Rabbi Yitzchak Breitowitz: Destiny of Israel, Free Will and The Sale of Yosef

[Music] I hope you're still enjoying the uh light of uh even after Kaneka uh the AA continues to be n uh really for really the rest of the year depending on how we grab on to it uh tonight's Sher is dedicated forua to mosha Ben hadasa as well as all of those whose Health has been affected by the war and especially for the return of our brothers and sisters in captivity that we really should not stop thinking about in any way uh in addition uh the sh should be in Alat sh for Ben and Har Moshe ra mlin dedicated by a FR man Naomi finstein and zh Jurel I've mentioned before that I personally knew uh Rabbi finlin uh he was a Corner Stone uh of the community in Hartford Connecticut and uh he was responsible for really being M many many people to Torah and mitzvos including myself and my brother and uh once again a very very great uh great man and his children became true B and Torah and I'm very very happy to also give the uh tonight's share is also sponsored by an anonymous donor again thank you Mr or Mrs Anonymous dedicated for thata and's protection of all may they return healthy to their homes with and mayem bring Thea now uh finally the end of year contributions are very much appreciated especially now we are still bringing tan and ctis to our brave and courageous soldiers on the front lines in appreciation for all of the activities uh will'll be planning and producing this year again uh we are still in an ace s besides the hostages we are and the soldiers we are in really kind of a Sak and and is one of the great protections that hasm gives us as the Mish uh staka can save a person God forbid even from death and therefore especially now uh one should think very much about giving sta for these their Z and for the of Cl Israel as a whole we know that this week has been a difficult week besides the usual difficulties uh but the idea that some of our own people were killed by uh Friendly Fire as it's called and again it's a tremendous tragedy but once again Kamas had has uh infinite tricks up its sleeve and there's no question that they orchestrated the release of hostages or the abandonment of hostages in the middle of a war zone where it's ped impossible to differentiate between combatants and and hostages so these types of accidents happens and Hamas obviously capitalizes on it to talk about Israeli brutalities and and and the like so we're dealing not only with someone that's brutal but someone who's very cunning in many many ways who will exploit every type of trick to make the Jewish people look bad and to disparage the war effort so once again there's an extra dimension of the ray uh that that we need um in these paros of course we are actually dealing with the single largest narrative really kind of the story of M yose an amazing story and this par of finally ysf gets reunited with his brothers and with his father and there is of of course something Bittersweet in the whole narrative on one hand there were 22 years of separation from the time Yosef was 17 to the time ysep is 39 22 years of separation and on the other hand we have the joy of reunion and on the third hand Yakov aino and Yosef and the brothers as well understand that this is the beginning of the servitude in the land that is not theirs that was already prophesied to arino remember arino in the Covenant of the parts was told that your children your seed shall be strangers in a land that is not theirs and they shall be enslaved and they will be persecuted for a total of 400 years we'll talk later about the calculation but let's go with Rashi 400 years from the birth of but when does the actual servitude begin or the period of servitude begins it begins really with Yakov coming down to MIT although those years were years of prosperity but the 210 years of our stay in MIM starts with yakobo and that is why Yakov was so afraid to go down to MIT and Hashem has to appear to him and reassure him that I'm taking you to mitzraim but I will also take you out of mitzraim this is the beginning of the gas so so many things are going on here the joy of reunion the pain of Separation the fear that galut May destroy am Israel and all of its Destiny all of these different things are going on now there are certain questions that every single year a person learns much and every single year they're going to have the same questions like how could yose's Brothers you know sell Yosef how could yoseph be so cruel right these are questions and no matter what answers you give next year you're going to ask the same questions because we wonder we wonder we look at ourselves you know we're not well I'll speak for myself not the biggest pic in the world and sometimes I might get angry at a family member but under no circumstances am I going to either want to kill the person or sell them into slavery so what the brothers did to yose is not only inexplicable in terms of the great mrea they have as shift forget about that a normal decent human being doesn't behave that way and then we look at it from yosef's perspective you know yosef's Brothers come they're in a desperate situ ation they need food for survival and yose you know doesn't reveal himself number one yose for 22 years doesn't even bother to contact his father now I understand for 10 to 12 years of that time he was in jail all right so we we could we can give him a pass for 10 to 12 years but once he becomes the Mion once he becomes the second in command presumably he has access to sending messages he doesn't tell his father anything he he puts his father through the ringer the father still not entirely clear to this day the mafor are in doubt whether Yakov did Yakov really think Yosef was dead or did Yakov know that Yosef was sold how much did Yakov know okay we we're not sure but still yoseph certainly didn't tell him anything and uh Yosef then hears from the brothers that our father did not want to let Benyamin go because if something happens to Benyamin that will kill him and yose Frames the brothers to force that well I'm sorry yose says uh I'm going to hold Shimon as a hostage until you bring me Benyamin and when he brings Benyamin Benyamin is framed with the cup the very thing that yoseph heard from his brothers that would literally kill their father Yakov yoseph orchestrates so there are so many problems in the whole story now one might say well Yosef is angry over the way he was treated well that might be a human response so to speak but nevertheless why is he treating yakob that way and second of all Yosef is a sadic why why would he behave in that particular way so I can assure you one the one thing I can tell you ahead of time is that whatever I say you will have the same question next year this this these are the Eternal questions that we Ponder and we Ponder and we Ponder and we never get a complete resolution but I just want to share with you a few thoughts some of which might be familiar to you let's first look at the the dispute between yose and his brothers there's a well-known sorno Raj sorno one of the great medieval commentators in Italy who basically explained that the brothers did have aav Shay uh even though they were motivated by their self-interest and their jealousy but at least in their minds they felt they had a spiritual rationale y the Torah tells us was bringing lanara about the brothers to the father yose was making various accusations Yosef was claiming they were eating a they were eating limbs that were severed from animals while they're still alive which is not only forbidden for Jews but even forbidden to noahides uh yoseph says that the brothers uh at least the children of Leia were treating the uh the children of the maid servants in a disrespectful way again there a whole discussion was yosef's claims true were they not true but putting that aside again the brothers saw that Yosef was trying to replicate a pattern that had already existed in the past aaham had two sons a and Ismael Ismael gets expelled the heritage of Abraham goes down to y y has an as yov and an asov and once again asov gets Mount SE and ASV is expelled from being having ER Israel and certainly from the spiritual Heritage that's the whole story of Yakov taking the bras so now Yakov has 12 sons and what what ysep is doing is ysf is driving a wedge between yakob and all of the other Sons they think that Yosef is trying to orchestrate a separation of 11 of the tribes even B from that relationship bamin didn't participate in the sale but y seems to include even even bamin so they see that what is going on is yosef's attempts as they read it to alienate theim from Yakov does not just affect them as individuals but it affects their destiny the destiny of their children until the end of time that they are going to be severed from the house of Israel the house of yov and all of the heritage of Torah and kadus and Ras which is the mission of the Jewish people shall be reposed only in ysf the Soro says tell us God if I cause you to sin if I cause you to reject the Torah I am even worse than if I try to kill you now we know if somebody tries to kill me there is a that is called Roda right I can kill the pursuer this is the reason why we can kill a terrorist uh again it's it's a bit of a complicated Roda remember is not punishment Roda is prevention that's why I can kill the terrorist before he does his act once the terrorist is under my control once he's disabled Hally I could not shoot him he he would have to be Tried by a court and sentenced remember Roda is not punishment for a bad guy Roda is prevention of harm but be does it may the sorno famously says that the brothers adjudicated Yosef as a Roda and as a Roda they are committed they felt to kill him or at least disable him such as by selling him into slavery so the brothers had a h basis so to speak for their decision but it's very interesting there's a fascinating or a very famous or as well which is a very controversial or the initial proposal was let's kill him ruane spoke up and ruane said let us not be guilty of shedding his blood let us throw him into this pit now the says ruan's intention was that he was going to go back later and retrieve him that didn't work because Yehuda said let's pull the one Ruan was gone Yehuda said let's pull him up and sell him to the isim but at least ruan's argument was let's throw him into the pit now everyone knows the famous kazal the pit is described as the pit was empty there was no water so the gamaran chabas says if the pit was empty of course it had no water what's the point of saying it and the answer is it had no water but there were snakes and scorpions so what's going on here ruane says let's not kill him let's throw him into the pit if you throw somebody into a pit of snakes and scorpions they're going to die that thear says if they there are witnesses that a man fell into a pit of snakes and scorpions that is enough evidence to allow his wife to remarry even though they didn't see a dead body so what's ruan's kesan here Ruan kesan is let's not kill him let's throw him into the pit now you could say simple babat that ruin didn't know there were snakes and scorpions that's POS he didn't see them but there is a famous the logical explanation of the and this is a major major issue in Jewish philosophy here is what Ruan says ruan's thinking is very complex Ruan says yeah it is true that we have adjudicated yose as a r and therefore according to our adjudication Y is Misa is deserving to death but you know maybe we're wrong maybe we're MO motivated by jealousy maybe we're motivated by hatred how do we know that we are truly objective if we kill him that is not proof that God has agreed to our action because since we are B we are people who have free will and God gave human beings free will to do good and evil when a human being perpetrates an evil we don't say it's the will of God human beings can in a sense this is what the says override the will of God because that is the kak of so if we kill him that does not validate our decision-making process the same way that if Kamas kills somebody that doesn't validate what Kamas is doing or Hitler or anybody else Mas says the I do not try this at home theim says animals are not b and therefore animals cannot inflict harm on a human being unless it is the direct will of the creator meaning if a righteous person were to fall into the pit of snakes the snakes couldn't harm him by the way that's kind of the basis of the Christian sex that fool around with snakes they make that argument therefore Ruan says if you want a litmus test whether our adjudication is correct or incorrect we cannot be the ones who kill him we'll throw him into the snakes and if indeed he is totally innocent the snakes will not harm him now the amazing thing is according to the he was thrown into the snakes he survived and they still pull him out and they sell him that just shows you that indeed there was a motivation of jealousy and the like in which uh even the very test that Ruan proposed they didn't follow they said oh maybe these are gentle snakes or these are benign scorpions or or whatever whatever it would be now this AR again I don't want to get into a whole share on this because this one can really spend not just one share one could spend many many hours on the idea of the orim is actually offering a possible perspective on the age-old question of Moshe of e of job and that is why do bad things happen to good people why does the god of Mercy allow evil things to happen to people don't deserve such things and the orim's answer seems to be that at least to some degree this is the inevitable Fallout of human Free Will meaning instead of asking the question for the Holocaust where was God the real question was where was man the Holocaust may tell us more about the human condition than it may about God's reasons the is suggesting that the inevitable Fallout of is that things will be done in the world that God did not want to happen in the world but God had to let it happen because God lets free will have a certain degree of of free reign now the reason is ultimately because at a higher more abstract generalized level in other words people ask the question does God want evil to exist in the world the answer is no he doesn't but did does God want us to have the ability to do evil in the world the answer is yes so it all depends on how you define the question God does not want evil but God wants humans to have the capacity to do evil because only when you have the capacity of choice your virtuous Choice becomes good in other words evil is a necessary evil evil is a necessary consequence of a system that can maximize virtue by autonomous free will see God can't create a free will system where you only have one choice that's like the old well I was going to say the old elections in the Soviet but the truth is it's the new the present elections in Russia you know one candidate on the ballot you know whatever whatever it would be that's not choice you see in fact this is the whole mystery of of this that if God created a world where goodness would simply be automatic it would not be virtuous virtue means you have the capacity to go the other way so the AR is saying a remarkable thing actually both sides of the arim are remarkable one is is the snake is not going to hurt me if I'm innocent well as I say don't try that at home that's a dangerous thing to try and the other proposition is a human being can kill me even if it's not the will of God because I am within the Ambit of his Free Will and God at a higher level of abstraction wants there to be free will that too is very questionable the the great saer which was written hundreds of years before the the goes back to before the rambam in the 11th century makes the startling proposition that no person can harm another person unless it is the will of God and that creates the enormously complicated problem that on one hand the perpetrator has free will the robber who shoots somebody could have chosen not to pull the trigger right so he could have decided not to on the other hand his victim who dies would have died anyway in other words no person can harm another person in fact in the language of the this is an amazing thought he says no one is responsible for their deeds they are only responsible for their thoughts meaning if ruen kills Shima ruen according to the is not the murderer because if God didn't want Shimon to die Shimon wouldn't die now why Shimon died we don't know it's not that Shimon did anything bad necessarily but it was God's decree that Shimon die so why is Ruan accountable for that he's accountable for that because of the evil motive in other words it's ultimately the thought that makes him accountable not the deed because the says no human being can do anything to another human being without the will of God um which is very hard to apply because that would suggest that had Hitler not orchestrated the Holocaust somehow 6 million people would have had heart attacks you know it's hard to imagine exactly how to fit the but this is a a very very famous I'm sorry a famous this is to be contrasted with the that says God created a world in which human Free Will has a certain autonomous power to perpetrate evil even though it's not God's direct will so the truth is either of those positions has a lot of complexities attached to it uh but I'm just here to just present the position so you'll have a sense of what a major issue this is in Jewish in Jewish philosophy uh the autonomy of evil as a function of enabling virtuous Free Will okay that's the that's the fundamental problem yeah I think was Kish was supposed to build the B but did not and God was upset that is God wanted him to but ultimately he did not so here you see a confrontation between what God wanted what actually yeah but you see I I I think that's a little less of a problem because that simply means that's like everything else in which uh you know God wants me to do mitzvot and I don't do them right so God doesn't want me to make that decision and therefore I'm accountable for it but here we're dealing with uh really interpersonal harm meaning where there's a victim meaning uh the point is if my actions victimize somebody they hurt somebody they kill somebody uh is our position like fatalism it was God's will that that happened or is that the Fallout of of B it's I think it's a little different when you're actively victimizing another person so this is a huge a huge issue it's an issue in Jewish philosophy that that that uh is being debated to this very very day yeah that that's very correct now there you do have a direct biblical Source if you remember uh when DAV is running away from a Shalom so shimi Bena is cursing David and yoav benia David's General and nephew who is very quick to the sword says let me finish this guy off and says if it wouldn't be God's will that he cursed me he wouldn't have cursed me and therefore I must accept it as God's will that's a very strong fact brings that as support for his position of course again I don't want to get too far a field uh the problem is there's an inconsistency in D's own behavior on one hand he initially says you know I accept whatever God God decrees on David's deathbed he instructs his son schlomo be sure to finish off this guy shimy and find some pretense to kill him I mean that's just learning theim in simple what's the difference started off patient accepting forbearing accepting the Divine will and then he says get the guy so the maam explained that David on one hand accepted this as the will of God which is but shimi was still of because of his but David didn't want to kill him in the Heat of the Moment because maybe he would be motivated out of anger and personal animosity so he waited until he cooled down and then he objectively determined the of I remember hearing from the um the bust rebi not not well the the the the the older the buston Reby is not alive anymore uh of Le it's orwitz who uh was in in Boston this is before he moved to Israel when I was in law school he was in Boston and I was to uh you know spend shabas with him I mean you know me and another 150 people but you know but a very very hospitable sadic uh one interesting thing was that his in his tradition you were not allowed to make kides between 6:00 p.m. and 700 p.m. so I remember that if daving was finished like a quarter to six there was a mad it's hard to get 150 there was a mad rush to get seated and say Kish because if it was 601 you were stuck until 7th so I I I still remember kind of the the the you know the Mad running running around when it was close to 6 o' to try to get Kish in before the reason is because under the concept that every hour is ruled by different constellations so uh 6 to 7 the 6th hour after midday is ruled by Mars the constellation of Mars the red planet it was considered to be bad mazal to uh to prey or to Davin during that particular hour so I I do remember that mad rush but the bust rebi once said that his father who was the first busner rebi I used to think buner was like must be some City in the Ukraine no bner re means Boston Massachusetts that's what it was that he said that his father used to hit him there was corporal punishment you know in those days but he said his father always waited 24 hours after the offense that uh if the child did something that was not proper he would not hit him right away he would wait because he wanted to be sure that he is doing it because objectively this is good for the child and not out of anger because the truth of the matter is I mean all of us might be guilty of this but you know if we use our children to express our anger that is actually a form of abuse a child is not a punching B so Haka recognizes the imperative of discipline yeah I'm I have to discipline my child I have to give him guidelines I have to give him boundaries and at least in in older systems of maybe even some gentle corporal punishment again today that's very discouraged even among uh gum and the like but it has to be because that is best for the child it can't just be that I'm upset so the rebi would wait would wait a while his father would wait 24 hours and I'm suggesting that David did the same of waiting now interestingly enough I once told this story and there was a child psychologist in the room member of my show and she said she didn't like it because kids don't have a memory uh younger kids don't remember what they did 24 hours ago so all of a sudden in the middle of nowhere they get a clap says they're not they're not going to connect it uh to the earlier to the earlier story so okay so you know you can talk about that a little bit maybe 24 hours is too long but certainly 5 minutes would make sense yeah has overtones of picking to write a against the nobody else could do it without any anger or right very very good this is uh this is the beautiful famous V from RAV cook that sh hakatan was able to OS the curse against the Heretics because his motto was the verse in Mishay do not personally Revel in the downfall of your enemies and therefore he was not coming at it with anger resentment and hate he was coming after a genuine need of the Jewish people to be freed and I have to say that you know this this is the Jewish attitude I mean on one hand I'm getting far field here on one hand we we we are not pacifists right we do understand that you have to wage war and you have to sometimes kill the enemy and someone is coming to kill you you have to kill them we don't say turn the other cheek right now we're grappling with the excruciating dilemma of balancing saving the hostages and pursuing the War I mean it's unfortunately on some level these are contradictory needs but we got to try to do both to the best of our ability and the other hand to the credit of the IDF and the Jewish people we don't Rejoice we don't Revel in the destruction of even Palestinian life and the fact that there are so many civilian um casualties in Gaza it may be absolutely necessary because of Kamas but you know we're not rejoicing I mean unlike you know the other side that sings and dances the more Jews that we kill we have a lot of SAR even even over their losses not only our losses and that goes back to when hasem said uh Hey the Egyptians are drowning and Hashem drowned them Hashem didn't say you know give them a pass but he said you know they're my people too and this is not a time for joy we do what has to be done we do what we have to do but we don't have to enjoy it we shouldn't enjoy it so you're correct that was that was of Cook's point in the bra ofal okay so these the brothers so we have some at least we have some framework of explanation the sorno the and and Al likee but now let's go to Yosef yosef's Brothers come to him uh they have not seen him for 22 years he recognizes them they don't recognize him again K give a very simple explanation when he left them they already had beards Yosef at 17 didn't have a beard so ysep looks differently right so they don't so they don't recognize him whatever why doesn't he reveal himself why doesn't he send a message to Yakov so here uh we have uh once again these are very well-known thoughts just to them again we have the great thesis of the ramban and the ramban's thesis is that Yosef had two dreams at the very beginning of his career I mean those dreams got him in trouble back in AR Israel one was the dream of the sheaves the sheaves bowing down to him and the other was the dream of the Sun and the Moon and the K and these were dreams that indicated he would be a ruler over his brothers and to some degree even over his father and mother now of course his mother was not alive but you know so that indicated part of the dream was not EMS on the other hand his mother could be Bila his adopted mother so to speak who is rael's ma servant that after raal died she raised him whatever it would be but the ramban says Yosef understood that these dreams are prophecies as indeed they are they are not just dreams you know I can dream that I'm a king or whatever it is that might just be some delusion of grander Yosef understood that these are Divine dreams and as a result he had a mission the ran says to carry out those dreams he had a mission to make himself a melik he couldn't just reveal himself to his brothers and say hi we brothers and everyone's going to hug and kiss and sit around he had to make them subservient he had to make them bow down to him he had to make them acknowledge Him as king and the ran goes further the ran says and Benyamin had to be part of that too because Benyamin is the 11th brother he's the 12th brother but he's the know they're 11 right so he has to bring Benyamin down because the dream is not complete until Benyamin comes down now listen to this the ramban says but even that's not enough he has to have Yakov bow down to him so the ramban actually says y's initial plan was by Framing Benyamin he would force Yakov to come down and beg meaning what happened was yoseph couldn't carry out the plan yoseph broke down too early yose's plan was that Yakov would come begging for benin's life and that would have been the Fulfillment of the and then everything could proceed in a good way so this is the ramban and and ramban's famous thesis is that all of yose's behavior is explained as his belief that he was obligated to ensure the Fulfillment of his and the ran actually says ysf never fully fulfilled now it's true the does say that when ysf is it's Yakov before yakov's death it says Yakov bow down to him so there was some aspect of fulfillment but he didn't bow down to him as a Mel this is this after all was his son the ramban says Yosef intended that yov bow down to him as a Mel or a miss this is what the ran says aan was able to sublimate his feelings in all other areas but here he fail he to bring well um no he doesn't he he just says at some points emotions can overpower everybody now in a way the explanation might be the Kasha of the abarbanel under ramban that I'm going to say the abarbanel right everyone knows the famous abarbanel Don D the title of nobility Don yit abarbanel uh the Finance Minister to Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain the one who actually financed Columbus's Expedition uh to the new world uh the one Jew who was so necessary to the government that at the time of the expulsion of the Jews from Spain uh he was given permission to remain which he turned down he he went into Exile uh with uh the rest of the Jewish people uh but in addition he wrote voluminous commentaries on Kish n Nim and the Book of danil was he was very very interested in Messianic speculation he actually wrote three commentaries on saer danil which deals with calculations of of mashia he also wrote a parish on moim and a very long Parish on the ha and on per very very prolific prolific writer uh he has a very interesting Style just to digress for a moment uh he whenever he approaches any type of unit peric or whatever he will give you many many many questions he'll give you like 50 questions and after he gives you all the questions he then gives you explanations he summarizes other maor and then he gives you his explanation so they tell a joke about the person who became a heretic uh because he used to read a barbanel after the eating cholan shabas lunch so he would sit in his easy chair and he'd read like 50 questions on the paraa and then he'd fall asleep before he got to the answer so he says Ah I can't believe in the Torah there's so many contradictions so many problems so it's a little risky to have too many questions before you give answers uh but it's really a because because theel is so long we sometimes are discouraged from learning it but there's tremendous tremendous uh insights so I see in English now there are different abridgments or adaptations of AEL to try to make his insights available in an easier in an easier fashion uh but be it as it may the ranel discusses m y and discusses yosef's Behavior and the barbanel brings the ramban as he normally does and he questions the ran he says he doesn't understand this ramban you have a dream and you believe the dream is God's prophecy but a prophecy is not the same as a command God didn't command yph Thou shalt be king God tells yoseph you're going to be a king but the ends don't justify the means yoseph does not have a header to hurt his father to hurt his brothers to take Vengeance to frame who's an innocent innocent person meaning there's a problem with the ramban's thesis that a dream even when it is prophetic is not a commandment it is simply God telling you the unfolding of the future but you still have an obligation to make virtuous good choices yoseph doesn't have the right to manipulate reality to achieve that dream Hashem will cause it to be achieved one way or the other if if it is intended to be so because of this the ranel gives another alternative interpretation that yosef's behavior was not so much to ensure the Fulfillment of his dream but was to ensure that his brothers have done Chua and that is the brother sold him because of jealousy and the origin of the jealousy yes the dreams may have been the straw that broke the camel's back true but the origin of the jealousy is essentially the Rivalry that existed between Rael and Leia because Rael was yakov's favorite wife the most beloved wife although Rael is no long no longer alive and essentially the brothers know that yako favors Yosef and B is very young as as the favorite and therefore they were motivated out of a jealousy that the B Lea and Theos had for the B ra now yoseph needs to know have his brothers repented have they overcome their hatred so here's the thing there's only one child of raal that the brothers are aware of and that's Benyamin he wants to bring Benyamin down he wants to Trump up a charge against Benyamin he wants baman to be taken as he wants to take baman in prison he then wants to see how the brothers are going to respond if they're still consumed by jealousy and rivalry they might even think ah good rid so now the last vestage of of Ben Rael is out of the picture and we'll tell Yakov what can we do you know we're kind of stuck but if they're willing to be Moser neish they're willing to give their lives for bamin that shows they have overcome their hatred and their jealousy and their rivalry and therefore Yosef will then reveal himself only after the there is a m nees for uh for a child of RA and therefore the raan the abarbanel says this was a test of Chua so now I just want to add something to the barbanel because one might ask the same question theel asks on the ramban perhaps we can ask in lean now yeah the brothers committed a tremendous sin in selling yoseph the brothers have an obligation to do chuva but do I have the right to engage in dishonest behavior in Cruel behavior in attacking innocent victims such as Yakov Vino and Benyamin because I'm going to make you do chuva even if it kills you what's what's going on I I don't have the right to commit sins to be sure that you do chuva that's your responsibility so you have the same problem if the barbanel asks on the ramban what gives Yosef the right to orchestrate events to fulfill the dreams what gives Joseph the right to do this to ensure that his brothers do tra and the answer is and I think we could build this into the abarbanel in more detail is that this is not simply a matter of Chua of 10 individual people right there were 10 people who were involved in selling Yosef they got to do Chua it's not simply about 10 people doing chuva but rather Yosef understands something when yose contemplates his extraordinary life and yosef's life is is so extraordinary that it wouldn't even be accepted as a movie if it wouldn't already be in the Bible it is so unlikely a 17-year-old a teenager gets sold into slavery by his own brothers and he languishes in prison for years and somehow he rises to be one of the most powerful people in the world because controlling the world economy at a time of famine I mean how did it happen what's going on how does he go from the nater of failure to the epitome of greatness and power and Yosef understands that there must be a reason why he's here and there must be a mission that God has for him and that mission is that he knows this is the beginning of the Egyptian servitude and he knows that the Jews are going to be in MIT for 210 years and he knows that those 210 years are going to be a very very difficult time not just physically but even spiritually we are told the Jewish people reached the the 49th level of impurity and had they stayed even another minute they should have stayed longer in MIT but if they would have stayed another minute they would have hit Level 50 they would have been irredeemable that when they Al writes when it says they didn't have time to let their dough rise so they had to bake matah it's not just parro kicking them out the Aral says I don't even know what it means the amount of time it would have take for that dough to become bread they would have fit level 50 of theara they didn't practice fris Mila they were thoroughly assimilated into the decadence of mitam in many many ways but y understands that his Divine mission is to give B Israel the wherewithal and the K to be able to withstand the Egyptian gas and in reality all future Goot and that's why Yosef in his life has to encapsulate in the extremes the varying experiences and challenges of the Jew and exile yoseph suffers slavery persecution false accusations that's one set of challenges yoseph then has another set of challenges how do you remain faithful to God in affluence in power you know the challenge of power may be greater sometimes than the challenge of Oppression the babbi used to say it's easier to be Jewish it was easier to be Jewish in Siberia than Suburbia Siberia was persecution suburbia's affluence the last of course he lived in both well not Suburbia but you know whatever America so so the point basically is Yosef has to experience everything and yoseph understands he has to prepare the you know burgeoning Nation to have the strength to withstand the challenges of belot now everyone knows the well-known gar and SA or the medish there are different versions of it that's why there's not a single mimer that although the Jewish people reached uh were as low as the 49th level of Tuma and indeed four fifths died in the plague of darkness which means four fifths hit the 50th level it's the one fifth that was 49 you know going down the oneth that survived had certain Z says they didn't change their names they didn't change their language again there are different versions some say they wore distinctively Jewish clothing some say they didn't intermar they didn't speak Lush and Hara about each other different listings there now if we look at those lists we look at that list of factors it's important to understand these are not what we would call frite these are not religious ideas I mean they were there have V Des over they were worshippers except for shav Ley rather these are what you might call AK indicators indicators of unity togetherness I keep my Jewish name I keep my Jewish clothing I speak Hebrew I keep my Jewish language you know I remember I think I've said the story before when I lived in Chicago so in those days Devon Avenue was the main Jewish drag in Chicago it still is but now it's largely Indian now there are other ethnic groups there it's not as Jewish as it was uh but I remember uh walking down Deon Avenue in a winter Chicago winter this may have been like 1979 1980 and there was a kosher style restaurant the trfe trfe kosher called The Bagel you know open on chabas the food was not Kosher but they serve Jewish style food so I remember there was a sign in the window that said we give you a free glass of wine with every order of cholet so I was a young you know young in those days and a little cynical and I said to myself ah this is an example of the superficiality of gastronomic Judaism here you have a guy who's going to have non- kosher wine unless it's manevitz maybe it was kosher who knows non kosher wine non kosher cholin goes into a an shab shabas and somehow this guy is going to feel that he's doing a Jewish thing because he remembers that his grandmother made choling and this way he's having cholin and I thought to myself it's so worthless it's so superficial it's so stupid that somebody would have a sense that they're doing a Jewish thing because they're having TR cholent on chabas but as I get older hopefully wiser that I can't promise but at least older I think to myself that you know this is exactly what got the Jews out of MIM meaning the Merit that saved them from hitting level 50 was I'm a Jew I want to identify with my people I want to be connected when they suffer I suffer when they Rejoice I Rejoice so yeah I don't know about Torah yet I don't know about Mitzvah yet but the thing is I want to connect to what I remember my grandmother did I want to connect to what Jewish people do I know that they have wine on chabas I don't know why I don't know what Tish is now that's not the end point that's not the end point but that's the beginning Point that's a beginning identifying with your fellow Jew is the beginning of redemption again not the end I'm not at all suggesting that's all that matters of course that's not all that matters but without that you don't have a start so when it says they didn't change their language they didn't intermar they didn't speak lar against each other we're not talking about frite we're not talking about they learned one every day in the's book about not speaking lashar we're talking about the notion these are my people and you see this now Lisa people tell me about you know they bump into people coming from the uh us you know tattoos and and you know whatever it is people who are not connected to the Jewish religion at all and somebody asked him like why are you here he says well my people are suffering my people are struggling I want to be part of my people so you can disparage that you can say ah you know what is that but I think that's a big mistake that counts for a lot you know did you ever have this experience I have this experience in an airport a lot you know I I mean obviously I look Orthodox so uh people come over to me I mean of course in Israel nobody does because Israel there million other people are Orthodox but let's say I'm in an airport where there aren't you know a lot of religious Jews so people come over to me almost in a conspiratorial whisper and they say you know I'm part of the tribe or I'm Jewish to now I have to say I actually don't like it because they're usually bothering me I'm usually doing something else but that's my problem if I don't like it that's Ain in me I should like it because here you have a person who says I just want you to know I'm a Jew too and that's a beautiful thing that is what I would call the beginning of redemption that is what it meant in MIT they didn't change their language they didn't change the name I want to identify with the Jewish people that's a great thing in fact tragically tragically one of the aspects of um the anti- Zionism that is so prevalent even among Jews on college campuses without getting into the whole issue is that they actually lose a sense of identification with the Jewish people they no longer consider the Jewish people as an entity to which they're proud to be part of and historically that was not the case even in the reform movement and the like I mean Jewish Pride was always a Cornerstone of everything and unfortunately you know when you're losing that you know you you lost it you you you know you've just lost everything there's nothing to build right if a person is proud to be a Jew I can then talk to him about Shabbat K I can talk to him because he has that Foundation of being proud to be a Jew if he's not proud to be a Jew then where are you going to go with that there there's nowhere to go at all so here's the point if yose understands that his mission is to prepare the Jewish people to withstand the Egyptian Exile and if yose understands that the only way they will survive is withus and unity and a sense of being connected to each other as we see in not changing their language and the like then ysf does have to ensure that his brothers have AK and AA for every component of the Jewish people it's not just a question of Yosef orchestrating in individual Chua of 10 people it's Yosef creating the Rua The Cure before the Affliction comes and therefore yose is wants to be sure yoseph cannot let the Exile begin the galut cannot begin until the factors that will protect us in that gut are there that is aat Isel getting over jealousy and rivalry and animosity and polarization I got to be sure this is y's job I got to be sure this is in place and for that I can orchestrate reality and do all sorts of stuff because this need is so Paramount this is a need that is the entire survival of the Jewish people we know that uh this week um very unusual we actually have a fast day on Friday very unusual this is the only fast uh that can be on an a of Shabbat that is the fast of the tenth of Taves and the tenth of Taves is the first of the fasts that commemorate the events that culminated in the destruction of the bikash this is when began the siege against Jerusalem and there's a famous Abu dram that actually says that if aarav would fall out on chabas we would actually fast even on chabas now that's an untestable proposition because the Jewish calendar doesn't allow for that possibility but this is the famous theoretical construct that the Abu dram advances and the rambam writes that when we fast over the destruction of the temple we're not you know whether it's the n9th of a the 17th of thas whatever whatever fast day it is we're not just mourning the past but we're trying to make a spiritual accounting of why there was a Corban and what can I do to rebuild the basa mikdash and certainly one of the things we think about is the famous statement in kazal that the second temple was destroyed because of because of the hatred and polarization that exists among the Jewish people so especially on a fast day I mean really all the time but especially on a fast day and of course especially during this time of travail we should think about building bridges we should think about the pride of being a Jew and the fact that anyone who wants to identify as a Jew is worthy of respect and worthy of appreciation and by building those bridges we Rectify what caused thean and we will be now I have to say and I've said this number of times already that if there's any Silver Lining to all of the adversity and challenge that we're going through through it is the fact that the in is is much much stronger than it was people don't even remember anymore uh before October 7 which wasn't so long ago the country was being torn apart by every type of fight every type of dispute judicial reform in the Army a million things I mean every uh you couldn't tell there was always a demonstration the buses were always being blocked sometimes but you know there were so many different causes it was hard to even keep track but more than that it wasn't just you know demonstrations people were seriously talking about they were talking about the end of democracy in the state of Israel the end people were talking about withdrawing their money from the Israeli economy Reserve people in the miluim reservist were saying they were not going to report to military duty in protest things were falling apart in a very very bad way religious secular within religious within secular there was was no longer know even political discourse everything was at homonym filled with hatred and attacks then comes the Pam I'll call it of October 7 of sim T you're supposed to be the happy one of the happiest days of the year and it's an ongoing tragedy we still have the hostages theim are still are still under attack but the one thing that has happened is people have come together uh we have the CZ and Fillin project in which thousands and thousands of secular people want to wear theit and some have actually joined the army uh others are bringing you know medical supplies or SES or fill in or books or foods and there's a notion that we have that in this country there's a shared Destiny a shared fate as Thomas Payne said about the American Revolution you got to hang together or for sure you're going to hang separately and if I could say this we're getting the lesson it took a war and my fear is that when the war is over you know we might go back to normal that would be that would be a tragedy on top of a tragedy but this should continue to sustain us even when conditions get better and in that way we're laying the foundation for the true that that we hope for so have a good shabas good week thank [Music] you down