Israel and The Sin of Expulsion
The Implications and Consequences of Expulsion for the Jewish People
This author recalls a commentary by the K’li Yekar (Judiaca Press Chumash, Vol.3, page 600) on the first posuk of Parsha Vayechi which is leyned this Shabbos.
The K’li Yekar explains the lack of a space between the end of the previous sedra Vayigash and our parsha as meaning that the two poskim are understood together. The final verse of Vayigash reads;
And Yisrael dwelt in the land of Mitzriyim in the land of Goshen, and they acquired property in it and… multiplied greatly.
Parsha Mikeitz records the whole affair between Yosef and the brothers when they came to Mitzrayim to buy food and were accused by the Viceroy of being spies. We learned how after hearing their story and family history, Yosef demanded that they bring their youngest brother to him and incarcerated Shimon as insurance that the brothers would indeed return with Binyamin, their youngest brother. We learn that in the middle of Parsha Mikeitz, with the imprisonment of Shimon, the brothers recognized and attributed their predicament to the sin they had committed earlier by throwing Yosef into the pit and then selling him to the Mitzriyim. Yosef heard and understood their conversation and left their presence to cry silently. (Perek 42, posukim 21-24)
In previous years, this author wrote about Yosef’s being thrown in a bor (pit) seething with snakes and scorpions — yet emerging unscathed, his being sold, his ensuing journey to Mitzrayim and his slavery, his imprisonment and his liberation and ascendency to the position of Viceroy, second only to Pharoh. And this author wrote a vort based on Jay Shapiro’s book “Almost Midrash.”
Shapiro encorporated the story of Yosef into a fictional story entitled “Duaf of Memphis” and this author dealt with the contrast of Yosef in Mitzrayim, the years after Yosef and the other brothers were niftar, the ensuing long period of cruel bondage; with the persecution and the dialogue of Page 13 A & B of Gemora Megillah Esther (the dialogue between Achashveirosh and Haman resulting in the evil decree against the Jews). The point of the Torah Vort at that time was that with longevity in Shushan and throughout Achashveirosh’s Empire, as in Mitzrayim, the Jews were disparaged as either useless or too powerful. In both cases, the antagonists conveniently forgot about Yosef while the Jews got comfortable, complacent, sought to own property and saw where they were at the time as home, rather than Galut. They then forgot and lost track of who and what they are.
Amidst the story of the brothers selling Yosef as a slave, his ending up in Mitzrayim in the home of Pontiphar, his subsequent imprisonment and eventual meteoric rise to the position of Viceroy — 2nd only to Pharoah, is the story, conveyed in thumbnail below, of Yehudah and Tamar.
We learn of Yehudah’s two sons who, unbeknownst to Yehudah, were evil and died after marrying Tamar after which Yehuda promised the 3rd son to Tamar but never delivered. We learn about the veiled Tamar who waited “many days” (Breish’t Perek 38, posuk 12) before hearing that Yehudah, who had been in mourning for the passing of his wife, had shed his mourning clothes and began going to watch the sheepshearers.
Three years ago, just before Chanukah, a short article appeared on the INN website entitled; “Mortar Shells Filled With Chanukah Light” which told about the Menorah made from some of the spent Islamic mortal shells which were launched on Neve Dekalim over the years.
Reading about this special Menorah which was lit at one of the Jerusalem hotels which temporarily housed many former Neve Dekalim residents, took me back in time to Philadelphia, in “the “old country” and to a point made by Rav Yehoshua Kaganoff about the pit in which Yaakov was thrown. The point bears repeating.
On Thursday, The Jerusalem Post’s first report regarding prime minister Netanyahu’s meeting with Yehuda and Shomron leaders carried these excerpts:
We are not enemies, and if there things that need to be amended – we will fix them, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was cited by Israel Radio as telling settler leaders, as the two-hour meeting in Tel Aviv on the building moratorium came to its end on Thursday afternoon.
Netanyahu also took great efforts to reassure the Judea and Samaria mayors that the building freeze would not surpass the designated time framework. Read my lips, it will not be longer than 10 months, the prime minister reportedly said.
It was reported by Reuters, as well as by Islamic media (thus the deceptive caption atop the video above) that a Jewish driver is being investigated and may be charged with car assault for allegedly “driving over a Palestinian who was lying wounded at a… gas station following an incident in which the settler’s [the driver’s] wife was stabbed.”
The last 1 1/2 lines of the above quote give hint as to the provocation which seems glossed over and which seemingly led the event depicted in this version of the video as shown on Israeli TV as well as in the above video.
Former Prime Minister Menecham Begin z’l never meant for Israeli governance to fall as it has in the years since he signed the Camp David accords with Egypt’s Anwar Sadat, and particularly in the ensuing years since the disastrous Oslo era began. In fact, there are numerous citings in Torah, as well as in the contemporary history of OUR times of righteous Jews who were niftar (who passed away) pre-dating tragic down-turns in Jewish history. Menachem Begin’s passing in March, 1992 is one of a number of such contemporary citings as the Oslo Accords were signed, with great fanfare in Washington D.C. by then-prime minister Rabin and Shimon Peres as they both shook the blood-stained, cantaminated hand of arch-terrorist and serial murderer of Jews Yassir Arafat on 13 September 1993.