Parshat Vayigash: The Puppeteer Behind the Curtain - Rebbetzin Tziporah Heller

[Music] we left off yesterday after having spoken about that yesterday the last time you spoke about you hood is approaching Joseph we spoke about how he spoke to him and said many times my master my master my master with the intent of addressing hashem simultaneously he spoke about how he could say to hashem you're like power meaning hashem who controls the forces of evil as well we then spoke about how he lost years of his life 10 years of his life for the 10 times he heard his father referred to as a servant okay if you have any questions about last time okay we go on now we have to go a lot faster today because we're getting to the end of the week okay so first I'm going to tell you the entire narrative and then we'll go back and discuss a few of the ideas okay so after after their encounter yo said couldn't hold himself back anymore he asked everybody to leave the room he said I'm Yosef is my father still alive I mean he could have lived through everything okay he and he reminded them he said your you sold me to Egypt but don't feel saddened about this because this is all from Hashem in order that I be able to save you in these years of hunger so then he says this again I want you to hear this plastic you took home with you this is a critical puzzle if you took home uh sham open up to Parekh mm hey Pacific pet it's an extremely important plus R okay so digit numbers would be chapter 45 and there you would look for sentence number 8 of course they do you the favor no doubt of having it enrollment digits also which makes things worse okay I've often wondered two things I have two things if these things were clear I would know everything why people still use ramen digits which is beyond me and wipe Commission was still printed with Rashi print okay this is like why okay yes he didn't have a press yes he had advices on script but that was like what's a thousand years between good friends okay so here's the person via tell and now lo attempt Sherlock the moti you didn't send me hey not to here kill Oh him but Hashem VRC mainly love the pyro and he made me peruse father Dome The Hobbit oh and the master of his house Michelle bacala ritzmitz Ryan and the ruler of the land of Egypt so here are the two big ideas here one is you didn't send me God send me so that leaves us with a question but wait a minute didn't they have a role did they have a role of his ending up in Egypt or didn't they have a role so a so a messenger does the the will of the one who sent him okay so a human messenger could do this even against his own will this is a huge idea so a person could want to do something but since ultimately everybody is Hashem is messenger the outcome of their desires will be what Hashem wanted so if you really integrate this you'll understand how let's say blaming a doctor for a mistake that took place in surgery is irrational because this doctor was Hashem as messenger but his intentions were bad let's say he was negligent so his his bad intentions brought about a bad result does that sometimes happen that a doctor who's negligent gets off the hook he really doesn't do any harm it works does that happen some all the time so that's also because he's a Shamus messenger that even though he chose wrong Hashem wanted an outcome that's right yes so this is what I want you to understand very clearly because this will change your attitude towards life and will significantly reduce your rage towards events and people okay so again a person could choose wrong and the outcome will be terrible a person could choose wrong and the outcome could be good so the outcome doesn't belong to the person only the choice belongs to the person people are accountable for their choices so it's not like oh he'll get off he meant he meant to he was negligent and he killed someone but it's nothing cuz that was what Hashem wanted anyway no he is accountable for his choice so there's a true story this happened around fifty years ago there was a violent demonstration in okay I know this will shock you in Israel I don't know if you realize this all demonstrations in Israel or violet did you know this it's not like America the demonstrations here are always violent take this as like an axiom never go to demonstrations you don't know you don't know at the end of the story we'll be okay so there was a violent demonstration Bnei Brak I don't remember what the demonstration was about was that there was I think it was there was a time when the hospitals took possession of people who were in the hospital so you had no choices as to treatment or as to whether or not to have an autopsy I think it was about that but I'm not sure so in the K in the course of the of the demonstration somebody threw a rock at a police car and it broke the window and it hit the policeman but he was okay in other words the window broke the force of the rock he was okay so somebody said mentioned this event it's one of the great much gave him in Pune virtue Shiva so he called a large town meeting people thousands of people came they didn't know what he was going to be talking about their expectation of course it would be he be told who that who'd be talking about the evil of the hospitals taking possession of their patients but that's not what he spoke about it is a very dramatic speaker he began by saying there's a murderer amongst us so somebody went up a whisper to him the policeman's okay and he said that doesn't matter the man who threw the rock is a murderer Hashem saves the policeman but the person who could throw a rock through a window is a murderer you understand this okay so the person is accountable for their choices nobody nobody can make a bear choice without paying a bill but that doesn't mean that the results will be terrible so you do have a basic underlying rule which the human eye cannot always interpret easily which is in a general sense Hashem will cause bad things happen through people who need to have this happen through them and good things will happen through people who need to have that happen through through them so it means if a person let's say causes a fatal accident through no fault of their own there was a somebody spilled way along the road the car spun out of control it's not their fault but the fact that they're the one who wash em used tells them something about themselves they're supposed to learn something from this situation so if a person really integrates this their entire attitude towards life changes you should say what's this taking what's this teaching me there's a reason why I'm the one who I am choose to use as his recent messenger you could say the event the outcome is not my fault but my involvement is telling me something it's for yourself in other words the event would have taken place no matter what if you made a bad choice you're accountable for your choice if you didn't make a bad choice you still have to question your involvement so there was a this something happened this is just a short time ago a few years ago three years ago four years ago in high noth where a mother with small children was getting off the bus so she did it right she got everybody onto the sidewalk the bus driver began closing the doors this whole thing took seconds for reasons that nobody will ever find out the four-year-old went back onto the bus were tried to get back on to the bus as the door was closing the door closed he had one of these lunch bags on you know what I mean so close on the straps so he was the mother saw him run over by the bus okay so the bus driver whose fault this wasn't he saw them all on the on the sidewalk and the child was too short for him to see in the mirrors okay clear so he still felt terrible about this because he's a human being so he went to the Shiva what did he expect be him you go to the Shiva just to say up this is a terrible thing I'm terribly sorry this happened what would you expect the people to respond to you with anger even though it wasn't his fault you would expect anger this is Israel anger could be you know okay anger isn't I'm terribly upset angers okay instead they were sitting in two different rooms the men and women with different rooms he went right to the father and the father said you think I think for a minute that God decides life and death by where you're why we're the mirrors on your buses this is from God I found out enough about the absent I realize you didn't do anything wrong forgive yourself okay understand this so you have to have a very deep level of understanding to be able to do this so I want to give you again the picture something bad happens if you made a choice you're accountable for your choice if you didn't make a choice you're accountable for your involvement the same thing happens for something good which is what we have in the text the brothers made a bad choice so they still have to question their involvement which you don't see them doing so much as yet but the outcome was good so what your safe is saying is God chose you to bring about a good outcome then there's something righteous in you so don't be grieved okay so that's one important lesson of the of the sentence but another lesson is listen to what Yosef says he says because God made me the father of perrault now was he Pyro's father or not no so Rashi is helping home himself Pharaoh's father I want you to hear the answer cuz this gives you insight into Parenthood he says the role of a father is to be what Yosef was to paro which is what what was your safes relationship to power what was he in Pyro's life okay so he says this is if you look in Rashi those of you who have commercial open you may as well take a glimpse at Rashi it won't kill you he says look aver for the patron to be a friend and a patron this is the job of a father so when you say a father is meant to be a friend a friends is somebody who has commonality and empathy towards somebody a patron is somebody who sees their role is providing for someone so that they could grow so this is the role of a father so when a child is young their primary role is patron but as the child grows older the primary role changes from patron to friend okay let's go further okay so he says hurry up bring my father here and tell him this is what your son Joseph says Hashem has made me the master of all Egypt come down here don't stay and you'll live in the land of Goshen and you'll be near me you and your children and your grandchildren your animals everything you've owned and I'll support you because there's still going to be five more years of famine why should you be impoverished you and your household and everything you have okay your eyes will see me okay you'll see it and you see before you now that I've sent back Benjamin and you could see now where whose mouth is speaking to you and tell my father all of the glory that I have here in Egypt and everything that you've seen hurry and bring him down here he then fell upon you upon Binyam and his brother's neck and he wept and Benjamin wept on his neck okay clear so now we have another two questions okay one is he's telling them to come which makes sense but what is Everett's Goshen what's the land and why is he saying this is where you'll live is that the name of a district is the name of another country what is it so go after you know yes it's a city that was given to sir right now for him so the land was given to Sara by Perot it's also a land that would keep them separate from the Egyptians so he could have easily said go to any one of the main cities and it rose pot roast which still exists now in Egypt existed then Rama says existed then he could have said go to the equivalent of New York or Los Angeles but instead he said and you'll live in Wichita okay okay you've always wanted being boys Idaho half a million so the intention was for them to live in a separate district why do you think that was important for him to tell his father at this moment in a basic sense the role of Jews involves being a light to the world but in order to be the white light of the world you have to be yourself so I want you to focus upon the idea of diffused light as opposed to focused light so diffuse light is where you have a light even of significant strength but it's very far so if it's very far it could be all over the place like when you holds a flashlight from a distance from the room that you're in so a flashlight in the dark room will give some light to even the darkest corners but if you want to read you need the flashlight near near the page right so the reason is that non diffused light is more intense than diffused light this is by the way in physics and important it's important physics and understanding energy but in any case so for the juice have an effect they have to create an intense level of light which happens when their light isn't diffused by they're taking over the culture and belton sound how is that for word that you don't use frequently of the nations so the way that works is let's say there is let's say there's a girl in this in this class from New York will she have a different outlet towards life without knowing anything else about her from then a girl from Mexico City why is that put it into words the culture so there are two levels of influence one influence level of influence is subconscious in general and the other is conscious and specific so the influence of the Society of a whole is subconscious and general so nobody makes a plan I want to be suspicious of everybody AC and therefore I'll go to live in New York okay it sort of kind of happens just by being here okay so you know like I have I have so many New York stories but you know asking somebody if it like on 42nd Street my watch SEP do you have the time you get to look don't you have a watch okay could you picture this okay I've been lost in Flatbush like this isn't even 42nd Street in Flatbush in a Jewish area I look for a house with the movies I knock the door they opened the door this much and I said I'm looking for this in this family they don't even say where they hand me a phone books I could look it up I Love New York okay whatever so you pick it up subconsciously so your sense of normalcy comes from the outside society your definition of normal is formulated at what age somewhere between four and seven your sense of what normal behavior is what a normal society is normal relationships is already pretty well in cement so you could change from there but you know you could say I want to be different but this is your normal so that comes from the outer society there's another kind of influence this is from rumba which is the influence of friends and family which is conscious the effect of society is subconscious the effect of the influence of friends and family is conscious how so everybody wants to have validation from their family and friends is that true so in order to have that we sometimes consciously try to focus on what draws us together what we share in common so you'll find yourself assimilating your beliefs and opinions to those of the people with whom you are at a given time if you care about them so there was a Woody Allen do any of you watch Woody Allen movies the case did you see Zelig that's my favorite okay whatever so in Zelig which is an action movie I don't know what it's from the 60s whatever okay so he became an character was Erlich but he became whoever he was talking to would so when he was spreading to a black person he became black when he was talking to a woman he became a woman okay clear do we do this subconsciously to some degree okay so that's the effect of people who we care about which is much deeper so because of this in order for Yaakov to want to leave Israel and go to Egypt Yosef has to assure him you'll live in Goshen you're not going to become an Egyptian you don't have to worry that your grandchildren won't know who they are okay so if the end of this portion says that he wept at Benjamin's neck and Benjamin wept on his neck what's strange about this the usage of the word neck okay it's strange so bear with me the Midrash says that he wept at Benjamin's neck because he foresaw the destruction of the two temples Benjamin wept on his neck because he benyamin foresaw that the tabernacle in shyla which was in Joseph's portion of the land would be destroyed does that make it easier or harder harder so in share Hashi room the base i mikdash was called the neck so the base I'm Mick - is what took who we are in potential in our minds and souls and made it happen with our bodies it connected the head to the body so he will we yearn to be who we want to be was actualize into the in the basin mikdash not only that but often time as I'm sure this has happened to you not only to me have you gone to the Kotel and you want to say but you have no words okay I came so the base hamikdash gave us such intense clarity that we found the words we found the words so it was the place in which the mind and the body were together and the words came okay and not only that it was the place where even consuming eating and breathing took on spiritual meaning so because of that it's called the neck so where was the base to make - located so certainly all of the tribes wanted it in their portion how was it how did they even know where to build it do you know that the Torah doesn't tell us they had to figure it out nope it tells them how to build it in great detail okay so the bit the place of the base hamikdash shahe by it is where the akkada took place so there when Hashem told Avraham to go sacrifice he took he refers to it at the end as the mountain upon which I could be seen so because of this they understood that this is the place for building the base on mikdash so this place how habayit was located when the conquest took place after the years and the desert they conquered Israel it took place under King David was owned by somebody called our Nonna hiya Lucy which is good for you Judaica Truvia okay and what's the name of the original owner at whatever so so he could have taken it militarily but he chose to buy it why do you think he chose to buy it so it should be undisputed and also because he was shall I know what we do so connecting the mind to the pot to the heart to the body that only happens through giving it doesn't happen through taking if you want something of you Russia lying to be part of you you have to give and not only do you have to give but you have to give of yourself so because of this he collected the money with which to purchase it from wall of Israel he didn't use the money in the Treasury so that everybody could say I own a part of you who shall I am so it was open to all of the tribes but it was located in a crossroad between Benjamin and Yehuda so Yosef prophesized that Benjamin had the traits meaning his mind and his heart were connected enough that it would have to be his portion where the base I mikdash was but he also saw where the brothers were at and he knew that it would be destroyed okay clear now before the base a mikdash was built they built a tabernacle in Israel that's called the Mishkan which again will see that narrated in great detail later and it was in the portion of who of Yosef sin bin young man could see that what the same way Yosef saw that they hadn't reached a point of perfection neither had Yosef so Benjamin predicted its destruction as well and this is why they wept okay next so he kissed all of his brothers and he wept with them because he foresaw that all of the ten tribes would be ultimately exiled and the voice came in tires house I said Joseph's brothers came Cairo liked the idea and Paris at ESA tell your brothers this is what they should do load up your animals come leave Kanaan take your father take their household I'll give them the best of Egypt they'll eat from the fat of the land okay and people prepared wagons for them and he said and don't worry about your possessions you'll will buy more here okay and so Yosef got them ready in this way and he gave each one of the brothers an outfit of clothes but to been Yemen he additionally gave 300 pieces of silver and fine five outfits of clothes and to his father he sent ten donkeys that were loaded with everything good of Egypt asked a question here there'd be something here that should puzzle you isn't that stupid like he ended up remember his striped coat but this seems to be something extremely stupid to do so the reason he did I want you to understand this this is still part of the test so the initial part of the test was whether they would sacrifice themselves for bin Yemen when bin Yemen was suffering when he said you were the one who has the goblet in your pack the quest is how will they were late to bin yemen if he's chosen and selected so this is still a part of the test which they passed okay and the others why is the details about what he sent to his father so the reason there which Rashi says is that the last Halawa he had learned with his father was the Halawa of egg la Ruffa which is which you've never heard of probably any of you heard of it possibly but white hope of geisha there okay but even she failed you okay okay so they learned that a lot of egg la Ruffa and the idea of sending a load was meant to remind him of this so we have three questions concerning this what's egg la Ruffa how did Yaakov know ha'la'tha and what does this have to do with wagons okay so I'm going to answer this in water there's a law that's narrated in Hamish Devorah suppose a body is found between two cities and nobody knows what happened to this person the evidence on the body is that the post person might have been they might have died of exposure to the elements or they might have died of hunger or they might have died by violence we don't know how they died okay so what do you do which city has to take responsibility for the death of this person they measure the distance between the body and the two cities and which every city is closed there has to take responsibility how do they take responsibility the elders of the city have to the body has to be taken to a stream that and an egg L and Eagle is a calf a calf that has not yet been used in agricultural work or any other kind of work has to be taken okay so by the stream the elders of the city okay have to proclaim we haven't spilled this man's blood and then the calf is killed through being beheaded it's a very strange ritual is it not so the idea is the valve the underlying ideas here are what we spoke about before remember we spoke about tragic events and accountability and we said that people are accountable for their choices but even if they made no negative choice they're accountable for what the involvement okay clear so a body is found between two cities the city which is nearer is considered to be the involved city the elders of the city are responsible for the spiritual level of the city so if something is is wrong there you could the buck stops there it stops with the elders why are the people in this city in a position to make choices that are not good you understand this it's your deal so I have terrible news I want to hear the terrible news what okay times up no no no it's really terrible news much worse okay okay would you say you're in geisha right do you think that if you were to look at all of the Jews in the world that you know more than most of them were less than most of them more bring it up to 70% if you look at 70 percent of the Jews in the world you know more or less more bring it up to 80 percent of the Jews do you know more or less it's shaky okay clear but you have to go up to 80% before it even gets shaky is that true or not and now for the news guess who's responsible for the Spirit will say to all of the other Jews in the world yeah okay you're welcome anything else I could do for you okay so the elders it's not a it's not a biological statement of of age it's a statement of wisdom if you know more you're accountable so the elders of the city have to say we have not shed this blood meaning there's nothing we could have done that would have brought the people of the city to a place where this couldn't have happened let's say he wasn't murdered because again we're not talking necessarily about a murder so when a person leaves the city you're supposed to send them out with supplies with the waste yeah with everything they need to reach their destination safely if you don't what does that say about you doesn't mean you're a murderer what does it say about you think New York that you really don't care about this person they're a stranger to you like you're not going to do them any harm but that doesn't mean you want any positive involvement either okay could you picture this tell you a true story about me when I was in seminary many moons ago I was learning in the base the aquavit Bnei Brak and like in all seminaries after they served lunch there were always they would serve on like serving trays not like here where people take their own portions they would serve on serving trays and they put the serving trays in the middle of the table there was always leftover on the serving trays they served more than enough so in those days they don't want to shock you remember this was like thousands of years ago when people like coming out of the caves and starting city-states and you know whatever so in those days they didn't have like the whole crew observance to take care of the same girls we had to take care of ourselves so he had to serve the food we had to clear off the tables and wipe them down and bring them to the kitchen and we had kitchen - Rohit okay so I was on kitchen terror alert one day there were a lot of girls say that didn't determine it didn't happen very often but when it did it did okay so I so I was taken with a serving tray so I was throwing all of the food into the garbage so one of these really girls said what are you doing that's clean food so I said yeah but who's going to eat it like there are two you know two portions of chicken like there are eight hundred girl tonight eight hundred but there are a lot of girls here who's what are we gonna do with two poisons for chicken so she said have you noticed when you go down rebbi akiva Street which is the main street in Panay brach have you noticed that there are beggars and I said yeah what's the New York thing to say because I knew where she was going yeah but I don't want to be involved with them okay so so she said pack it so she showed me how because I came with absolutely no knowledge of anything practical like how do you begin to pack food okay whatever so so you know you pass the food and I said look you could do whatever you want but I don't want to be in the file I don't know these people I don't want to be involved with them they could be I don't know what they are I don't know how they ended up this way in life they're homeless I'd hear the whole speech said what's the worst thing that could happen okay you answer that I had to think what's the worst thing we could have but I bring packaged food to some beggar on with Overby Akiva what's the worst thing that could happen if they reject it and then what will I do throw it out okay so she says so she made like she made me go with her to give it out and you know surprise nuts I mean it was shocking to me but but naturally people of course like freshly made hot good food you know okay so why am I telling you this is a reason I'm telling you this so when you care about somebody you see when they leave you that they have what they need and if you don't it means you don't really care you you've turned them into something other so again enter my head homeless is other could you see this equation so the word for cruel in Hebrew is a Kazaa cruelty after sorry you're too cruel person is outside the word officer is a combination of two words off and czar which means only a stranger cruelty comes from estrangement could you see where this is sir so in this ritual the elders have to say we haven't spilled his blood meaning we haven't taught the people of our city to see strangers as being aced estranged okay but then you have the ritual with cutting off the calf's head what's that about so it has to be a calf that hasn't ever done work meaning it could do work it could be productive but it's cut off what do you think that has to do with a murder or or neglect this person who you don't even know could have been someone it's your neglect or your bloodshed that cut him off he could have been productive okay so the way animal sacrifice works in short okay because they don't want another visitation right in short is that we have what's called the animals soul the animals soul is the instinctive self the instinctive self is not compassionate did you see where this is so the instinctive self is selfish so the instinctive self is also not evil right survival instinct maternal instinct these are all instincts okay so the idea of animal sacrifice is to find the animal in you and to dedicate it to God so what you're saying may this is the productive side of me should be identified with the cutoff productive side of this person so I should see this person's death as a tragedy okay clear so to understand this more okay today people oftentimes feel that Yeomans have the right to determine whether somebody's life is worth living or not you're familiar with this so what makes them say someone's life is worth living picture someone who's 95 and on life support why would they say this person's life is not worth living Oh exact 'iv and they're not having fun so we've reduced the formula for the value of life to production and pleasure does life have any other purpose think about we said about the base that measures the connection of the mind of the heart and the body does life have any other purpose so we would say our life has intrinsic purpose not just extrinsic purpose it's not just about what you could do it's about being so this ritual has to do with the affirmation of this you cut off a life it's more than cutting off the calf's head don't you get it okay clear okay so that was the last Halawa that Yaakov learned with Yosef so the question we have now is on how did Yaakov know Halawa this is way before the Torah was given how did the of us know any Halawa so the answer is I want you to understand this whistle oh this will also give you insight into the level of morality that you have the right to expect from the non-jewish world that didn't receive Torah the first human Adam was created knowing we all have what's called integral knowledge so it would mean if you were anywhere in the world and you were traveling on the bus and you would see somebody take a scissor out and cut off somebody else's braids with snip snip you could receive and most people would see this as in a priya why where's that coming from ah instinctively we have some capacity for not being ox are you understand this instinctively we have the capacity not to be a czar and Adam was created that way he was created knowing he was creating nothing in a higher level than we are okay so his level of knowledge of the rules of the game were passed on so ultimately they're referred to as the seven Noahide laws so these laws are instinctive they don't have to be learned from a book Noahide laws meaning Noah knew these laws so what are they don't murder if you value your own life you could figure out it's a bad idea to murder somebody else right don't steal if you treasure your own possessions you should be smart enough to figure out that what so does he next don't commit adultery incest all of that stuff because if you treasure your own relationships you could know better than to do this don't rip a limb or for living animal how should you know that yeah because physically we're animals spiritually we're not but physically we're animals okay next okay don't curse God our belief in God is instinctive and I want to give you a proof of this by the way has there ever been did any of you study sociology or anthropology okay you see man who seemed undecided you either did or didn't one class there's never been a society that started off as non-believing did you know this you have to be taught not to believe isn't that interesting so like in Micronesia in Africa in Australia and the alka places that have not been touched by the judeo-christian ethic they all are believers atheism has to be taught and I want to tell you why it's simple but course our picture of reality comes from what we observe and nobody ever saw anything make itself cakes here so looking a saying that there's a creator and then cursing the creator cuz the Creator doesn't do things according to your will is something we could figure out next okay idol worship okay if you made an idol in the morning you could figure out it didn't make you if you made it it didn't make you and the last one is having a legal system how could people into eight that which also is one of the universal statements of morality in Papua New Guinea which is like the most primitive all civilizations that contemporarily exist how do they do justice do you know it's so in turn is so interesting because it's instinctive they have what's called a longhouse which is like a literally a longhouse where the elders will sit in judge cases ok clear now where does this desire to judge come from we all start out weak and helpless is that true so a justice system by definition is something where the weak are defended against the strong so those are those are our expectations from other human beings so this was the last Halawa Yaakov toi Yosef and because the word ergo which means calf is a play of words on the word Aguila which means wagon Joseph sent him wagons that were drawn by Eagles to show him what what was yet white why was Yosef interest in having Yaakov know that he still remembered their final lesson ok in order that Yaakov know that Yosef is the same Yosef that he saw last when Yosef was 17 okay because if he wasn't it would be such a spiritual danger to put himself in a position of dependency and go safe that he wouldn't have gone there okay clear so bottom line here bottom line don't be an oxide right don't be estranged okay do feel when you're in two-point when you're enmeshed in something but there's some level of accountability do feel accountability for your choice don't be afraid of bad consequences because even the worst of consequences ultimately dictated by Hashem Hashem stocks are he's not estranged [Music] [Applause]