Parshat Vayeshev: The Subtext By Rabbi Ari Kahn

we're in har vev so so I'm actually going to revisit some things that we've spoken about in the past and essentially what we're doing today is we're doubling down that's what we're doing we're doubling down on certain things and let's first start with the obvious and the and perhaps we can call it the unfortunate and that is that we have over here a very complicated family Dynamic may maybe complicated is too nice of a word maybe the a better word would be toxic we have a toxic family Dynamic over here and it's the kind of thing that one should think about before they have four different wives and four different firstborn children and then a whole bunch of middle children and on top of all of that having a favorite so I'm just saying is that without even telling me anything else that happened there's complexity over here but I also think that we'd be making a terrible mistake if our entire analysis was looking at family like any other family just happens to be the the Jacobs or the Israel family however you want to put it it's it's because there is something else going on which we're going to try to get to as uh you know as quickly as we can and and and identify it and I'm going to say again some of it just jumps up of you off of the page and let's just start reading butv Yakov ofit Canan so there is a lot of emphasis being put and and it's true what I'm about the emphasis is true and it's important there is some emphasis on the difference between the first word and the fourth word in the sentence but of Yakov Yakov settled the ER mug aiv where his father or grandfather perhaps lived but the word m or G or G has an overtone of strangeness that they perhaps Were Strangers in a land which was not theirs and Yakov on the other hand lives settles in a land and know part of this at least in my opinion could be a question of numbers is that you you have Abraham who essentially Rabbi salvic author of lonely man of faith and I heard him once say that Abraham was the loneliest man who ever lived I also by the way heard him say that mosha was the lonliest man who ever lived maybe he even would have said that he was the loneliest man who ever lived but uh but the loneliness of Abraham would be just imagine somebody who is the only one who has this belief is the only one who has this knowledge is the only one who has this passionate aspect of their lives and everyone else essentially thinks that they're out of their mind he thinks they think that a is crazy maybe they think that he's evil maybe that they think that there's something terrible about him and therefore in in you know as much as sometimes we see that prophecy is called a Masa it's called a burden that knowledge and and and faith is a burden as well and Aram is walking around with us all all by himself and you get to Y again it's essentially a very very small nuclear family but when you get to Yakov I'm going to say it again maybe there's more strength than numbers but there may be some other things involved as well and again without getting too far ahead of myself right there in that verse you realize something really interesting yov settles in a place that his that that previously people were strangers so I'm just saying right right there it's like you have to notice it and you have to realize it and it sets us up for the problem and it sets us up for the fall it sets us up for as much as you think that this is you know he got them not not necessarily and Rashi does address some of aov y that itself is also a very awkward start of a sentence and you don't even know how to read it I mean I guess you just trust the TRU so also please appreciate we could spend the rest of today just trying to unpack that verse to because it's almost like there's three different non seers that are staring at us in that sentence aov should continue in a different way and again we've discussed that in the past anybody who's really intrigued by that go back and compare this with chapter 36 where it's a who Edam and then it goes into the women that he marry and so on and it does actually what a normal toote narrative is supposed to do a toote narrative is supposed to tell the story of the family and over here it's y but it continues because it didn't just stop there it's y so what does that mean did it say what it really sounds like it says unus can't say what it can't tell me that it says what it sounds like say he did it with his brothers but it's not what it says makes it sound that he's a Shepherd for his he he Shepherds his brother others and I'll say it again you don't know what to do with that but it says and you don't know what the word N means in this context Nar does it mean that he's somebody who is um so what what what choices should we use is it somebody who's immature it's somebody who kids around it's somebody who's friendly I mean what does Nar mean over here or is he just young again you don't know the just like you didn't know what meant previous Parts I'm just pointing out again just in terms of the language over here and what does it mean specifically Zila aiv now n aiv is also something which is very easy to miss and I'm G to come back and show you why we should not miss this and Y brings bad things about them to their father and one of the things we're going to learn as we move on father is absolutely okay with this dynamic because later on H's going to tell them go check out what your brothers are doing in and in uh with their flock and Sh and come back and tell me about it which by the way sounds like absolutely confirming everything we've said they are shepherding the flock but he is shepherding them I mean that that that's just exactly what we're reading over here we read as the the text develops Al along the way but also the shift over here between B Bill b Zila specific Al being mentioned over here and on the other hand by being told that who did that go on is that back in the beginning of sentence is that all of the is just the last group that was mentioned I'm going to say it again this verse is very challenging verse and the only reason I'm not going to double down and try to unpack it is because of the next verse apparently almost every year when I teach this I ask the same same question so some of you haven't heard it so I'll ask it again so does it say that Yakov loved yoseph more than all the other sons and everyone always says of course it does but it doesn't because what does it actually say so why the shift why do we just now go from Yakov to Israel and the continuation of the verse is equally difficult he B because he normally would say the son of his old age but he's not he's got and he's got a bunch of Brothers who are more or less the same age and he made from konim and that also takes us to another place and that is what exactly is a konim and what is the significance of Ro of the meaning for it so let's stop everything and explain what is actually going on over here and as I said a lot of this I've been through before and very soon we're going to start moving in perhaps a slightly different direction the Tona Pim moving backwards to the Ben moving backwards to all of those things all of those elements three elements in that verse which is why we skipped the previous verse really all of them Point towards the same thing it doesn't say Yakov loves him he says is sureel loves him which means at least our working hypothesis here should be that we're dealing with a national identity as opposed to an individual identity that Israel is the the nation Yakov is the person so had it said yakob loves yoseph more than his other children then it would have said oh look at that Yakov play's favorites and I'm gonna again be very clear now not everyone will agree with what I just now said in midrashim you can find those who attack yako for it but there's another part of it and that is the way that this is then going to be distilled by the other children the other children may not see this as a more national issue but they may see this instead as a personal issue again the personal issue is very easy to build up the argument to build up the case in there's a certain way of looking at the world and saying that as far as Yakov was concerned there was only one woman that he wanted to marry and that was Rael and by extension there was only one son maybe two that he wanted to have and that's yoseph and all the others are part of Yo's extremely complicated personal life where he ends up getting tricked into a marriage and then he gets forced into other marriages and yes it's not exactly a shotgun wedding the the other ones but Yakov essentially did not look to get into the situation whereby all of the other children that are over here were produced that was not something that Yakov looked for that was that was yakov's life is complicated and to say that Yosef was the favorite because he favored Rael all that that's been telling us is that yeah we had this complexity already know one generation earlier in terms of the wives and Rael was favored and just like R was favored Yosef is favored but on top of that there's something else there's something about ysf which is actually reminds us of Rael and maybe it's the outward Beauty and maybe there's something else to it but we also have to something and that is that every single person other than his immediate family every single person who meets Yosef along the way is blown away by him and wants to put him in a position of power wants to make him in charge and Yosef is apparently somebody who's incredibly impressive by the way now if you deal with some sibl RI rivalry that's not necessarily going to going to help you because again what happens if you're the C CEO of a company and you're very successful and you have a whole bunch of kids and one of them is most and best suited to become the new CEO and all the other ones are not as well suited and you choose that son to be in charge so on the one hand there's going to be Jealousy on the other hand they can say you know what this is a good thing because we all got stock in this and we're all going to make a lot of money but they can't get past this thing about Yosef because and and I'm gonna say it again Israel loves ysf by the way the other thing is the benim uncus over here tells us benim is because Zak not as elderly but as wise ysep was a wise child Ben that he loved him because of his wisdom and yes everybody loves him because of his wisdom everybody puts him in charge poi's House Prison parro's house yoseph is the guy who always gets placed on top of everyone else and in yacob's house as well but in y house there's a bunch of brothers and family Dynamics and who and why are you being Chosen and why oh it's it's only because he loved ra is why he's choosing him over here but there's a background to this which I haven't said yet and it's the background which I want to talk about because then everything is going to open up a lot more and that brings us to the third thing in that verse all this whole verse is the verse that tells you what's going on although admittedly it's easy to miss this because we can miss everything and anything over here it says is only mentioned one other time in tanak in case uh you in case you in case you don't know what it is then you should feel inadequate because Rashi points it out right over here and that is that it's used in terms of one of dav's children and we're told that it's Royal clothing by the way just generally in terms of uh of History things that were of certain colors did belong to the Royals and there were certain colors that were prohibited for Lay people to wear part of the background of of wearing with actually would give an indication that old Jews are royalty that we are uh so look at me and say all Jews it's old men like what's the matter with you I see that look and and uh and the the concept of uh of the is the confirmation of that your K and or or at least as a minimum you can also move in the direction of specifically with to move towards it it's used all the time together with the with the mishkan and with the clothing of the Cohen but again even think about Mor they put theet on him and so on colorful clothing went together with royalty and there were actually considerations as far as who was allowed to wear certain colors over here Theon passim in my mind at least again a I'll tell you there's two possibilities but one of them is right the two possibilities are is that Yakov is already designating ysep as the Bor to become the one who will be the Cohen to work in the mishkan that's a very firm and the focus way of saying it and then there's the other way of saying it is that yose is that ysep is being chosen as the king and that's the correct way of reading it and the reason why and you can say to me how can you say it's the correct way again you can find various commentary is going in either way on this and you'll ask me so why would I say it's the correct way well obviously it's my biased opinion but that's part of what we're going to see as we as we go further but in order to really understand this we'll need to go backwards a little bit also yeah but he doesn't oh damn you just ruined the whole thing you can at least say it's a spoiler alert you just ruin the whole book I if anybody wants to leave now I mean you can so all that you're pointing out is that you've been here before and second right second thing that you're pointing at is RA should has a surprise ending but let let's let let's wrong he thought he was going to be but he was wrong again yes yes and yes and yes and that has nothing to do with what's going on right now right right now he just gave him the Royal the Royal clothing and Le let's let's try to go let's try to go a little bit further again there's there's a lot more in this that hopefully will come back to some of it if you look at source number two it's mid mid at the very end it says aiv that yoseph actually had four mothers now or three mothers see that that's part of what I need to stress there's another reason which and and this is a mistaken way of looking at things again but it's if you want to overly analyze in terms of the personalities and the individuals and the TR and again the the the tragedy and Trauma which is taking place that would be that Yosef is also in or yoseph only has a father so for the father there to treat him differently than the others actually may have some Merit to it because everyone else has yoseph has a brother but his brother is much much younger at this point if yo if ysep is 17 then bamin is seven so a seven-year-old brother is not exactly the same as everyone else has a whole group of uh of of people to be with and ysep is isolated so again I can say that ysep is isolated and all alone so it's interesting over here so this mid reads it as on the other hand this and all gonna say about this is I think he had a bad day when he wrote this I'm I'm again first of all contradicts what we just now saw and he writes that he would pick on the children of billah and zilpa because they were children of only the pag shim now first of all what I want you to know about this is that actually there's other MIM that said the exact opposite I mean and again this is going to get us more into the realm of politics I don't know anybody here may be interested in politics but you how are we supposed to look at the at the various Suns which exist first of all just the numbers six Sons of Leia two of bantul and Zila and then you have two sons of Rael Yosef and and bamin so as far as Yakov is concerned you can easily say that he has he has 12 sons and that and that's all I'm try to prove this point that's it they're 12 sons but even there's 12 sons not they're not necessar all equal because yoseph was just now placed on top so now how do you look at all the others there's every reason to believe that Le Lea who are the largest faction and they have six again power numbers that they may have every reason to push below the children of Vila and zilpa as being less worthy and therefore essentially what in their minds you have the real wives Leia and Rael 6 versus two where they outow and outflank and eventually they can get rid of the competition if they want to again that's also a spoiler alert over here you can get rid of the competition if you want to and then the the lower ones may Bill and Zila they don't really have a say in this now the reason why this itself was so interesting and so unfortunate is something that we're going to see later on I'm just saying we're coming back to this don't don't don't stay there Rashi takes us to this strange place and again I'm I'm I'm I am not revealing what we're talking about yet but Rashi in Source number four and this is going to be number four and five and six and seven and eight and all of them are going to take us to the same place and that is that yose is essentially being attacked this is just so incredibly Politically Incorrect but you know what Rashia could be politically incorrect if he wants the midash could be politically incorrect he wants there is something about it which is intellectually satisfying on a religious sense and there's also something very unsatisfying the thing which is satisfying is that Yosef goes through a lot of suffering in his life so essentially I can say that he goes through suffering in order to build character he builds goes through suffering in order to become Yosef or he goes to suffering because somehow he deserves it and over here the this whole approach is going to blame the victim and is going to say that essentially he deserved it and again just go back to Dena right in last week and say yeah essentially Dena deserved it do do you realize and and by the way I'm not even saying you can't find Madan they're going to say that but do you realize how bad that really is to uh to go in that approach by the way you you it's very popular to do this in your line of work in in terms of Israel Israel deserves they deserved October 7 right essentially it's the exact same thing it's taking the victim and blaming the victim and saying no the victim really had it coming to them because for certain people that becomes very uh politically and religiously and ideologically satisfying to them but it comes from a place which is of of evil and of Cruelty and therefore we don't love this approach do we I'm just saying it's interesting how this has now become on a on a completely macro level and I assume you agree with me on that uh completely over here where we going to begin in Source number four vun n so I pointed out that it's possible that Nar is immature I can also say that he used to chill out with these kids he used to which means again if B Bill and B zil are being ostracized by Bena because they're the real sons and they're not the real sons what does Yosef do by the way this is great and it's terrible at the same time it's great because it shows your character of Yosef and it's terrible because of how what price he's going to pay for it what does he do he lifts up the downtrodden he lifts up those who are being pushed down and says no I'm hanging with these guys and gives them therefore automatically much more status and much more credibility and therefore he kids around with them he plays around with them now that's how I would have read it as in source for writes he was very immature seting sort of yes so I'm not sure if it's the same word I I accept that it is but uh I'm not sure exactly what to do with it but but up it means to to D divest yourself of something what what I will point out though just in terms of the syntax of the verse where it says over here so whatever this n is it's together with and now what Rashi just now did for he made believe that it's not there with look what he did he acted in an immature way would fix up his hair I don't know exactly what he did with his eyes that yose tried to look attractive way yose was attractive what look at so I don't even know what to do with this then so you look at those two different parts of Rashi and essentially say what in the world just now happened because one seems to have nothing to do with the other and it's not what it said so therefore the second comment of Rashi is exactly the one that I articulated a moment ago that these are the one the kids who have a lower social strata so what Yosef tries to do is he tries to reach out to them and he tries to help them up in order to help their again they're they're standing in the family but that first part saying oh n there's this impossible immaturity about Yosef later on in Source number five where it tells us y tor what's the next verse next verse is Atif she looked up and she saw by the way I think if anybody has lots of time in our hands they can look this up up on on Wu Torah I have over a thousand lectures there I don't know what we're up we're getting close to 1300 and uh I think the one that was listened to or downloaded the most was the one that I called and here's to you Mrs potifa so it just it it just goes to show it's all it's all about forum and not about content no no we're blaming the victim here we're absolutely blaming the victim but but give me a second and we're we're going to see where this this comes up a number of times over here it says that Yosef was and next verse is oh Mrs potifar she cast her eye upon by the way I spent all week every day I free chat gbt and I asked for an image show me an image of of Mrs potifar grabbing at you I can show you like six different images so far that I have of this uh I I have a Renaissance one I have one like from ancient Egypt and so on what what what they would produce as uh as an image of this none of them are good by the way they're they're all uh they're all bad I to remind CH that he was 17 that she was much older but at least in my mind anyway if it fits with Mrs Robinson so coming back over here Rashi in Source five y once he was put in charge he started eating and drinking he raided the kitchen and he goes back to this point and and he and he did his hair God says your father is mourning for you and you're doing your hair I'm gonna send the bear after you which means you're gonna you're and then mad by the way that's the end of rash mad saying dot dot dot and then she comes and she attacks him in this is the where this is coming from out it seems to be he walked in a uh in a Hoy manner so this is also interesting one of the things that it says over here continues in that M and it says that he would bring the you y told his father that his brothers are checking out the local canite girls by the way if that's what it actually is it's actually true because Yehuda then goes and marries the Canon night girl so I don't even know what to do with this so therefore ysep tells about that they're checking out girls and therefore his punishment is that she then goes and checks him out which and and it costs him attacks him and so on and so forth and again all of this is absolutely 100% victim blaming so embrace it and S number seven this is a general comment back in par when the when the yahar sees somebody acting in such a self-absorbed manner who he's mine which means I guess the first step towards falling to the eight Sahara is giving into certain extent of uh of self absorbent and what word did he use that was a good one Vanity Vanity we like vanity I mean we like the word good um and again Source number eight which is M there again what's going on in the background what is God doing what it say right beforeand look how attractive y was and it should have said here this is considered [Music] like same exact mid I'm just saying it It's Time After Time After Time two of them about y just generally but using the same terminology that ysep essentially is full of vanity according to this self-absorbed and therefore God says okay let's see let's see how you're GNA get out of this one now and there and therefore he gets his uh various punishments and I'm gonna say it again all of this right now we have no idea what to do with so let's put this as another thing on the side and then we're going to come back to this we're we're we're actually going back to 19th century approaches today and that's like one one big solution for everything right that's very 19th century thought if you know that then good if not also good big big problems big Solutions Source number nine Rose K not to be confused in any way with yosf Caro the rashbam is actually going to quote this and say wow that's really good separate issue completely here we're back when yakob says to Ys go down to and see how your brothers are so again exactly what I said before that Y is and the father asks for you know what is going on so he articulates a problem why does yov sent him sent him was afraid for his kids that's the place that they killed whole bunch of people says I'm afraid by the by the way that's just so interesting I'm not sure what Y what ysf is going to do for them I'm not sure you know you know let's continue that a little bit in uh Source number 10 I'll say one more thing about this if you look on the bottom of that Yosef Caro there's a note that says leave that a second um in Source number 10 it's he quotes the r sorry the rash has saying he quotes this comment and he says and I really like it so the rasham also adopted this idea so this is already somebody who's much more recent he says I don't like it so essentially what is going on over here so this issue of sh by the way we just now moved again if you're not following we just now moved to an issue of giography why because it's part I'm gonna say it again it's actually part of the same issue but we don't see it at all yet because we're just looking at little pieces and as I said there's one larger issue going on um I would have answered very simply why go to because is a place that we actually own the property there it's question of real estate look at and again if you didn't realize or remember this this is the end of peram giml perlam is what happens once they're there but over here they actually buy some of the property over there they're land owners by sh so therefore why of all places would yakov's children go to graay in Shen because we own property there so therefore if you're concerned with any of the locals being upset with you because so I'm saying that was my easy solution so I just had to look to find someone who said it I did find it in sour 13 but I'm just saying you you can go for him or not go for him I was just looking because I felt someone had to say it so finally somebody uh somebody said it but um on the other hand and maybe this and you could take this either way in Source 12 it's a really great [Music] verse the translation which I found for this is good as any as they set out this after they Le The Terror from God fell on the city's roundabout they did not pursue the sons of yakob which means why were they safe because God intervened in order to protect them by the way that also is really interesting is God actually supporting Shimon and Ley this is my post post October 7th interpretation how a new a whole new commentary after October 7th is this God supporting and approving or is God being more pragmatic and says listen I need bakov around otherwise the story ends a little prematurely so you could decide whichever way you prefer but I will note that Yakov at least in Bara doesn't argue in terms of morality Yakov argues in terms of pragmatism we're small in number they're great in number what's going to be with us but he doesn't say what you did was morally wrong that's also interesting the other thing is just a present for some of you the why this is not serious I have to warn you when I'm not being serious why did uh the brothers insist that they all go through a Brit before they killed them so the real answer you would say is in order to weaken them in order and so on but that's not the real the real answer is that they converted them to become Jewish because who's going to care about a bunch of Jews who were killed there would be no un investigation anyway it's a present for you you can use this whenever you think it's politically expedient if you don't use it I also understand okay let's try now to unpack some of this I want to skip and I want to go [Music] to I want to go to Source 16 Source 16 goes back to the issue of yob sending him to sh and why as soon as this we should all get a little nervous no look today if somebody would say to you listen I'm going to go to sh today so this may not be the best place that you want to go to so in Source number 16 we find that the gor tells us as follows it's really interesting the one who speaking right it's a place which is set up as it were for painful Behavior she was abused was sold and is where the kingdom was divided if you go back to Source 15 Rashi over here he says a couple of things which are interesting and and again one spend the whole day on this Rashi first Rashi says that Yakov accompanies y when he sends him and he sends him soash asks and so on essentially saying is that yob s y whether it's bnst to him or not is the beginning of the Fulfillment of the Brit banaran which means they're going to go into a land which isn't theirs which means you think you're sending ysep northward you think you're sending him to Shem you think that things are going to work out one way somehow God is going to turn things around so meet an anonymous man in the field even though his brothers have gone to a different place they went to do time he's going to find them anyway and they're going to send him right back and then they think they're getting rid of their brother but what's going to happen a little karma is going to happen and they going to all end up in Egypt as well God's going to make a famine and so on and so forth they're going to end up in Egypt and then all of their children become slaves and then hundreds of years later we're going to be able to get out of Egypt but that's meaning the Brit upam is happening now and that's and that's what Rashi gets into right here at this point there is a a Divine hand which is guiding what's taking place now if that wasn't enough Rashi then continues and says right in the same so you realize that rash is telling us the same tradition that we just now saw from the talud but the truth is that now we're a little bit closer to understand the larger issue which is taking place and that issue is kingship and that question is who will be king and now why that's a question at this point point is what I still need to uh show and we need to get back to that ramom but I'm not quite ready to go back there yet let's first move over and look at again at source 17 117 for real wa any of those right now let me just think what we want instead how we want to do this okay we we'll do we'll do it the way that I put it on the paper I'm gonna say it again that the issue over here is who's going to be king and you can ask me why is that an issue right now so I I want to get now a little bit of focus and a little bit of big picture because we we tend to always lose big picture and uh we we tend to look at literal things like one of the things that happens is again I don't know how we always learn Kish or we did learn Kish we do learn Kish sometimes we get hyperfocused on on on words on letters on on on sentences on on chapters on alot on episodes and we don't necessarily see the the bigger things but thematically there's something that has happened three times in a row and we completely ignored it I think as as a theme because maybe we just didn't realize it and didn't see it in Source 17 which again is peric LAM giml and this part is easy asov turns to Yakov and and this is what we did last week asov turns to Yakov and says let's go together let's travel together and what's yakov's response Yakov response is no which means in a certain sense there's the is an offer and there's a possibility of Yakov and of reuniting and joining forces together and being one family one clan one group one nation and so on of course we know the reason why this is not going to happen is because of the prophecy that Rifka receives which Yakov apparently inherits and Yakov instead defers and no you know you go on we'll catch up and whatever if you think a second now about chapter about Source 18 which is the next chapter chapter 34 what are we told then we're told that we have the story of Dena and Sh and what happened there they say these people will live together with us we'll marry their children we'll marry their children and there's also some you know it's not always completely honest let's look a little bit about this again we're gonna marry which means we're become one nation and you by the way the Jews what's your role Gonna Be by the way this is such wonderful anti-semitic tropes you guys can be traitors right you can you'll be involved in trade you could have also have said you know you can land it's one of the things that didn't always happen um as it goes on we're skipping a little bit they tell them to go and have the circumcision and then will be one nation that's the offer on the table they come back meaning come back and tell their people these people are they're honest they'll live with us and if we do this then we could take everything which is theirs again it's it's just staring at you what's the offer on the table over here again that's what they say among themselves what's the offer on the table become one nation so I'm going to say it again if I were to to have asked you before what does chapter 33 and chapter 34 have in common it's both the same theme that we should join another nation and become part of them if uh if you paid attention to Source 19 which is right before that it's peric lamad Olive that's where love that's a separation from L where L also says right which means essentially what does love want love really wants them to stay there as well and to be one nation but again this is this journey that yakov's on the journey is to become a separate nation he leaves love and to go back to the land of Israel be because that is where he will become a nation on the way there he gets stopped by ASA no let's join together no when he gets there someone else come let's join together no which means I'm going to say it again how easy was that to miss that this is the theme which is taking place the theme is nation building the thing is the theme is this emerging people which I'm now going to call Israel Israel is emerging out of everything that we're looking at over here and because each one of these episodes was dramatic unto itself and was important unto himself we kind of missed the big picture and see what is really taking place over here across the way and that is again if I had to label this the emergence of am Israel which by the way doesn't even have a name yet but now at least perhaps we can see this a little bit better in Source 21 which is peric lamit where does peric lamit come after L which yes that was pretty obvious after the as of Temptation or or possibility and after the again theoretical possibility so God comes and appears I say this again now this is not only nation building now we're naming the nation and he says increase in numbers and so on and all of that is clear and we're used to it and we've heard all of this before which is why you kind of get lazy no insult unless you're actually sleeping and it's the last and it's the next word which was so easy to [Music] miss and Kings will emerge from your loins that was a quite literal biblical translation Kings will emerge from your loins viu how in the world do you process what was just now said and I'll tell you how all of we process it if you paid attention to it and you even noticed that God said that because I don't believe God said this particular thing to Aram or to Y I'm pretty sure that he never said this that now something new has happened now they're Israel now they come back now they have numbers there's something that and then you which means going back to your observation when you try to ruin the whole class before that yakov's first thought as far as who is the one who is going to be this king who is going to take over next Generation you can't leave a vacuum of leadership you can't leave it you know in a chaotic situation afterwards somebody has to be appointed because we are not just a family we're more than a family there's something else that has to take place over here and this word over here that kings are going to come out I am going to tell you again now this has been the theme for everything which we have seen before everything that we have seen goes back to this one word and then we can perhaps understand this a little bit better which you're getting the land the land is going to be called Israel the people are going to be called Israel kings are going to emerge from this um continue because it gets really good now now we have to tie up some more Theo ends in we're still in Source is right Israel travels that's different from all the other traveling because story been Israel travels which shouldn't be so surprising because now they're called Israel when Israel dwelt in this place and that's the middle of the what's the continuation of the so and then not only bov then we have our division bov and it breaks it down which is a little surprising because it included B just now nonetheless I don't know if you really followed what I was saying first of all and this we've discussed before as well Ruan is trying to do something which is similar to what Adon yahu does later on he's trying to stake a claim by taking his father's pesh and therefore to claim that he is the rightful Heir we're already now talking about a nation we're already in the land we've rejected these other nations who have tried to join with us we will be your separate people and ruve now is asserting his rights as firstborn and saying by the way in his mind at least and saying that I am taking her but it's really interesting that he calls her pish aiv and and you could actually defend some of this because what does it say afterwards right afterwards it calls it SH now just because it's sorry doesn't tell you what their status is but what did it say about y treats the children of Bill and Zila as being wives of the father having full status well ruven is remember I read Med I told you he had a bad day well ruven was the one who treated Bila as if she was only a leish and therefore chatt and therefore property and he could take it and therefore he's flexing his muscles over here and what happens is that Yakov completely rejects this and which means I want to read that verse again and that's great because you know what yob just now did he did the opposite of what others would have done and be honest for a second if we're actually capable are we capable what ruen did is worse than anything did I'm just saying could we be honest about that he did something worse than I I know I know I know we can then use the midar the cover up he didn't really do it he just move right he moved the bed that's all come on just just read the words a second I would believe so the the the bigger problem is is that a PES it's actually m whether it even applies first of all we before out T so don't bother me second of all the ROM is of the opinion and this is really important that aegish is only something which is the right of a king and no one else because we're going to come back to kingship because that's what all of this is about anyway because once you're a nation then the leader becomes the king and the whole thing over here is about the king but do you realize what yakob did as opposed to Israel and Ruben takes the that is an act of him trying to rest the kingship for himself what does yov do yakob does not kick him out yakob does not send him away Yakov still has 12 kids because in a nation some people are gonna mess up in a nation some people GNA be bad in the family maybe can be insurmountable I don't know but this is not a family this is a nation do you realize now how significant it is later on when Yosef has a dream with and he sees 11 Stars because Yosef could have imagine if yose had a dream said saw 10 stars there you know ruen maybe should not be considered part of this family anymore so I'm saying it really is significant that yoseph has inherited his father's Outlook whereby there's 12 sons that's what it is there are 12 sons and and and even the ruin did some and the very next verse he's still is he's just not kingship mat and so on and so forth that's the quote unquote blessing that he gets so I guess the question at this point is uh where do we go from all of this let's just point that again in Source 22 it emerges a second time that's paramid B and of course pericam comes right after paramid hey which was after paramid okay I hope you're on to me on that is guess what the subtext is over here in peric lamid which comes right before peric lamad Zan and what happens to peric lamad Zan that's this week's para para vev when what are we really talking about the Mel in is that's what we're talking about that's what the topic is over here so now we got a bunch of things to try to finish up and obviously we don't have time to do everything I want you to do so if I want to go back to that ramom for moment one of the things that's in I'm looking I don't know Source 14 one of the things about a is a needs to take care of his hair Mel needs to look good one second was that was was that at least one second was that at least interesting now did that one second did I just now with one one half a sentence just now change everything right yeah no no I'm saying that is so important if you want to continue a if you want to continue a little bit more over here it says you know what else it says again the Raam I do not believe is opened up toay as he's writing this but look towards the end of that Source he says and what is he called he's called The Shepherd which means when when he's what is a king a king is a shepherd He quotes a verse that what is a king a king is somebody who's essentially a Shepherd now I'm gonna tell you again to go back to that verse and read that verse and say okay so what's really going on over here so I keep on insisting what's really going on over here is to understand what has happened to lead up to this point pay attention to peric lamad ALF that was leaving love pay attention to peric lamad giml that was leaving ASA the Temptation pay attention to peric lamad that's where the whole story were again the possibility of joining look at peric lamad hay where God says no Kings will come out of you and then again in peric lamid V where it says oh before there was a king in Israel meaning how many times do you need this to be pointed out until you actually get it so now just a couple of more things part of being a king is also the ability of deciding who will live and who will die so I just want to suggest a couple of more things and then we'll we'll stop King King has life in in in their hands even this whole that you that you make a br when you see a king it's only a king that actually can can have somebody put to death it's life and death in their hands so just try again to try to put some of this together and to make sense of some of this I want to point out a midash which I mean also we not necessarily know what to do with look at source number 28 Yehuda by the way did you like that before was am Yosi talking about Yi and now it's Yehuda who's talking about Yehuda but one day I will write about this because I have hundreds of examples of this by the way he is the famous Yehuda one of the five students of becomes king because of these three speeches that he gives now I found this really interesting maybe on purpose Maybe by accident whoever did this Edition OFA two of the three gave you the sources for and they're both empiric mandal that's during the time where Yosef is already in Egypt and then there are negotiations taking place right but but it skipped the first one it didn't tell you the first one and the first one to me was the most interesting because look at source 2 it's also the first one look at source 29 because sit in peric which is long before per that's what it was talking about deciding sorry Yehuda deciding who will live and who will die don't kill yoseph sell him over here and you could have said that's the worst thing Yehuda did and look what that midrash just now said no that's Yehuda acting as king why because that's what Kings do I'm just gonna add as a as a somewhat of a postcript to this that there's also you know I I continued last night after I sent the sources and I collected some more and it's really about yoseph and the the baker later on when the wine stward is going to come in front of the king and this is ready next week he's going to say and and I I want to be very very careful with the words that he says that there was this again this kid that yoseph determined that he right right I would live and he would die that is yose very much acting King and by the way the gamorra says it like I said it Rashi moves away from it you look at the various we shown him they don't know what to say how can you how could this guy say this in front of the king of Egypt who really can decide who will live and who will die but I'm going to say it again you actually see now that Yehuda acts like the king there's more it's I mean what I was going to get into a bit also would have been the the whole story with Tamar and you know kill her no don't kill her I mean this is a king behaving and doing the things that he's doing you which means essentially when you pay attention over here the question now is so who's going to be king and then you have yosea moving next week the brothers are going to come back will he let them live or will he kill them will they live or will they die and I want say I know we we get caught up in the drama of it and as we get caught up in the drama just like every other episode I pointed out till now we get caught up in the drama and then we miss what the real story is over here the real story is who's going to be king and how is and how is this going to be determined and now you know there were three candidates one is become disqualified and that's Ruan and now there's two more candidates and one is Yosef who is the first pick of Yakov and the other one who emerges out of and you don't even know how he emerges from all this and that is Yehuda but Yehuda is acting very king-like and that's what the medish picked up on he's acting very king-like and now all that we have to say is wow this is really interesting I sure wonder how old this is going to work out class is over so you tell me yoseph Yosef is King Yosef is King the only issue is he's not the king of Jews that's it but yob was looking for who going to be yeah and Yosef was most capable but they were they were not able to accept him as king