What would you tell your CHILD if it were the LAST TIME? (Parshas Vayigash)

there's a conductor of the Boston Philharmonic named Benjamin Zander he's originally a British musician and he lives in America and he gave a TED Talk and he spoke about music and he spoke about it's uh power to influence people but in this Ted Talk he he relates a story that he had heard personally from a woman Holocaust Survivor a survivor of of Auschwitz who was on the cattle car with her brother they were both children she was the older sister and she looked down and she saw that her little brother was missing his shoes he was standing there barefoot and like many older sisters would react she uh she says to him oh you're so stupid can't you keep track of your belongings you look you went and you lost your shoes and uh I mean obviously these were to us extraordinary circumstances but human nature is human nature and an older sister speaks the way an older sister is want to sometimes speak at any rate they were separated um less than a moment later and he did not survive and they did not see each other again and those ended up being the last words that she ever said to her brother so when she got out when she survived she said I I walked out of Auschwitz and into life and I made a commitment at that moment that from now on whatever words I ever speak to anybody in any situation will be words that are worthy of being the last words that I speak to that person so this week our Torah portion we have a reunion the family of uh of yasif of of Joseph who is serving as second in command as Viceroy of Egypt they are they're reunited they all come down to Egypt and they are reunited Jacob uh the Father the patriarch yankovino uh is reunited with all of his sons and um 22 years 22 years they did not speak 22 years they did not know of each other's whereabouts and as far as yankovino knows as far as Jacob our patriarch knows the last words he ever spoke to his beloved Son to yasuf to Joseph were a secret between him between the two of them and that's what I want to talk about those last words which ended up not being the very last words they spoke to each other but for 22 years when they were separated those were the last words until that point um I'm looking in uh chapter 45. verse 27. and at this point the brothers already know Joseph is alive he has revealed himself to them they go back to the land of Israel at that time still referred to as the land of Canaan and they tell their father guess what we found our brother Joseph is still alive they said to him the brother said to their father to jankov to Jacob it's called Joseph had told them foreign and he saw the wagons Jacob saw the wagons I say that Joseph sent to to carry him and the spirit of their father Jacob was revived Israel is the other name of of Jacob when Yankee wrestled the angel and he became Israel so Israel says at this point it is enough my son Joseph is still alive I'm going to go verando veteran almost and see him before I die so the famous question which our sages ask it says the brothers told their father guess what we found yasif but it's not until he sees the wagons that he responds with saying my son Joseph is still alive what's the deal with the wagons why why wasn't the report enough why why were the wagons sort of the the evidence that sealed the deal so the medrish tells us both of them tell us similar stories based on this verse interestingly enough that uh Joseph was speaking in code or he wasn't speaking he was um he was uh pantomiming or it's not even pantom I mean he was using props that are hints what were the props the props of the wagon so why were the wagons uh the wagons were also practically the wagons that were sent to um be an Entourage to bring uh yankov to to mitzrayim to Egypt but they were they served the double a double purpose as well they were there were props which were a coded message um a pun of sorts you see the last time the Yankee ravino Sawyer 22 years earlier yankov go check on your brothers they're in a place called Dyson go check on them um where were younger Vanessa they were in heaven um before they parted ways they were learning Torah together as they often did apparently one of the things we're told about the why the Torah refers to yasif as the benzakunim which literally means um the son of wisdom and or of old age um that that also means that yankov taught his wisdom his Torah wisdom to yes if you remember yankovina when he left home before he went to Quran where he met his his cousin cousins built a family he stopped in the yeshivas of Shame and Aver and he was studying Torah so the Torah that he was studying and you're going to say what Torah were they studying we're talking about um how many generations before beginning of October five generations before because Abraham was seven generations before Moses Moses is the generation of the giving the Torah so Abraham Isaac Jacob she was talking about uh seven minus two so you're talking about five generations before the giving of the Torah the Torah was um at least in a conceptual format known to our Patriarchs maybe not um the stories that we know because the stories were actually about them but the ideas the the ideas of the Torah were known to them and certainly the mystical ideas um the the the kabbalistic concepts that are represented by the Mitzvahs as well as mitzvah's as well but not necessarily in the form how we observe them after the Revelation at Sinai at any rate the point is that they had plenty of Torah to study even if it wasn't identically in the same manner as the body of knowledge that we today or for the past 3 300 some odd years refer to as Torah so Joseph was the Benz econom he was the Protege of his father and his father taught him his his Torah so not unlike many experiences they had where they would study together and that last occasion for 22 years before they were reunited they were studying Torah and what Torah were they studying uh they were studying the law of the Eglo rufa eglarufa is an interesting section it's in the book of development Deuteronomy and it speaks about a dead body is located in the field outside of the city proper and it's probably this person was a murder victim and there's a whole ceremony that has to take place to absolve the city the nearest city of any fault so what happens is the Elders of the city have to come out to the place where the where they found the body and um they the ceremony it's called eglarufa eglarufa literally means egla is a calf rufa means with uh with the broken neck so they break the neck of a calf um not in the form of ritual Slaughter which is normally how um how animals are are are killed in in Torah law but this is a this is a an ax at the back of the neck and it's a whole elaborate ceremony and the Elders of the city have to Proclaim that we did not allow this person this murder victim to leave our City without food and water and escort we accompanied him um and we gave him Provisions so that he would be safe on his travel so it's not our fault um that was the initi Mitzvah it's one of the 613 Commandments that was the subject in the Torah that jankiv was studying with yasuf the last time they saw each other so yasef wants to hint to yankovino I'm going to reveal to you something that only I could know in case you're doubting if it's really me maybe it's a terrible case of mistaken identity maybe somebody is claiming to be your son maybe who knows I want you to know this is really me is wagons which is the same letters in Hebrew not the same vowels but the same consonants as the word agla which means calf so the agallah the agla agalla wagon eglacaf was a pun in code that Yankee would see and say ah this is him and that's why the yadres he saw the wagons sent to him the spirit of their father Yonka was revived he said it really is him and then the next verse it's enough for me my my son Joseph is still alive okay so that's one explanation it was a message in code it's really me it was an identifying message but there's a deeper explanation the deeper explanation is when jankiv says my son Joseph is still alive he doesn't only mean in the literal sense of physical life he also means in the spiritual sense that he's still alive that he's still true to the lessons that I taught him remember it's 22 years they haven't seen each other yasuf was how old when they parted 17. so most of his life at this point is spent away from his father and where has he spent those 22 years he has been tested with um being a Slave being a prisoner then he had the test of having the entire world open to him he became the Viceroy of the most powerful country in the world so he had both types of tests of poverty and of of wealth so yes of senseiank of a hint I haven't forgotten the lessons you taught me not just that it's a it's a hint because he could have told him I remember what you had for breakfast the last time I saw you right he's telling him I remember the last Torah lesson you taught me because that makes it clear that that Joseph has preserved the teachings he has clung to those teachings and therefore he's communicating to his father don't worry I'm still your benzokunin I'm your Protege I'm your your child who sat at your feet and drank your words and I and I still retained your lessons and I'm still living according to your lessons so it's not just yankov knew that yasif is physically alive and another meaning another layer of meaning it's to convey that he's still spiritually alive but it goes deeper but it goes deeper than that this is all true it's not to contradict what we've said until now but there's another layer there's another layer and um that layer addresses the question of why were they speaking about this subject at that particular time where they just randomly discussing different Torah topics stream of consciousness or was there a particular reason why that would be the discussions under those circumstances so the typhus read or Isaiah we say in English means from the town of trani which is a a town in Italy in southern Italy it's uh on the coast on the back of the boot uh you know how Italy shaped like a boot so it's on the East Coast of the south of Italy and uh it'll be he lived about a thousand years ago he explained the circumstances of this last meeting in very Vivid detail he said yankov tells you as if I want you to go check in your brothers they were at that time like we said in in heaven the I'm saying and the brothers were in deutsun so they were in a settled area they were in a town is an ancient city I mean in the time of Abraham already it was it was a it was a city it was a hittite city so they're leaving the town and yasif is headed to doysan where his brothers are and as they're leaving the town yankov says to yasuf we're we're leaving the town now we're going out into the uninhabited area and I'm going to continue to walk with you for a while and yasif says it's okay father you don't have to walk with with me anymore and yankov says no I do I do have to walk with you it's a Mitzvah or it will be a mitzvah there's something called egler rufa and he proceeds to explain the the aglarova ceremony says there's a responsibility of the Elders of the city that when somebody travels and they leave the city they they must they must have an escort and you have to provide them with provisions and that's why I'm doing this um so I'm gonna I'm gonna walk with you a while and uh I'm gonna give you uh food and drink and then then I'll let you continue on your way so the reason they were having that discussion was not random it was actually relevant to the exact situation that they were in now there is symbolism to this entire ceremony and it's not just the literal idea of finding a dead body in an uninhabited region and and having to absolve the Elders of the nearest city of of any wrongdoing the symbolism is spiritually there's something called a settled area and there's something called a field an inhabited area spiritually means a place that's conducive to a spiritual life an uninhabited area or in the case the way that it's described in these verses a Sada or a field is is a place of um chaos and disorder it's interesting yankov's brother Ace of who was a chaotic person he's known as an ish Sada a man of the field so the field means a place that is not structured and not rained in with with spiritual order and a person goes out into that place and it is possible that if he's not properly prepared he will spiritually succumb and he'll become spiritually dead even if physically he's not murdered but he can spiritually be murdered in other words you have a an innocent Farm Boy 17 year old kid who his whole life where did he grow up he was a shepherd with his father that's what they did and they chose that life they chose the life of shepherding specifically because it allowed them opportunities for meditation and contemplation so you have this this sweet 17 year old kid who grew up on the farm and now he's leaving that safety and he's about to head into the big scary world he's about to he doesn't know it at the time but he's about to go to What's called ervis our sages use that term ever saw audits to describe to describe Egypt it's actually it's a term that Joseph himself uses when he's speaking to his brothers but the deeper meaning is erva means nudity or lewdness mitzrim was not a nice place mitzrayim was not a refined place it was a it was a a place to void of proper morality and spiritual limits so you have this innocent 17 year old kid who happens to be stunningly gorgeous may I add that we know about yasif and he's about to find himself in a very lewd and promiscuous place um and to top it all off he's only there under circumstances that are trauma traumatizing I mean he he's he's betrayed by his brothers they they almost kill him instead they throw him in a pit and then sell him as a slave and then when he's a slave he ends up being accused on false charges and becomes a prisoner so really we're talking about somebody who has a very hard time of it he's ripped out of everything he knows suddenly and under very um tumultuous circumstances he's uh he's betrayed by those who are closest to him um he's vilified he is treated like a like like not like not like a crime not he wasn't treated like a criminal he was actually um branded a criminal and you could well imagine that under such circumstances he would say what do you want from me I don't have my family I don't have any sense of security I was betrayed I'm a slave so I I'm not even considered a normal person and now on top of that I'm a prisoner and a Slave everything that I knew everything that was meaningful to me was was torn away from me so what do you care if I just try to pursue a life of Base pleasure everything that was meaningful was taken away from me under extremely traumatizing circumstances so if I just want to numb myself if I just want to check out and do what feels good and distract myself minute by minute what do you want from me what else what else what else do you want from me and uh when Yankee have heard that yasf is still alive 22 years later it was certainly a possibility that that was his situation okay when he was first told that yasuf is still alive you know it's like a pow spending years in A POW Camp you know the person who went off the war do you know the person who's coming home so it was a distinct possibility that the Joseph who left home at 17 was not the same person 22 years later that he would have been unrecognizable that you would be talking about somebody who was a shell of his former self and had just completely succumbed and who could blame him if that were the case someone who had completely succumbed to all of the base Pleasures that were so abundantly available in in Egypt at that time so Joseph knows you're so smart he knows that Jacob is going to worry about this not only worry about it he's going to Harbor the idea as a distinct possibility or a likelihood so what does Joseph do e he sends a code the code is on multiple levels first of all like we said the most basic meaning of the code is it's not a joke it's really me because only you and I know this conversation was the last conversation that we had so the ugalace the wagons is the agla the aglarufa the law of the the calf that's one level but there's a deeper level which is I still remember the last Torah class that you taught me 22 years later I still retained your teachings that's a deeper level but there's an even deeper level which is specifically this lesson this lesson the lesson that when the elders escort the person from the town they give him provisions and they make sure he has what he needs to survive Joseph was telling his father I want you to know you escorted me not just literally you walked with me those steps out of heaven but my whole life was you preparing me and neither of us knew at that moment that for 22 years I would have this roller coaster of a life neither of us knew that but my entire life up until that moment had prepared me for what was to come so you didn't send me into the field without any preparation without any defense without any tools for living the message of the the argolis the agla the pun of the encoded message was I'm alive because you took care to give me what I would need in order to stay true to the principles that you taught me so then I give understood ah not only is he physically alive it's really my son but he's alive he's spiritually alive he didn't make an excuse and who could fault him if he would have but he didn't make an excuse and say woe was me after everything that's happened to me what can I do how moral do you want me to be he didn't make that excuse instead he sends his father the message you escorted me you gave me Provisions you prepared me you sent me into the world with what I needed now was that consciously what jankiv was telling yasf when he brought up the the story of uh or the the Mitzvah of the aglarufa slaughtered calf no no because they they didn't know that was going to be their last meeting for 22 years but I'll tell you the Le Bobby actually said this what I'm telling you right now on a very famous date on hey Tavis the fifth day of the month of Zion that was actually the date of the famous verdict of the court case regarding the ownership of the library of Lubavitch yeah and a lot of people don't realize that episode gave a public address on that day and what was the subject of that address is is this explanation that I'm telling you now and the debus said that although yankov didn't know these were going to be the last words he would say to his son for 22 years certainly on some level on a subconscious level or call it a super conscious level uh in in the depth of his soul he was aligned with with the truth that this message needed to be conveyed and that this was the appropriate message and and the message was that no matter what you go through my son I want you to know that you were given the tools you are given the tools to survive and and even to thrive and um I don't know how much we can read into this and I don't purport to be capable of interpreting such things but I can just tell you thoughts that I have with no I'm not taking any responsibility here this is not an interpretation it's more just a reaction um not long after the the victory of the court case indeed the following year uh was the passing of the rabbits in Kaya mushka that have his wife who is instrumental in the favorable outcome the favorable verdict of the trial she actually gave a uh a deposition which was considered to be key evidence for the judge ruling as he did and um not long after that a matter of four years after the rabbits and the Robinson passed away uh that ever suffered a stroke and did not speak publicly again uh until his passing two years after that so in retrospect in retrospect in many ways um these talks from that period were I feel confident to say that one could categorize them in some way as a as a last will and testament as an ethical will marching orders um as a as a as a plan for moving forward and again I said that's not my interpretation it's my personal reaction I can't help to think that the rabbit was also conveying in some way that if for any reason we would be separated and we would not be able to hear new Torah teachings that we should know that we were armed already with what we need in order to survive out there in the field meaning to get through this last stretch of of Exile and to make it back to be reunited with the deben with all of those who will be resurrected when mashiach comes with and that we have what it takes the Reba as a leader and as a father as a father gave his children the direction that they would need and although you know you think about everything that's changed since 1994 when the devil passed away and today how different the world is I mean I remember in 1994 I didn't even own a cell phone no I'm talking about a flip phone on a cell phone um not even the most primitive kind of cell phone and very few people I knew did um I don't think I had I even been on a dial-up modem internet with the AOL uh 1994 I think I I didn't have I didn't I I certainly didn't have it I think I'd been on a friend's thing with AOL and uh You've got mail or that kind of thing um but certainly there was no 24-hour news cycle there was no social media uh there were no smartphones no no YouTube it was a different world it was a different world and I'm not even remembering my childhood I'm remembering when I was uh 20 years old Okay so it's not that long ago and the world has changed so much but I think it's very important for us to think about the fact that as a leader and again as a father took care and and used foresight to provide us with whatever it is that we would require and uh I don't think we have an excuse I understand it I can't fault anyone if they invoke that excuse but that's my attitude toward others toward others I have to be compassionate toward myself no I don't think I have an excuse to say well what do you want from us we've never been in this type of Exile before the tests that we're going through today are unlike tests that we've been through before yasif could have said the same thing he could have said I'm just a innocent little farm boy I don't know how to deal with this craziness with with slavery and imprisonment and then being elevated to being the second most powerful person in this terribly promiscuous and lewd place he could have easily said I don't know how to handle I'm not equipped I'm not equipped for dealing with this kind of Life what do you want from me and yet he didn't say that he told his father I've been unpacking the Torah lessons you taught me I've been unpacking them all these years and I've been finding more and more depth and more and more relevancy in them and they've been my Guiding Light and they've been steering me and I'm still with you and I'm still devoted I'm still your son I'm still alive in the in the way that you saw me last and I think it behooves us all to think about ourselves both as the children in this story as well as the parents how are we the children so personally the way I feel about it is that people ask me one of the Laboratories going to get a new debit as far as I'm concerned gave us direction that we can follow until mashiach comes foreign that's how I internalize it as a child and as a parent as a parent it's scary to think this but I think we can handle it imagine that the next interaction that you have with your child may be the last thing you get to tell them and I don't mean that in a morbid way and I'm not trying to I'm trying to scare people what I'm saying is at least whatever the next words we say to our children are those should be worthy those words should be worthy of being last words they should be worthy of being words that a child could cling to through whatever life brings and the main thing is that just like when the time came for Joseph to be reunited with yankov once the time came I mean there was a timetable being kept in heaven and Earth they didn't know it but it was the exact same I mean everything's so clear in in retrospect the time that they were separated the 22 years was exactly the time that Yankee was separated from his father but the whole thing was a was a pattern being repeated and and the moment that that time was fulfilled Hashem did not delay the the reunion happened immediately so we don't know whatever timetable they're keeping in heaven that's delaying mashiach our sages told us already centuries ago that for overtime but uh God willing immediately already we should be reunited with all of those who who gave us Direction Over the over the Millennia the centuries and in our lifetimes there's more to the story than what I covered just now the significance to some of the food items that yes have sent to yankovino and some hidden messages there as well but that's in another class can watch it right here