Vayeshev - Israel and the Arc of History

you're listening to the weekly partial podcast with Ari goldwag recorded with hashem's never ending assistance in 2023 this week's para is parv and our para has the beginning of the Exile the first Exile of the Jewish people yobu he has his 12 sons yadik was 17 years old he was young in experienced in leadership and he ended up being sold in our par and sent down to Egypt and ultimately the entire Jewish people all 70 Souls would go down to Egypt following after yoseph now the medish in speaking about this gives us a few different points to ponder let's read the med together says the p yose was brought down to Egypt the Mish brings the PK in 11 verse4 and we're going to read a few different lines from the same P from the same verse and we're going to understand that there are two different aspects here that are implied by this verse one of them has to do with the Jewish people generally one of them has to do with y sadic himself Joseph specifically and it's important to understand from the outset that the Jewish people as a whole are a unit and we also have our leaders we have those who lead the Jew the entire Jewish people yoseph is meant to be and he will be ultimately a leader to his brothers a leader to the Jewish people and his destiny just as all of the leaders of the Jewish people throughout time the destiny of a Yos the destiny of a Jewish leader is intertwined and parallels the entire Jewish people as well so let's see the first drer that we'll see here has to do with the Jewish people says the verse in that God says I will use I will use ropes human ropes to pull them is who's Adam who is the Adam of this verse the human that the verse is speaking of when it speaks of the fact that Hashem is going to draw us with with ropes he's going to pull us down Isel down here doesn't mean down in in in a negative way but it means he's going to bring us down to Egypt and we are going to experience the Exile which ultimately has a positive purpose as we'll see so who is being drawn it's the people of Israel we are referred to Asam as as a human as AOS says draw me after you it's in shirim the song of songs the Jewish people say to Hashem draw us after you and we will run after you so the concept of drawing which is in the p and hasem says I will draw you humans with ropes it's a reference to the fact that we are drawn after hem with chains of love God says I love you I love you so it's important to understand as we read theim we talking about Hashem drawing us down to a place which seems negative and Hashem is chaining us with chains of love it seems to be a stero a contradiction you don't chain the person that you love to chain is to to to limit somebody but somehow in the limitation in the difficulty in the Exile there's an expression of love says the Anda I will be to them like one who puts upon them a yoke why hasem is going to give power to our enemies to have power over us to put a yoke on us we're going to go into Exile we're going to be mid we're going to be subservient to the Egyptians in the Egyptian exile to the Babylonians in the Babylonian exile Etc on through time down till today where we are subservient to the world of Adam to the world of isma to the Arab world to the West why why is this happening it has to do with their cheeks the Jewish people have to experience Exile because of the mistakes that we made something that we said wrong the Jewish people in the midbar in the wilderness we said the words these are your God who took you out of Egypt but we we said this about a false god about an idol about the golden [Music] calf so we've done something wrong we've done something negative which excuse me hasm has to therefore send us into Exile into Gus But ultimately the P says slowly you're going to the Jewish people is going to alter ultimately be able to eat to eat what does it mean Hashem says ultimately there's going to be a reward to for the Jewish people we've done wrong we experienced Exile but at the end of the Exile we pay off our debts and we we get reward for the good that we've done or perhaps even the Exile as we've spoken about previous weeks the Exile is heavier than than it should be it's heavier than Hashem intended it so to speak and ultimately we get reward for the challenges and difficulties as the says there's going to be ultimately that the Jewish people are going to experience a a an ability to eat what is the ability to eat it means that we have all of our needs taken care of all of our parnasa all of our livelihood will be provided so we have like a perview a large view of really the history of the Jewish people it starts with mistakes results in Exile but ultimately in the Messianic age we will experience the reward for all the challenges and difficulties that we've gone through in all of the mitz all of the ways that we've tried to fulfill the will of Hashem so that's in regards to to the Jewish people as a whole but it's also true in regards to who is this Adam who's going to be who is this human who's going to be drawn down to Egypt Z this is a reference to Joseph because it speaks about drawing the human and it speaks about drawing ysf and raising him up out of the B out of the pit that he was thrown into with chains of love right there was a love that Yakov had a Jacob that Jacob had a special love for Yosef and it resulted in yoseph and Joseph being sold to Egypt so there's a chain there's a negative result of the love but there's a clear love that yakob had for Yosef and we could say perhaps we could extend it that if Yakov who is the the Tas his face is is engraved on the throne of hm's Glory of y y so there's a specialness that has for y as well just like we saw before that the Jewish people their enemies have a certain power over them so too yosf he was subjugated by his enemies says the it's the wife of right he had a tremendous n she tried to convince him to do something wrong with her to do to to behave licentiously he refused he ended up in jail so he ended up in jail because of his enemies who were given dominion over him Lama why did he have to experience this what did ysep do wrong that he ended up in jail and that he had to go through all of this just like we saw with the Jewish people that there was something that they said that was wrong that caused us to have to go into guls to go into Exile Yosef as an individual also had said something wrong and therefore needed to go through these challenges and difficulties what was [Music] it the P says tells us that Yosef took the wrong approach with his brothers he brought a negative report back to their father about his brothers and as a result of that he wasn't yet fitting to be the leader of his brothers we could say the Jewish people as well when we said when we spoke of an idol as if it was the one who took us out of Egypt we prove that we're not yet ready to be the leaders of mankind to to guide all of humanity towards the one God towards one God towards Hashem and so just like the Jewish people had to go through Exile after exile to be purified from the mistakes that we made so to yose had to go through an exile a personal Exile in order to be redeemed from the mistakes that he made this what is the end of Y in a parallel way to what we saw with the Jewish people in the end Y is redeemed from jail he's brought out and he experiences a personal Redemption and ultimately becomes the leader over the entire Jewish people all over all of Egypt But ultimately because of his trials and TR because of the challenges that he went through that made him into a greater person that he stayed committed to God through it all Yosef would be somebody who would become a great person who would have the you would have the reward waiting for him at the end of that long tunnel that's the first piece in the medish so it's so important to know that the Jewish people generally when we look at the Jewish people's history we've gone through such challenges and we bear responsibility for the mistakes that we made and therefore we have these challenges but ultimately our challenges cleanse us and bring us to our ultimate awesome future and yoseph the leader of the Jewish people personally had a parallel type of experience through his life which ultimately he was redeemed from and Rose above and became the leader he was supposed to be and so it's a it's really something which each and every one of us can learn from in our personal lives but i' like to share with you one more piece in the mes which is profound another explanation of this P the P says that ysf was brought down to Egypt the Y also says later on that y was the leader he became the leader ultimately over all of Egypt the says that was brought down to Egypt but the Mish indicates that even when he was brought down to Egypt it looks like he's being brought down and he's going to be a slave he's being forcibly brought down but within the word Hur which means he was brought down there's also an implication that he's going to already from the first moment that he's brought down the word Hur can also mean the the S the shes the root of the word is the same as the word to to have dominion over like we see in the refers to the Dominion from one sea to the other sea and that indicates that indicates the fact that in yose's being brought down to Egypt it was already determined it was already predestined that he was to be the leader over Egypt he was going to have dominion over them the PK says in regards to King Solomon uses the same word he ruled over all of the people on the other side of the river so the also indicates there's there's another application of this PK which in on one hand their the Yosef was able to rule over them by their choice right parro chose Yosef ultimately to lead to rule over Egypt but there was also an aspect of him ruling over them against their will he took control that's the first part of the measure so it's very powerful because what it means is at the beginning of the story when everything seems terrible it's already planted the the end is embedded in the beginning the seed of yose's future leadership over Egypt and his leadership over the Jewish people it's already planted the dreams that he had they're already waiting to happen everything that he's going to go through is just a it's it's a process that he needs to go through in order to be the person that can be the leader but it's already it's already there from the beginning it's very interesting we go through challenges and difficulties in our lives and it seems so dark and seems so difficult but Hashem knows where this challenge is really going to bring us he knows the Salvation that's waiting for us at the end and it's already there in the first moment even though we don't see it says men another aspect the word which means that Y is is being brought down can also be read as H he brought down somebody else because there is someone else who's being brought down with Yosef ultimately and that is yakob his father Jacob what is it mean there's a positive aspect here the m is pointing out says it's analogous to a cow that it was time to for the cow to be brought to be slaughtered to the slaughter house it didn't want to go it sensed where it was being brought what did they do to this cow they they took the the baby cow and they drew the baby cow in front of they pulled the baby cow in front of the mother cow and because the mother cow saw its baby cow it followed after the baby cow to the place that it didn't really want to go in a parallel way yob Jacob and the Jewish people it was promised that they would go into Exile and really they should have been brought down into Exile in Chains in a difficult way not in such a good way Jacob is my my firstborn son he's my He's My Chosen One and I'm going to bring him down to Egypt in an embarrassing way read what could I do I how could I bring him down I could maybe put an idea in Pharaoh's heart that should cause him to be brought down in an embarrassing way in a public way I don't want to do that Hashem said I'm going to pull ysf down to Egypt right and I want to add in and he won't see him for 22 years and and it won't be possible for Yosef to come up to to Yakov and so yov when he has the opportunity finally to to see his son yoseph he's going to follow even though Egypt is not the place that he wants to be he knows it's a spiritually decadent location nevertheless just like the mother cow is drawn after its baby yako is going to be drawn after his son so there's there's a very positive aspect within the negative aspect this is how the gullis Begins the Exile begins which Kell has to go through we have to experience this Challenge and this difficulty but it could happen in a worse way it could look much worse than it looks it could be done in a way that is an embarrassment for Yakov and instead it's done in a way which is an honor for for Yakov when Yakov arrives in Egypt comes in front of pharaoh gives him a blessing so we have to also I believe that what it's teaching us is we go through difficult times we go through challenges we need to look for the positive even within the negative and the last Point here the me says is that besides for Yosef being brought down which really means bringing down his father there's someone else that's brought down with Yos that besides for Ys going down himself besides for him drawing down yob ultimately the divine presence went down with him as well how do we know this the divine presence went with him the verse tells us that God was with Joseph which means he had special Divine assistance and you know that's AES why is it such a novelty because where is the place of divine assistance that's really in the land of Israel so hasem as we saw a few weeks ago Hashem instructed AB Abraham to to leave exile to leave it's to leave the place of Tuma of impurity and to come to the land of Israel and we find that AES reveals himself mainly almost almost always the N the prophecy that the Jewish prophets had was in exclusively almost exclusively in the land of Israel and nevertheless his his divine presence goes along with Yosef to Egypt and I would say perhaps as aot the very fact that he was experiencing these challenges and difficulties it's something that perhaps we've all experienced I know I've experienced that when I had a very challenging time in life a difficulty in my life I felt hashem's presence I felt hashem's Hashem is there with me felt connected to Hashem even though at the same time it felt like where is Hashem so there was an experience of a YF and it's a lesson for us that he goes down he's dragged down to Egypt there's a positive side besides for all that we've spoken about and that is that Hashem is with him in a unique and and obvious way he has incredible success even despite the fact that he's a slave that he's in jail he's always experiencing hashem's Divine hash his Divine assistance in the negative places that he finds himself and I would say and I would apply this back to the first part of the mes which par which gave us a parallel between the people of Israel and yose if this is true of YF that wherever he went and all the experiences that he had ultimately there was a sweetening of the way things could have been and ultimately God was with him gave him special Divine assistance so to the Jewish people as a whole and each of us as individuals it applies to us as well whenever we go through these things whenever we're brought down so to speak whenever we have something that seems like a negative situation there's a positive to find there and it's possible to see if we look for it that hashem's divine presence is accompanying Us in these challeng in situations I want to bless you and I ask you to bless me should help us that we should be able to recognize that everything that happens in our lives is pre-planned is set up for our ultimate good and the challenges that we Face are in order to cleanse us hasm should help us recognize and find the good in each situation Hashem should help us to see that he is there with us in every challenge thank you so much for listening have a wonderful shabus this podcast was made possible through the gracious donations of listeners like you for more podcasts like this please visit www.wag.com or search on iTunes AR goldwag