
Pharaoh: My brothers and my father's household, who were in the land of
Canaan, have come to me" (Bereishit 46:31). If it were up to us to write
the story of Yosef and his brothers, we would probably want to conclude
with some sort of happy ending: the brothers come to Egypt, to Yosef --
the viceroy -- where they are warmly welcomed and integrated into the
Egyptian royal household.

It is thus somewhat surprising to read the instructions that Yosef
issues to his family: "And it shall be, if Pharaoh summons you and asks,
"What is your occupation?' then you shall say,'Your servants have been
herdsmen from our youth until now -- both we and our ancestors -- in
order that you may dwell in the land of Goshen, for any shepherd is an
abomination to Egypt'" (46:33-34).

When I read these verses I am overcome with a most uncomfortable
feeling. The brothers are presented here as a group of unskilled
immigrants -- nothing more than shepherds; they're simple, unfortunate
people who are really not needed. The Torah emphasizes this feeling
by noting the fact that "any shepherd is an abomination to Egypt." In
addition, Yosef chooses to take "some of his brothers" to Pharaoh
(47:2). Rashi (ad loc.) understands this to mean that he took the less
impressive, less successful brothers. Why does he do this? Why does he
not present his brothers as they really are: a flourishing clan with
considerable abilities? Why does he try so hard to prevent his family
from finding their place within Egyptian society, also refraining from
co-opting them into key positions in running the country? Why does he
present them to the Egyptian people in such an unflattering light?

It would seem that all of this is quite intentional: Yosef indeed has
no wish for them to fit into Egyptian society. Having undergone so many
trials and tribulations in Egypt, Yosef knows only too well what it means
to "fit in" to Egyptian culture. He knows that if his brothers and their
extended family settle in, it will take less than a generation for them
to become part of the local culture -- and he wishes to prevent this. He
is willing to pay the price for presenting Yaakov and his sons as a
group of useless paupers, people who cannot become useful in any way,
in order to save them from mixing with Egyptian society, entering it as
community leaders -- which would ultimately harm Am Yisrael and cause
them to become intermingled among the nations.

It seems that the way Yosef sees things is quite accurate. At the
beginning of Sefer Shemot, as we encounter Am Yisrael altogether mired
in the "forty-nine levels of impurity" of Egyptian culture, it is quite
reasonable to suppose that the reason for this state of affairs may be
traced back to the opening words of the parasha: "And the children of
Israel were fruitful and swarmed and multiplied and grew exceedingly
mighty" (Shemot 1:7). When Am Yisrael begin to grow, multiplying
throughout the land of Egypt, it does not take long before they start
mingling within Egyptian culture. In contrast, throughout all of Yosef's
life, while Am Yisrael kept separate and isolated in the land of Goshen,
with everyone regarding them as an unwanted, unsuccessful group, their
spiritual situation was far healthier. Yosef is prepared to give up much
in the way of the family's material comfort, so long as he can maintain
their spiritual standards.

All of this is highly reminiscent of the Jewish people's situation
in exile. So long as Jews lived in their own villages, separate
from the local population and not even sharing their language, their
spiritual situation was good. The French Revolution, when it became
mandatory for everyone to learn local languages, marked the beginning
of assimilation. The power of isolation to preserve a closed society is
considerable. The moment that the doors are opened to the surrounding
society and culture, problems are likely to arise, and it is only a
matter of time until the formerly isolated society loses its identifying
features.

Still, isolation is not the only way of addressing the challenge of
negative assimilation. There is another way.

In many respects, the character who most closely parallels Yosef is
Daniel. Both experience dreams, both find their place as viceroys,
etc. Once I counted and arrived at a list of no less than forty-two
parallels between the two narratives -- and if I had invested more effort
I could most likely have found more.

In the story of Daniel, too, we read of a test that Daniel faces:
Nebuchadnezzar takes some children with a view to teaching them to serve
as the king's chamberlains. The verses at the beginning of the Sefer
describe how, before being brought before the king, these children
would be given some of the king's bread to eat. Daniel, Chanania and
Azaria refuse to eat the bread. The Gemara explains that although there
is no explicit law in the Torah forbidding one to eat bread prepared by
gentiles, Daniel deduces that "their bread [is forbidden] -- because of
their wine; and their wine -- because of their daughters; [and their
daughters in turn are forbidden] -- because of something else." It
is enough that we look at a parallel narrative -- Megillat Esther --
to understand that Daniel's way of thinking makes much sense. The
catastrophic decree of annihilation in the Megilla can be traced back
to the banquet held by Achashverosh; it is "because they enjoyed the
banquet of that evil man" that the terrifying threat of Haman's decree
comes to hang over them.

However, despite the problems inherent in mingling within Babylonian
society, Daniel does not opt for the path of isolationism. On the contrary
-- he becomes deeply involved in this pagan society and succeeds in
influencing it from within. Unquestionably, this is also an option:
guarding yourself from sin while still remaining within society.

I believe that these two approaches are still being implemented today.
There is a group of people who consciously choose to present themselves
to the public as a useless group of parasites who live at the public
expense, performing unskilled labor and living in their own, separate
neighborhoods -- all so that they will not come to intermingle in the
surrounding society and thereby become corrupted. This was the approach
of Yosef with his family.

On the other hand, there is a group that chooses to try to stand up to
the challenge presented by society and to become part of it. We are well
acquainted with the advantages and disadvantages of this approach.

These are two possible ways of dealing with the surrounding culture. We
must understand the verses as describing the approach preferred by
Yosef, and we must know that this, too, is a possible strategy -- one
with great power to keep the community far from the problems that beset
society at large.

(This sicha was delivered on Shabbat parashat Vayigash 5765 [2005].)


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