Kolel Parasha Study: Parashat Vayigash, Genesis 44:18-47:27

This Parasha has been generously sponsored by Joi Guttman in loving memory of Macks Pearlman, Yahrzeit Tevet 7.

Jacob's passion for the Divine and the human are intertwined.

It's that time of year again, the season when Time Magazine reveals its person of the year. This has become such a cultural event that you can purchase a mirror that looks like the magazine cover and see your reflection as the person of the year. The interest goes beyond finding out who will be selected for the honour, especially since the winner is easy to predict in US election years. The magazine cover itself becomes important. How will the individual be portrayed? This is one of those times when a magazine is truly judged by its cover.

We are naturally drawn to the face found on the magazine cover; and we react to it. We know that photographs are airbrushed and manipulated and once in a while we protest. Remember the infamous OJ cover that was allegedly doctored to give a sinister impression? Why does a magazine choose a particular portrait, sometimes flattering sometimes not? No matter what, we are drawn to the human face. It is innate.

Faces become seared in our minds and influence us. The Great Depression of the 1930's can be summed up in one image called Migrant Mother taken by Dorothea Lange. It is a black and white portrait of a woman, with lines of worry etched into her face, looking out, as her children, facing away from the camera, lean against her for comfort. It is a face that once seen is never forgotten. In later years, Lange recalled how this image came about:

I saw and approached the hungry and desperate mother, as if drawn by a magnet. .... I did not ask her name or her history. She told me her age, that she was thirty-two. She said that they had been living on frozen vegetables from the surrounding fields, and birds that the children killed. She had just sold the tires of the car to buy food. There she sat in that lean-to tent with her children huddled around her…
Dorothea Lange, from Popular Photography, February, 1960, as quoted in eyewitnesstohistory.com

How powerful is the face of the Migrant Mother? It is said to have influenced John Steinbeck to write the Depression era classic Grapes of Wrath. Whether photographs or paintings, portraits affect us deeply. We ponder them, and they look right back at us and through us.

If such power can be found in a portrait, how much greater intensity is there in seeing an actual human face? "Face time" is a relatively new term describing real interactions as opposed to virtual ones. Forget Teletubbies, Sesame Street, Baby Einstein. We are told that the most important thing we can give a baby is "face time." "Face time" is so much more than seeing, it involves all the senses; it is an encounter. Not only for babies. Such "face time" is central to personal interactions as expounded by Martin Buber's I-Thou relationship or Emmanuel Levinas’ ethics of face-to-face encounters.

The shock of facing his brothers changes Joseph in last week's parashah and carries us into the week's tale. Vayigash Yehudah, Judah approached (Genesis 44:18) his brother Joseph, begging him to free Benjamin. His words are words of supplication, but vayigash “he approached” is intimate. The very word vayigash implies a personal encounter, face time. Beyond that, as Judah approached Joseph he asked to speak be-ozney adoni "in my lord's ears." You can’t get closer than that: no texting, no web cam, but a close encounter in the flesh.

The power of Judah's words causes Joseph to weep and brings about a reciprocal request of his brothers: g'shu na-elay (Genesis 45:4) “approach me/come close to me” and concluding: With that he embraced his brother Benjamin around the neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck. He kissed all his brothers and wept upon them;(Genesis 45:14-15). Such is the power of a face-to-face encounter.

But this is only the beginning. When Jacob and his family arrive in Egypt, Joseph ordered his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel; he presented himself to him and, embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while. (Genesis 46:29) Joseph's encounter is so overwhelming he is moved to tears, the subject of a study last year.

What of Jacob, how is he moved by this reunion with the son he thought was dead? The Torah, in stating he wept on his neck means that only one of them wept during the encounter. Nachmanides, aka Ramban, takes the ambiguous "he" and decides it is clearly Jacob who is moved to tears:

…the text reminds us that as soon as he appeared to his father and his father was able to see him close up and recognize him, his father fell on his neck and wept even more…It is a well-known fact as to who sheds tears more easily. Is it the elderly father who finds his long-lost son alive after despairing and mourning for him; or is it the young son who governs?
Ramban on Genesis 46:29

According to Rashi, Jacob neither embraced Joseph nor kissed him. Citing the Talmudic sages, Rashi says Jacob was engaged in reciting the Sh'ma! The Maharal elaborates on this seemingly bizarre reaction: Jacob was so righteous that he served God at every opportunity. He channeled all his feelings at seeing Joseph into a passionate offering to God.

Face time is important for Jacob. This meeting with his son must have brought back memories. As Yogi Berra said "It's like déjà-vu all over again." This is the second time Jacob is traveling with his entire family and belongings from one country to another. The first was when he headed back home after serving Laban for so many years. Then he was apprehensive about the reunion with his brother Esau, who was setting out to meet him with an entourage of 400 men. What Jacob thought would be an "in your face" encounter, turned out to be the essence of "face time." …for to see your face is like seeing the face of God (Genesis 33:10); he cries when they reunite.

In parashat Vayigash, Jacob once again journeys with all of his family and all his possessions. At the moment that he encounters his long lost son: vayera eilav, Joseph appeared to him: as if in a dream, or in a vision. He says "Now I can die, having seen for myself that you are still alive." Or more literally: "after I have seen your face" (aharei re'oti et panecha). He just has this thing about faces.

The Maharal is on to something. Jacob is sensitive to the encounter represented by another's face. His passion for the Divine and the human are intertwined. Put another way, Jacob's reunion with Joseph was more than dramatic. More than passionate, it was a revelatory experience. Vayera eilav, Joseph appeared to him just as God appears to him in a night visions bi-marot ha-layla (Genesis 46:2) It is interesting how Jacob's Divine encounters are at night; and how they are followed by significant human encounters in the day. After his vision of the ladder (Genesis 28:11-19), Jacob encounters Rachel. After wrestling with a divine being (Genesis 32:23-32), Jacob reconciles with his brother, and after the night vision in this week's parashah (Genesis 46:2-3), the elderly Jacob is reunited with the son he thought was gone forever.

We often conclude that it is the Divine encounters that are the most significant ones in Jacob's life, but they are only the gateway that allows him to experience face-to-face encounters as revelatory. For Jacob, seeing one's face is like seeing the face of God. It is a life changing experience. How so? Next week we read va-yechi, Jacob lived in Egypt. He did more than dwell there, he lived. This is a life of depth, of texture, made possible by Jacob's face-to-face encounters we read about this week.

Such depth of experience that is available to every one of us. This is an experience that is available to every one of us. We often spend more time studying photographs or pictures on a screen than we do looking into the face of another individual. If we make time for "face time," devoting ourselves to these encounters, no matter how mundane they may appear, we will walk away understanding the words a young Jacob spoke as he set off on his life's journey, words whose meaning came into focus only later in his life: "Surely the Lord is present in this place, and I did not know it!" (Genesis 28:16)

Shabbat shalom,
Rabbi Michal Shekel