Heart to Heart - Parshat Vayigash

one of the greatest human beings that walked this planet in the last hundred years was rabbi israel mayor kagan known as the khovitzkaim the khovitzkainen was venerated by jews and non-jews alike polish farmers would try to get him to walk through their fields believing that his feet would bring blessing to their crops once there was a jew who was arrested on a trumped-up charge and the defense lawyer brought the prophet schaim in as a witness for the defendant the defense lawyer explained to the judge who the khofitzheim was and he told him of a story where someone had stolen fruit from the khovitskheim store and this thief ran out into the street and the khovitzeim ran after him shouting i forgive you i forgive you the judge said come on do you really believe that story the defense lawyer said i don't know your honor but i know one thing they don't tell stories like that about you and me the russian judge spoke no yiddish and the prophets came spoke little russian and so a translator was positioned between the khafitzheim and the judge the prophet's crime began and he poured out his heart in front of the judge the court was still and when he finished speaking the translator began your honor the jid says said the judge you don't have to translate i understood every word at the beginning of partial yehuda judah steps forward to save his brother binyamin benjamin from slavery at the hands of an egyptian potentate that he doesn't recognize as his younger brother joseph joseph yehuda pleads in his native tongue ivrit hebrew what possible good did yehudah think and appeal in an incomprehensible language would do he didn't know that the prince with whom he was pleading was his younger brother joseph there once was an irish poet who coined the phrase the inarticulate speech of the heart there's a language of the heart and that language is international it knows no barriers or boundaries