Yosef, Yehuda and Tamar | When You Discover That You Got It All Wrong

the yeshiva.net [Music] it is the longest speech in the entire safe and beratious and it's the presentation that yahudah presents before the prime minister of egypt not knowing that it's his own brother joseph pleading with him to let binyamin go free and that's the opening of parshas vayigash now let's remember the context and the continuity of the narrative the brothers of yosef have come down to egypt in order to purchase grain due to a devastating famine in the entire region they of course don't know that the prime minister whom they meet is none other than their own brother who they sold into slavery more than two decades earlier 21 years earlier they can't recognize him a lot of water has passed under the bridge and he's not the same person he doesn't look the same as he did when he was 17 years old now he's 39 years old he was 30 when he was liberated from prison there was seven years of hunger seven years of plenty 37 years followed by uh seven years of famine so now he's 38 or 39 they saw him last when he was 17 years old he doesn't look the same he's certainly not dressed the same he doesn't speak the same language they can't imagine in their wildest dreams that the prime minister of egypt the viceroy of the superpower of the time the man who is responsible literally for the entire economy of this superpower and is the lifeline has become the lifeline of the entire region in this time of hunger is none other than their baby brother and as they meet him he puts them through the crucible as they say he accuses them of espionage of being spies he imprisons them for three days at the end of three days he says the only way i can ascertain that you are authentic you're real you're honest is if you can demonstrate practically what you have told me when you met me that you have a father at home and you have another brother a baby brother binyamin whom you've left home because your father did not want him to come on this journey from kanan to egypt and in order to determine that you go home bring food but one brother has to stay here in prison and if you want to get him back you'll come back with your baby brother binyamin and then you'll be able to get food again and you'll be able to have this brother they have no choice at this point they go home without chimin yaakov is of course devastated and refuses to send binyamin he already lost his wife rachel her son joseph and now her only second son that remains binyamin plus shimon another boy is missing but hunger strikes and the hunger is profound and the hunger is relentless and the children are starving and as the major says there's nothing like the feeling of parents when they see their children starving literally starving and yaakov acquiesces yaakov acquiesces he surrenders he sends banyam and not before yehudah says i will guarantee his safe return from my hand you should seek him if i don't bring him back to you and present him to you i will have sinned to you for all the days of my life and yaakov accepts this he sends binyamin and they're now back to egypt so now you have all 11 brothers sherman is released joseph sees his brother binyamin his only full brother both from a father and the same father and the same mother and as you know joseph invites them to a feast at the feast he gives them all gifts he gives binyamin some extra gifts but on the way back already coming back from egypt back to the holy land everything seems fine and dandy they got back shimon binyamin is on the way home the 11 brothers are united they're going to go back to yaakov they have grain they have food now the real nightmare begins to unfold unbeknow is to them joseph had his goblet his becker his via his silver goblet placed hidden in the sack of binyamin and as they're leaving up to khnaan he has his man the man in charge on his home pursue them and ask them why would you pay back a favor with such evil and immoral behavior to steal my personal goblet of course the brothers deny it they say no way that we stole it in fact the money that we found in our bags because when they came back the first time they found all the money that they paid for the food back in their bags we returned we're honest people we wouldn't take an extra penny from you why would we steal we returned the money that we found in our bags now we're going to steal your goblet in fact if yes that person could die they were so certain that this couldn't happen and of course the search begins and the goblet is found in the sack of binyamin so the brothers tell the men in yosef's representatives and the words are very telling because when they find the goblet in the in the sack of benyamin they all tear their clothes and they come back to egypt yehuda and his brothers come to yahs if you say why would you do this why would one of your brothers steal my goblet and yahudah speaks up and says what should we say god has found the sin of your servants as rashi puts it very sad words we have an old debt and the one we owe the money to found a way in which to exact payment from us we didn't steal this goblet but god found the sin of your servants we're guilty for something else we will all be servants we will all become slaves for you all of us eleven brothers will now remain as slaves and yosef says khalillah heaven forbid i would do such a thing this thief remains with me he will remain a slaver and you go up in peace to your father and this is how parshasmikates ends it literally ends with such suspense because it's a middle of a conversation all joseph could say is all of you go back to your brother to your father he will remain here which is exactly what yaakov was so afraid of that he's going to lose bina and it's what yahooda guaranteed yakov that i will bring binyam and i will bring benjamin back to you and now at this moment he's caught as a thief and he can't bring him back to him because the viceroy of the country said he must remain as a slave in fact they said the thief should die he said no i'm going to take him as a slave and you go back in peace it's almost with humorous irony peacefully harmoniously pleasantly returned to your father and it's at this moment that parasha's vaigash the next week's portion commences love yehudah they're all speaking to yahs if they're all in his home they all came back from their journey back to egypt with torn clothes as a sign of grief and mourning for what happened but now of yehuda yehuda from all the 11 brothers approaches joseph and he begins giving him a speech and as i began this is the longest speech in the entire state of variations jews generally give long speeches this is an old axiom somebody once introduced a rabbi and he said this rabbi doesn't need a good introduction he needs a good ending but that's all a contemporary invention the jews of all didn't give long speeches they gave very very short speeches because they knew what they wanted to say when you know what you want to say you could say it in a half a minute when you don't know what you want to say two hours also doesn't help that's why most speeches in hummus are fascinating one verse two verses three verses is already huge but the speech of yehuda to yousef is the longest it goes from paerik lamit paerika mem dalit prosecutress through pasek lamid dalit genesis 44 from verse 18 through verse 34. and the speech is constructed if i could say so marvelously exceptionally how yehuda presents his case his arguments he tells the story he reaches the punch line he comes with the request or the demand to joseph and basically what yehuda does is he tells the story of their encounter with this prime minister throughout their first from their first journey down to egypt until this moment and after he finishes telling the story he says and now if i come back without binyamin what happens is his soul is bound up with the soul of yakriff and when he sees that his lad his child is not here the mace is going to die and we are going to cause him to go down into the grave with everlasting grief and sadness that's how yehuda concludes he tells the whole story and the story concludes it begins with the fact that you started to ask us questions about our family which was really irrelevant we came here for a simple business transaction you go into a grocery store and the people are not supposed to ask you how many brothers you have home and you did ask us these questions we told you everything we told you this brother can't leave his father he's young and he has another brother who died when we come back and we tell our father we can't go get food because the master said that we can't come down without our younger brother our father tells us you know that i had a wife and she gave me two she gave she gave birth to two sons one was devoured and i haven't seen him today and now you take the second one and he may die too this is the story you heard this telling joseph and now he comes to the punchline and he says now you want me to come back to my father without him i can't but naf shakshura my father is going to die immediately now you hood he's already by possibly base only three so come left he finished he finished i can't come back without benjamin now the obvious question is why is he speaking from 11 brothers says your servant has assumed the role of the guarantor i have become the guarantor for this child i told my father if i don't bring him back to you i will have been sinning to you all the days of my life that's why i speak up now obviously there's a big question all nice and good but your brother is a thief of course they don't know the truth that yama never stole your brother is a thief so yehudah comes up with an alternative solution your servant i will become your slave instead of him let him go back with his brothers you deserve to have a slave one of us has stolen your goblet i will become the slave i will remain here let binyaman go back to yaakov this is possible so he went from khafras to llamad gimble at this point the speech should have been over he made all of his points clear he told the story he's really accusing joseph of mixing into family business that's none of his business to ask them all the questions about her family and then he tells joseph how difficult it is for yaakov he tells yosev the consequences the dire consequences he explains why he is so emotional and finally he says i'm ready to become the slave let benjamin go back but then he gives one last passage and he says because how can i go up to my father when the child is not here panera biracia i might see the the horrible fate that will befall my father and that's the final word of my father do you know how many times he says my father in the speech 14 times we're not used to learning hummus this way but these are very significant details 14 times he says my father and that's his last word just in this pussic itself he says my father twice now this last passage didn't add anything in substance he already said if i come back without benjamin my father is going to die we're going to bring him down to the grave in grief he already explained that he is the guarantor he already said his offer that he's going to become a slave finish you're done but he adds one last pussac and here is where you see an outburst of the ultimate emotion it's not structurally it's not necessary from a structure point of view he said everything he has to say and no new ideas added here that yaakov is going to die he said that yaakov is going to go down to his grave in grief he said but when he finishes everything he finally tells joseph i can't he ate ll of ivana nuit i can't go back to my father how can i go up to my father without this boy panera biracia i'm not capable of seeing the horrible grief and pain and agony and misery and savage internal torture that is going to overtake my father when he sees that binyamin has been robbed from him as well as joseph avi my father and the next moment the next verse a new chapter chapter 45 verse one vela yahoo joseph joseph at this point can't hold back anymore he can't contain himself he finally at last reveals his identity after 22 years of separation from his brothers he tells them two words ani joseph this presentation of yahood is significant of course in and of itself but what is even more striking is we're going to contrast it with another speech he gave that speech didn't go for 16 verses it was one verse and it happened exactly 22 years earlier when joseph was 17 years old you remember the story at the beginning of ayesha joseph was 17 his brothers despised them they loathed him they were envied him yaakov loved him more than all of the children and the terrorists says vaisnava they hated him they loathed him and when he shared with them his two dreams about how all the sheaves are bowing down to his sheep and the sun and the moon and the eleven stars are prostrating themselves to him he only lo they only loathe them even more and then there is that faithful day when yaakov sends joseph from their home in hebron to go seek out the welfare of his brothers who are shepherding the flock of their father in a city called shechem today in arabic it's known as nablus and in hebrew still known as shram and when joseph arrives ultimately at schema they see him from far fairu from far and before he comes close to them they plot to just get rid of him to kill him before he comes close to them one man tells his brother doesn't say who but i'll say it was shimon de levy here is the dreamer the dreamer is coming let's kill him and throw him into one of the cisterns one of the one of the barriers one of the pits that's what's happening joseph is approaching them and one brother tells another brother let's kill him we'll throw him into a pit and we'll say that uh a wild animal has devoured him at that moment the oldest brother speaks up by ishmael reuben hears the plot and he says three words loy not can unoffice we should not murder the soul and ruling continues and he says don't pour his blood instead throw him alive into one of the cisterns we should not directly murder this boy his objective is the terrorist says he doesn't tell them but the terror tells us his intentions he wants to save so this is his compromise throw him into a pit and then he says he's going to come back and save yourself so that's what they do joseph comes they remove his tunic they throw him into the pit the pit is empty there's no water they sit down to eat in the meantime a caravan of merchants ishmael arabs come and joseph is now in the pit and who speaks up yehuda the same you that we just spoke about speaks up this is 22 years early what does yehuda tell his brothers what prophet is there if we kill our brother and we cover his blood let's sell him via denual tahibo let us not kill him because he's our brother he's our flesh and they listen to him and they take joseph out of the pit and they sell them listen to yehuda's words ma betsah rashid says what money is there in letting this kid die in a pit there's no money to make so i'll die at least let's make a couple of bucks let's sell him then he says he's our brother let's not kill him another incentive first incentive is there's no profit there's no benefit another thing is he's also our brother and he's our flesh we shouldn't kill him tupe took him and they listened to him and because of that joseph is taken out of the pit and he's sold as a slave to the merchants going down to egypt and ultimately he's bought as we know by a man named poetifer where he would then spend his time as a slave in patifura's house do you see the difference between yahooda in the first story and yehuda in this story and the first story there's also talking about his brother who's loved by his father yaakov and he says what prophet is there just to let him die let's sell him and also he's our brother we shouldn't kill him we should not kill him yaday noah but let's sell him as a slave joseph was now 17. when he stands in front of para he's 30 years old when he comes out of prison he's 30. there's seven years of plenty he's 37. there's seven years of hunger and the brothers come down after some time during the hunger they ultimately meet him and they re he reveals identity when he's probably 39. so that's quite many years that's 22 years later 22 years later the same yehuda the same yehudah when he realizes that binyamin yosef's brother also his half-brother is now going to be a slave which is what he did to his own brother he made him a slave he sold him as a slave he is the one who initiated the plan and they listened to him he now comes to the prime minister of egypt and he says i am going to be the slave benjamin can't be the slave but yemen has to go back to the father i can go back to my father what a transformation when the rambam describes what shiva is what repentances based on a gemaran end of tractate yuma there are various degrees of truva of repentance of rectification but the greatest one is as they were sages express it the similar circumstances that were there the first time around repeat themselves a similar situation a similar similar dilemma a similar struggle and yet you respond to it in a completely different way this really demonstrates you made a 180 degree turn even if the circumstances never come back there's still a concept of rectification but that is the ultimate form of repentance because i had exactly the same opportunity to do it again and yet my response this time was different it means i am a changed person you couldn't get a more clear demonstration an illustration of this reality than in this story 22 years later another half brother also not yehuda's whole brother it's from rahul who has a special relationship with yaakov is again a slave and this time it's not even your fault it's because he stole because you don't of course know the truth yoda doesn't know that joseph did it all that binyamin never stole even if beyond told them but they may have suspected that he is just defending himself and he stole so at least there was a suspicion there even if there was no suspicion the fact is that there was nothing yuhudah can do yehuda could come back to yaakov and say listen yaakov i guarantee to bring him back but you know what this kid is a thief there's nothing i can do mysteriousness you could sacrifice your life to jump off a roof you can't sacrifice your life to jump on a roof you ever try doing that as much as you want you can't jump from the ground onto the roof you can jump off a roof but not on tour what am i supposed to do the kid stole what what should i do the prime minister took him as a slave that's the law of the land they even sometimes kill stay even sometimes kill thieves they took him as a slave knew what am i supposed to do but you hood at this point point responds not just as a brother but as an ultimate leader and he stands up to their ministry and he tells them a story and he says i'm the guarantor i will become the slave he goes back to his brother this father i saw once i think in the hiddusha harim of the swasamas one of the first gary rebbes who points out something very profound he says once yaakov once yahudah told joseph your servant guaranteed the boy and told his father i'm going to bring him back to you that's it that's your main argument i'm the guarantor i got to do my job so therefore i will become the slave and he goes back to his father because i need to live up to my responsibility nobody else guarantored him i did i told my father give him to me me yodi te wakshanu i am the culprit if he doesn't come back come to me i am taking responsibility my father trusted me i need to do that therefore i'm going to be the slave asks is why does he have to add the last passage i can go back to face the agony of my father the issue is you don't need to add this the point is you're the guarantor i've got to fulfill my obligation but that's not his final point his final point is i can't face my father's pain so this facehammer says that this for yehuda was much more significant than the fact that he was a guarantor sometimes you say i need to do this because i made a commitment i'm an honest person i'm a man of my word i told my father i am the man i am responsible i am taking full responsibility for this child i have to do everything i can if it means forfeiting my freedom for him to be set free i will do that too but that was not his punchline that's all about me fulfilling my obligation i should be able to have a clear conscience and at the end of my life say i did the right thing i did not betray my promises i did not betray my conscience i did not betray my father i did not lie i did not deceive i told him i will bring him and i brought him back i didn't bring him back but he came back that's another question if that was considered you hood to fulfilling his condition because he said i'm going to bring him back according to this he wouldn't bring him back but okay i'll stick all the wreckage trevor about this but okay i did it it was done he came back that wasn't the ultimate issue the ultimate issue was i can't see the pain of my father dying when he sees that his son is not there it's not about my obligation not about my conscience being clear that ultimately for yehuda was much deeper than the fact that he was a guarantor panera ashram says avi and this is what caused joseph to reveal his identity now 22 years ago you didn't think about what's going to happen to your father 22 years ago you didn't think what yaakov is going to feel like when joseph is going to disappear and die what happened a complete ah okay that's true a complete transformation happened to yehudah how did it happen there's one more point that i want to address and that has to do with the future of jewish history when you're reading genesis when you're reading voracious it seems like the gift of royalty is going to be given to joseph he is the star child full of charisma full of charm full of ambition full of grace full of power full of creativity he looks beautiful he's handsome he's groomed he's loved by his father and he's madly ambitious he wants to see the whole world under his influence remember agriculture then was the staple of success real estate today the reason that jews are not farmers anymore they went into real estate but then it was about farming all the sheep's bowing down to lament the whole economic system bowing down to him but that's not enough for him he even wants the heavens he's not satisfied with earth madison avenue and 2nd avenue 5th avenue are not enough he needs the heavens the sun the moon 11 stars and he's a man of grace and he's very resourceful and wherever he goes he rises to the top like oil he rises to the top he's a slave and he rises to the top he's a prisoner and he rises to the top and he ultimately reaches the top he becomes a jewish kid a slave becomes the prime minister of a superpower this is a man of royalty he's a this is a man of malchus and yet if you look at the other side who was the one who you would least associate with the gift of kingship and royalty it would be yahudah yehudah emerges as the one who says let's sell our brother there's no money it's not the language of aristocracy this is not the language of royalty he's our brother let's also not kill him directly and then what happens right after the story yehudah leaves the family yehudah says that's it this is not for me the next scene right after joseph yehuda left his brothers and he descended and as the sages say and rashi brings this it wasn't only a physical descent it was a moral decline he goes he marries a woman we don't even know who that is somehow in the family of kananim which seems like some form of mixing that the tribes the other tribes didn't do they remained they remained around their father and he goes and he forges his own life and yet ultimately as history will show it doesn't work out the way we would think the gift of malchus was given to who to yehudah on his deathbed joseph yaakov extols the virtues of joseph but when he comes to yahudah he says it means the scepter will not leave the tribe of judah the ruler is going to come from the descendants of yahood indeed malchus-based david the kingship that begins with king david david and his descendants belongs to shavit yehuda because david who is a great grandson david is the son of yishai who was a son of oyved who was a son of rus and boyas rus comes from the moabite lineage from lloyd and his daughter but boyas is a descendant of parrots who is a son of yehudah as the book of ruth the book of ruse ends with the genealogy from yehuda down to david who comes from the descendants of david therefore also comes from the fact there's a famous ramban in parishes where he explains that the mistake of the hashmanayam was he asks why is it that a hundred years after chanukah the khashoggi fell into the abyss of corruption and civil war and civil strife it's because they made one mistake they were kaihanim and they assumed also the position of royalty which belonged to the tribe of yehuda malchus was given to you in egypt yosef he's the prime minister of egypt he's the second to the king and the jews bow down to him at that point he's the leader but not the leader he's the second amen in command the viceroy of egypt later in history yehuda's family is going to rise to malchus why was it yehuda that was given the gift of malchus between story number one and story number three there is story number two between a and c there's a b the 22 years from yes of sale to benyamin is being subjected to the curse of slavery for the rest of his life with another story in the middle and that story is the key to understand what happened to yahudah what transformed him the story the toyota interjects right in the middle of partisan's variation after joseph is sold before he's bought he comes down to egypt and he's bought by poetifer but we don't know what happens yet there is now a break and we go to a whole other story and the other story is yehuda who left the family and went to do his own thing and as i said i'll say there was a moral decline there vayerid yehuda the brothers dismissed him the brothers dethroned him the brothers felt that yehuda there was something awful i mean you know 20 in his 20s his 20s these are young people young people right yehuda was in his 20s we know the story yehuda meets a woman and we don't know her name we know her father's name shua and we know that she is the daughter of a kanani she's a canaanite girl and he marries her and they have three sons and sheila the first two sons of yahudah die the torah says they were engaged in immoral activity and sin and they both died so yehuda suddenly experiences the death of two of his own children yehuda is now left with one son shayla in that region even though it was before the torah was given they still had the practice of what we call today ibum in english that is leverage marriages leverage marriage is the way it's described in the toyota much later in deuteronomy in paris is that when a woman is married and her husband dies childless if if she wishes she can marry to mitzvah for her to marry her brother-in-law meaning her husband's brother and hopefully have children and continue also the legacy of the first man her first husband who passed away without children that's called ibu of course she has to agree and the brother-in-law has to agree if they don't want or one of them doesn't want there's another process known as khalitsa which allows her of course the widow to go to marry whoever she wants if she wants to remarry that's called khalitza throughout the generations some widows did ibum some did khalitsa of course she has to have a brother-in-law who's alive and it's somebody who is childless today in ashkenazi communities in most communities they usually do khalitza if such a tragedy if such a tragedy occurs and it sometimes does occur and they usually do khalitza and then the widow is free unbound she can marry whoever she wants and restart her life anew if she so wishes before mata and torah this kuni points out ramban points on other mafashim the system of leverage marriages was not only a brother-in-law it was with anybody in the family any close kin in the family they could do ebon with a brother-in-law another option was a father-in-law this is critical to the story shayla is the third son yehuda's son heir died he was married to tamar so what happened tamar married the second son according to the system of leverage marriages tamar was a widow her husband died she never had children he was childless she was childish so she married her brother-in-law when ainan dies yehuda says i'm now going to marry her to my third son he's also going to die what a wife they have he doesn't know the reason so he says let shayla grow up what he's really thinking is there's no way i'm going to allow shayla to marry tummer tummer is now in a horrible bound she's not free to marry out because she's bound up in what's called zika in some form of relationship with the third son yehuda is not allowing her to marry the third son what is tamar supposed to do so tamar we only figure this out at the end of the story in the beginning of the story we don't know what she's doing but she was a brilliant woman as most women of voracious and most women until today or all women until today present company of course included and at the end of the story we realized she's an ingenious woman what does she do she yahudah's wife died yohuda is on a journey to go visit his sheep it's the time of sharing the wool and she dresses up as the passage says as a zina as a promiscuous person a harlot and the way the traitor describes it is yehuda caesar very actually he doesn't know who she is he sees a just a promiscuous woman her face is veiled and he goes to her what happens now is she wants money he says i'll send you two goats she says i need collateral you're gonna leave i'm never gonna get my goats i need collateral now we're reading this we still don't know what tommer is thinking later we're going to see her thought process so yhuda gives her collateral but she is the one who says what she wants she doesn't take anything she wants three things she wants a seal she wants his uh his girdle his belt his garter his girdle and she wants a staff this is the collateral she's going to hold on to till he sends the goats anyway he goes home and he sends the goats to tamar with his friend we know that he has a friend some guy named hiro the torah says he met some friend he sends the two goats with his friend and here is a fascinating thing the man comes back and says nobody knows who this woman is you know usually if there's a woman hanging out they know nobody ever saw her nobody knows her he's looking he's looking there that says you know what forget about it this is going to become so embarrassing let her have my collateral letter i have my stack my staff let her have my belt let her have my seal sean i'll keep the goats this is now here's a fascinating detail in the whole of chumash there are brothers there are fathers they're our mothers they're our sons they're our daughters they're our siblings most of the stories are family connected there's adam and haven't cain and heaven and nayache and his sons and shame and khamenyaphis and avraham and sarah their parents miriam do you ever have in commission the whole hamish a friend in the book of shmuel you're going to have two close friends david and johannesson yes in the book of job is going to have three friends not such good friends but three friends they say the wrong thing but they're friends at least they come what about in hummus do you ever have a friend anybody ah you remember one story one friend in the whole hamish you know who you heard this friend that's it there's no other friend in hamas interesting so if you want to know what a friend is according to torah you got to go to this story and you ask what type of friend what they do together they go for coffee together after the share did they do did they go work out together in the gym they go on treadmills together they go on vacations to the far east together to the dead sea together did they go to uh spas what did they do did they do business together did they hang out together did they shop together did they speak did they socialize what did they eat shop what did they do together i want to know what it is to be a friend what secret are you missing the point surrounding says the kedusha ring brings it is the first gary ever brings he says here you see what a friend is yehuda went off the path he went to a woman who was disguised as a harlot he had relations with her as we will see later she becomes pregnant he gave her collateral and now he owes her he owes her goats and who does he send he sends the friend he says a friend is somebody in whose presence you could think out loud you could share what we call today the dark secrets of your life that's what a friend is how many friends do you have if you have one you're lucky how many friends do you have it's nice to have acquaintances good shabbos how are you you're making a shower broccoli that's one of a great recipe for carrot cocoa that's wonderful but that's not a friend it's an acquaintance we have lots of acquaintances we have people we know neighbors friends relatives but a friend is somebody in whose presence you could think out loud without inhibitions not speak out loud that we can do with anybody think out loud just let your thoughts flow naturally so when the mission says acquire for yourself a friend a friend is a unique gift it can also be a relative but not necessarily it can also be a spouse but that doesn't always happen so there's something about a friend so now he comes back to you you just forget about it suddenly three months later we know the story rumor has it that tummer is carrying a child we don't know that yet she didn't take an ultrasound you're jumping ahead of yourself this means that what she committed adultery she was bound up to shayla she became pregnant not from sheila from somebody else according to the law of the time yehuda who is the judge says i'd see you ever sorry if she deserves capital punishment it's only at this point that we suddenly well like whoa tamar was ahead of us tamar was ten steps ahead of everybody else as she's being taken now to the stake she sends her father-in-law yehuda three items and she says [Applause] the man who owns these three items he is the father of the children that i am carrying hacker not recognize who owns the seal the belt and the staff now imagine you're yehuda you gave out a verdict that this woman your daughter-in-law deserves capital punishment because of adultery suddenly she doesn't confront you and say you it's you she sends elegantly three items you take a look at them and all she said is whoever owns this he is the man who is the father of these children hacker now recognize these items you heard the looks everybody knows what their seal looks like what their belt looks like and what their stick looks like or still maybe a cord but they know what it looks like what would you do if you were you hoodoo for starters yehuda right away realizes that he is the one who was with her he also realizes she was perfectly legit because in the laws of leverage marriages before the torah was given it was anyone in the family a brother-in-law or a father-in-law she also realizes the desperateness that he put her in she was completely and abound she couldn't move her life was in shackles because of him she wasn't free to marry somebody else she wasn't marrying shayla she was stuck he realizes that and he also realizes instead of her saying yehuda stop the game you're the one who did it what she did was she saved his grace and she just sent him the items saying whoever owns these items he is the father of these children now if you were yahood or anybody was yehuda what would you do at this point let me give you a few scenarios one great judge or rabbi who's a good guy looks like oh my god first of all she doesn't deserve to die if anything i deserve to die it doesn't lift that so what do you do he says wait hold on hold on hold up hold up i think i remember episode that that that missed me me let me go check on my my my barilan cd let me go to my library let me call the chief rabbi of antwerp let me give you me a few minutes and suddenly he discovers that whoa whoa i found the hatter i found the hatter she's good she's good she's good and you know what everybody is happy she's over the hook she's safe she goes home he's over the hook what is it all as well that ends well it ended well yohoda could have done that and he would have saved her life she would have not died that's not what happens vayakur yuhuda yohoda recognized it via immer and he said two words tsatka she's right me many i'm the one who did it i'm the one who went to her i'm the one who impregnated her two words sotka me many and she was right because i never gave her to shayla my son he explained the rationale and the justification the moral justification behind the baby now do you know what happened that shabbos and shul do you know the conversations that week in evergreen and in wesley kosher and in all fresh and kosher fresh and in the gyms and in the mikvehs and shallow shooters and the shules and the kidushima and the shaolin zakhars and the bar mitzvahs do you know the signs that went up that week in mayasharam and in banabra do you know the whatsapp's messages do you know how many jokes for the next 10 years clarissa was sustained with jokes about yehuda just think today the chief rabbi of a country or of a big community who's known by everybody gets up friday night of shabbos morning and show gives a clap and says that woman the one who committed adultery the one who deserves capital punishment be many i'm the one who did that you're getting the chills just thinking about you have to do that what would that be like what would that look like did you ever see such a thing in your life never right i know did you ever hear of such a thing that's what he did he could have found a hat there he didn't do that he sent me many it's all me i didn't i'm the one who did it but something else happens at this moment something else happens at this moment yehuda in his mind was doing exactly what he is supposed to do from a moral perspective this is the law of the land we're not now analyzing this law of adultery and capital punishment it's not for now but this is the law and he is following the law is he feeling pain i'm sure he's feeling pain but he feels he knows he's doing the right thing in his mind suddenly he sees three items and he looks in the mirror and he says wow in ten minutes uh what mother and twins two fetuses two babies would have been burnt alive because of me even though they're completely innocent because i am the one who impregnated her she was totally right for doing it she was completely justified she is not a harlot she is not an adulteress she is not promiscuous i just sent three people to their death thinking i was righteous and i would go to my grave thinking that i'm a sadiq what happens when you experience such a moment in your life yehuda said to himself wait and what about a previous story in my life when i sold joseph into slavery i was certain that i am doing a necessary surgery to protect the integrity of our family it's not the discussion of this class but for some reason joseph's brothers felt that joseph is contaminating the integrity of the family he is eroding it he is corroding it from within he is infecting it from within there's no future for the jewish people if joseph is here why is a separate schmooze but that's what they felt and therefore i felt this was a painful and necessary amputation to protect our family to protect the jewish family we're vulnerable we're small we're trying to begin our journey in history we need to protect ourselves we need a healthy spiritual organism joseph is a necessary surgery and i was convinced even though i saw my father crying i was convinced what happens if i made a mistake then too what happens if i was erroneous is it possible that even though in my mind it was absolutely clear that i'm righteous i'm doing the right thing maybe maybe i was off the mark maybe i made a mistake here i thought i was doing the right thing and i almost killed three people what does such a realization do to you when you experience such a realization it changes your life forever this is not an intellectual realization there's a realization in your emotion in your guts in the core of your soul in your kishkas from that day on yehudah is a changed person he's a completely different individual and we now come to his name yehudah the word yehudah the terrorist says leia gave him the name why because hapam thanks gratitude thank you but the madrid points out oh it has another meaning it comes from the word which means gratitude but it also means to confess to submit to admit we have in hebrew the word comes from the same root like vidui toda confession video is confession yehudah comes from the word to confess he is the first individual in the history of humash who admits that he made a mistake nobody else does a lot of people make mistakes in humber they don't stop making mistakes the idea that we're perfect is only a modern invention and how much people knew they make mistakes but they don't admit it yehuda is the first one who says publicly admits a mistake he admits what he did we can now understand why royalty could go to this person because power corrupts absolute power corrupts absolutely kings throughout history have done the most terrible things because when you're a leader you have power if you follow the news you see every day there's another story about another leader and what they do with their power when it comes to women when it comes to other situations every day is not today politicians celebrities actors journalists professors radio personalities television personalities wealthy tycoons people abuse their power to give a king ultimate power who is going to be meshiach who is going to be a melo kisro it goes to yehudah somebody who can get up in front of the people and say me many i did it with all the humility that comes with that do you know what a vulnerable moment that is in life you're considered the spiritual giant the moral leader the judge who's giving the verdict you're immune to all this and suddenly you say that woman that everyone has been speaking about for the last three months or whatever it is the last few days it was all you whoa that's vulnerable it's vulnerable to call up one person on the telephone and say you know i lied when was the last time we do that you did that call up one person and say you know i told you yesterday this really it's very hard what is what is she going to think of me we think we think we overthink yehuda says it in front of everybody and he did it none of anybody's business he could have told tamar well tamai didn't have to tell she knew could have told his friend you have a good friend tell your friend go tell your therapist work this out in therapy you didn't do that you told everybody me many such a person you could trust as a king such a person you could trust as a leader because it's only truth and integrity that guides him he's def but then something else happens to him he goes through a transformation what happens in our own lives think about your own life it doesn't always happen to us we live a life we make decisions and we're convinced not a hundred percent a thousand percent as good jews are that we are right one person is in a fight with their brother one person is in a fight with her sister-in-law one person is in a fight with their parents with their children with their partners with their friends one person is not on speaking terms with this person one person and i am convinced a thousand percent i am right because from my experience from my paradigm i am right not because i'm a bad person from my experience of life i am a hundred percent right and then something suddenly happens and you take a look at the same story and you realize in your guts wow maybe i have been wrong maybe i have been deceived maybe i did not get the full picture maybe i did not realize what this did to my father maybe i did not realize what this did to this person what happens to you you're never the same person again if you're a real if you're not a real person you're not a real person if you're a real person you're never the same person again stephen covey tells the story about a paradigm shift sitting in a subway sunday morning relaxing going shopping or whatever reading a newspaper you know that feeling you remember in brooklyn you're sitting on a subway with a newspaper reading nice and there's a bunch of little kids who are making a ruckus and a commotion they're screaming they're jumping they're halloween they're pulling on people's jackets of course they're jumping they're falling and they're standing near the father and he turns to the father and says would you please ask your children to control themselves and of course he thinks he's a gentleman he's a sadiq he's a wonderful guy and the father says yes and he asks them but they don't care you know kids or some kids and they continue to terrorize everybody and now he's anxious and he's furious and could you please tell your children to behave and he says yeah it's just a little challenge they're just coming back from the hospital their mother just died and we're on the way home and they're letting out some of their emotions and he describes the feeling inside of him i was once in a bagel shop in brooklyn so i was speaking to the owner of the one who was selling the bagels so uh i asked him about his youth so he lost both parents when he was young and he had a family of 11 children and their mother had a stroke when she was like 38 or 39 and she died and they were left with 11 children a family from jerusalem yerushalayim and she died erifsekas so after sukkos they went to put up the matsava and at tahara zaisem to the mount of olives and near jerusalem and he he was one of the boys and he went with his father 11 children went and there's a poor family in your shalom they didn't have a courage they were taking a bus so it's israel the day after sukkahs and they're standing at a bus stop in jerusalem you know the bus stops in jerusalem they're very interesting places and he says a man a jerusalem man walks by with his cane you know and jerusalemites have a special sense of humor if you know that they have a unique sense of humor a combination of deep cynicism very interesting people you're shalia may eden they're known as jerusalem jews they're different they're made of a different uh different fabric so he tells me the story says this guy walks by an elderly man and he says children you didn't go on enough trips throughout sukkos you didn't have enough vacation time to go back to school what's this new teal in hebrew in israel it's called teal what's up to you allah a trip what this trip he was a little boy and he tells this to me in the bagel shop and then i realized how clueless we are in life 11 kids jumping around on a bus a day after circus come on and the guy is thinking what type of father is he he said he wouldn't even he said nobody he says i said did your father say something nah my father didn't even answer what is he gonna start telling him these are you simon i lost my wife just a few days ago out of success when somebody realizes this now when i say realize again i mean in our gut most of us will say i may be wrong but we all say that if you're a meant you say that my brother told me that somebody once told them my brother asked this person maybe you have a blind spot he says no no no he says do you think you have blind spots he says yeah but i know where they are that's what we really feel we're human we're normal so we say of course i could be making a mistake but i know what those mistakes are i know my blind spots yehuda suddenly realized that he had a real blind spot that he didn't know about what that does to a person is it creates an internal humility an internal haida an internal sense of a spiritual psychological and emotional metaphoric metamorphosis that comes from that deep recognition and realization that nothing can substitute for i once read i have it because i i checked it up i was once uh reading the reader's digest you remember that one huh i looked it up this morning i wanted to say it it was october 2010 issue of the reader's digest so a woman she says this is what she writes i'll never forget her i still have dreams about the look on her children's face after i told him the news her name was clear she came into the emergency room where i was working as an emergency physician she had an old neck collar old neck collar on upside down she was complaining to me to the emergency room physician that she has neck pain and she has a bad headache she was 60 years old and i thought maybe she has some mental handicap because she had difficulty describing her sister her symptoms she was speaking like very slow and i thought she's something a little off just explaining to me simply that she has a headache and she has neck pain now the emergency room where i worked was always busy and the administration was always pressuring us to move patients through the emergency room more quickly so i examined clear briefly a few minutes i didn't see any worrisome signs or any serious severe symptoms i took x-rays of her neck but they showed that nothing was wrong with her neck so i assumed that she slept wrong you know you sleep in the wrong position you pull a muscle you wake up and your neck hurts for a day and a half two days probably some of you are sitting like that and i discharge her i give her some pain medication and i tell her have a good day feel good you'll sleep it through and you'll be better tomorrow morning and i pick up the next chart in the bottomless stack of charts the next morning i'm in the emergency room and we receive a call from an ambulance transporting a female who had suffered cardiac arrest she was brought into the resuscitation room as it's called and we're continuing cpr after the first responders began with cpr i didn't recognize her at first but then i see two people a son and a daughter standing nearby and i say hey i just saw them yesterday they came in with their mother who had pain in her neck and back and i realized when i took a look that this was the woman whom i sent home yesterday with some pain medication because i thought that she slept wrong or she pulled a muscle i look at the patient she says she's lifeless and i almost break into tears myself in the emergency room in my rush the day before i didn't listen carefully to clear's complaint of a severe headache it was clear that there was an impending stroke she was speaking slow it was hard for her to catch her thoughts she was soon good to have a stroke she actually had early symptoms which was an amazing opportunity to save her life but i was in a rush i looked at it superficially i ignored it we did everything we could we were trying to resuscitate her but she says i knew our efforts were hopeless she was dead the moment i saw her i pronounced her dead an hour or two later and then i went to meet the son and the daughter in the small chapel near the emergency department where physicians usually give the news to the patients about the demise of their loved one i went into my doctor mode and i became very technical and in very technical terms she's writing i explained to them what happened and then i paused and i thought to myself i caused this and without controlling myself i just started to weep in front of them and i told them i'm so sorry i wish i ordered a cat scan yesterday i missed it i'm so sorry if i would have ordered a cat scan we would have seen that there was what's going on i did not do it the daughter says that's okay we know you did your best mom told us she wants to go to you because you're a good doctor you had the reputation of being a good doctor so she wanted us to take her to you that's why she came to you and you did the best you can she says now i could not stop weeping she trusted me as the good doctor but in my rush i missed entirely the story i had to go to the funeral a few days later i went to the funeral i sat with claire's children 20 years have passed she's writing in october 2010. i'm now a medical school professor but i have never forgotten that story this type of recognition changes you not everybody is however privileged to even have it trust me there are other doctors who do exactly the same thing you know what they do they say it's my fault the administration is corrupt city hall is corrupt the hospital all they think is about money money money money money i'm not an angel 300 patients came in today what am i supposed to do i make mistakes of course and you know what doctors see death a lot you move on this woman had the sensitivity to be able to know the truth the book stops here that itself is a sensitivity she had a gift it's the gift of integrity because nobody in the world knows the real truth besides the person looking back at you in the mirror nobody else knows the truth for everybody there's excuses and good ones and rational ones and wonderful ones there's only one person who knows the truth and that's the one who stares back at you in the mirror that person you can't deceive you could try to deceive him you can eat extra or do some other stuff to deceive him even more you can binge on latkes and donuts to suppress her even more we can get involved into all types of things in order to block out the voice of the person in the mirror but the one who listens knows that the person in the mirror knows the truth so when that happens she could never be the same so now come back to yehudah when yehuda realizes what happened with tamar he says maybe i got it all wrong and as he gazes in disbelief at what was about to unfold with tamar he discovers the frightening truth that you're capable of misreading situations and frightening error you can hold a position which you think is perfectly right and in reality you're the culprit at that moment yehuda is forced to re-evaluate everything he reevaluates his entire life he suddenly discovers how mistaken he may have been with the assumption that he was literally morally impeccable and flawless he realizes suddenly how all the untold pain and agony he caused his father which he always thought was a necessary surgery to amputate the leg in order to save the body and suddenly he realizes maybe it was pathetic maybe it was unjust maybe it was primitive maybe it was erroneous maybe he was narrow may maybe he was mistaken and suddenly he becomes a new person and he realizes now much more than speaking he has to listen much more than communicating he has to get feedback he has to be introspective he has to be able to empathize he has to allow the vulnerability of every situation to touch his heart what happens in life is we become so stuck in our narrative in our story we don't allow ourselves to feel any more the heartbeat of a story we can't dance to the rhythm of a narrative because i have my perspective and i dig in my claws into my perspective and i have like 9 000 sources to justify it i have articles books essays novels i even have rabbis and therapists who agree with me i of course have god who always agrees with me he never disagrees with me and even though i'm a good person i'm not a bad i'm a good person but i'm a blinded person i'm completely blind sometimes with marriages this happens over decades husbands or wives develop a certain story about their spouse the story they develop in the first year of marriage the second year of marriage the third year of marriage or because of certain events they have friends or therapists who confirm the story in their mind they have now their spouse worked out perfectly well everything their spouse does fits into that story everything reaffirms their position here he goes again here she goes again it's 20 years later 15 years later 10 years later 25 years later and the story is so developed it's already a novel you have an epilogue and a pre-log you have chapters you can write a book it's a you have the plot the subplot the sub supply you even know when it begins it began in his grandmother when his mother was in his grandmother's womb that's when it began and it just evolved and everything in his childhood confirms the story and it's perfect and it's mama's perfect the same as with our children who knows your children better than you who knows your husband better than you who knows a wife better than a husband and of course with other family members never mind with your sisters with your brothers with your parents with the people around you and these are all these are all real people not bad people these are people who are trying to live their lives and and have meaningful lives and enjoyable lives and so on and so forth just like yehudah but then something happens and suddenly you're just opened up and you see you may have put your child in a box that he doesn't belong to be in you may have told a story to yourself about your spouse that's a story and it's not about a blame game but it was just your story and that story defines relationships and it justifies pain of course jakob has to be in pain when you amputate a leg that's full of gout and infection somebody has diabetes you got to cut the leg does it hurt of course is it horrible yeah but you saved his life we gave him another 40 years what's wilster but suddenly you heard that comp he's a changed person he takes nothing for granted which is what gratitude is he takes nothing for granted he confess he's open he's completely open he doesn't define himself anymore in any way that's why he could say i'm sorry that's why he could be vulnerable he's ready to reinvent himself at every moment anew and you know what happens after that two decades later joseph's baby brother ends up as a slave in egypt yehuda is not guilty he's entitled to return home he has all just justifications to return home his brother is a thief but he is now a completely different person he is not the same man anymore after the loss of his own children after admitting his guilt with tamar after realizing where a person's mind can take them because we are all human and fallible after all that yehudah who is completely open now to the truth of the reality says i am not leaving i am going to sacrifice my life and my freedom to ensure the freedom of being and his punchline is he ultimately i cannot go back to my father without this child i cannot look my father in the eyes without this child nothing else can happen when joseph sees this he knows that there has been a 180 degree turn he knows that this family is now capable of healing is capable of reconciliation he knows that transformation has occurred and we know why yehuda could become a leader because leaders are not perfect leaders can't be perfect people make mistakes and leaders who have to make bigger decisions and more decisions make bigger mistakes and more mistakes than other people because of their responsibility a leader has to make decisions like do we go to war now where people die in order to secure a brighter future or do we wait and allow the enemy to grow strong everybody is safe at the moment but in a few years many more will die what's the right decision you don't have to make this decision chamberlain 1939 and his decision was peace with hitler you give in and there's peace he comes back and he tells the english parliament we have achieved peace in our time chamberlain 1939. of course winston churchill steps in and says we're going to fight them on the beaches we're gonna fight them we will fight them relentlessly and he saves the world from the third reich decisions of leaders mistakes of leaders the greatest qualification of a leader is not that he's perfect it's that he's accountable it's that he could say satka she was right tomorrow was right i was wrong me manny i did it that's the greatest gift of royalty he or she could look at a situation and be truly committed to truth and integrity and speak the truth and confess the truth and admit the truth and say i made a mistake this is a leader you can trust with real power this is why the gift of malchus of royalty aristocracy is given to yehudah is given to david is ultimately given to mashiach shoal and david were both great sadiq they both made mistakes the gamora says in you merchant made a mistake he didn't kill out the amalekites and he lost his royalty david also made his own mistakes with bashev and he didn't lose his royalty what was the difference the difference is the prophet came to both of them he came to shoal and said why did you do what you did and he gave rationalizations and justifications nasa navi came to david and told him the story of the wealthy man who stole the sheep from the poor man as a metaphor for him taking vasheva from a man named and david heard the story and he said two words he said one word i sinned that made all the difference that's why when leia named her son yehuda the names are not simple names when she uses that word hapam the madrid says it's also his vadas to submit to confess when he acknowledges that he's wrong and he made a terrible mistake of accusing tamar of wrongdoing he becomes a new man far more honest far more humble far more noble far more respectful far more caring and courageous than he was ever before and it's not a coincidence that how does the al hanis in prayer of hanukkah end us they established these eight days to thank to praise your great name but the word lahi dice also has to do as i said with the word because chanukah usually coincides with the parshiots of ayesha mikkets and vayigash which is the story of yehuda's transformation because of his courage to be able to confess to take responsibility and to accept have a wonderful week and a happy hanukkah thank you you're welcome this class is brought to you by the yeshiva.net please help us continue the classes make even a small contribution at triple w dot the yeshiva.net donate