Drash Vayigash 5766

This week Judah pleads for the freedom of Benjamin, and is so moving Joseph reveals that he is their brother in a fearful and tearful reunion. Eventually Jacob comes down to Egypt too and they all live happily off the fat of the land of Egypt at the request of Pharaoh.

All this happy ending stuff makes me want to burst out in song. But no, it’s not some chorus from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. In many ways it’s the song that summarizes not just the story of Joseph but the theme of the entire book of Genesis. Next week, the last Parsha of Genesis, is merely to finish the plot lines, bless everyone on their merits instead of birth order, record the death of both Jacob and Joseph, and set us up for the sequel, namely the Exodus from Egypt.

I was considering this song and its theme, but I was having trouble with it in one particular place, at the beginning of the story, with Adam and Eve. While I was on vacation last week, however, I was busy watching my twin nephew and niece, with my sister. Out of the blue, my sister asks me if Adam and Eve were born on the same day. “Technically yes, if you read literally” I said. “Well, then Adam and Eve are twins,” she concluded. I suppose they are, at that. Then I realized that completes the pattern: Adam and Eve; Cain and Abel; Ham, Shem, and Japheth; Isaac and Ishmael; Jacob and Esau; Joseph and his brothers. As Q was once again trying to steal his sisters’ toys from a lounge chair, I thought of how many times, like Adam and Eve either one of them will say “She made me do it! It’s your Fault! No, it his fault!” Fortunately at fifteen months they are barely walking so except for some serious crying this argument hasn’t started yet. But thinking about that, I realized the theme song of Genesis does follow all the stories of Genesis. It was not written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, but a Maalot of David, Psalm 133 (Socino tr.).

1. A Song of Maalot of David.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
2. It is like the precious ointment upon the head,
That runs down upon the beard, Aaron’s beard,
That runs down to the hem of his garments.
3. Like the dew of Hermon descending upon the mountains of Zion;
For there the Lord has commanded the blessing,
Life for evermore.

Although I have heard many melodies for this psalm, my favorite is still the same old haunting melody, singing that first verse over and over again, often in a round: Henei ma tov u’ma nayim shevet achim gam yachad. Genesis is a book with a theme, that siblings should live together, yet more often, they don’t. Time after time in Genesis siblings fail to get along, at best having a tenuous peace. Maybe they bury a parent together, but yet won’t live together. Only with Joseph does everybody live together, able to keep together as a family. Genesis is the story of getting it right. Until we do, the story repeats once again.

Genesis then was about the multiple times this didn’t happen, when it does, the book ends. What is interesting is that all too often it is lashon hara, evil speech of one form or another that is at the center of the sibling conflict. As already mentioned, blaming someone else or following a forbidden suggestion was the contention between Adam and Eve. When Noah got drunk and naked, Noah’s son Ham gossiped to his brothers. Ishmael in some way teased Isaac, and their mothers’ were even worse in their words against each other. Jacob conned Esau - not just once but twice. At the beginning of the Joseph story, Joseph was a gossip and braggart, and his brothers were liars.

In the late nineteenth century in Lithuania, a very humble rabbi, who was so humble he didn’t even want a congregation but to work in the back of a small grocery store, wrote his first book. Being so humble Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan did not even let himself be acknowledged as the author, but instead insisted he was the publisher. The book, however became a classic, the Chofetz Chayyim, and R. Israel was nicknamed for this incredible work. A codification of the rules of Lashon Hara, he wrote the definitive text on the subject, read even today. I have yet to read this work, and I do hope I do have the chance to soon, since I do have an interest in the halakah of lashon hara. Indeed it was an act of slander against a rabbinic candidate which started Shlomo’s Drash four and a half years ago. In response to this slander, I came out with a response on Lashon Hara and, Baruch Hashem, never stopped writing.

That original slander happened on e-mail, and while the work of the Chofetz Chayim is timeless, I wonder if he were alive today, he would still need to write a new chapter when it comes to this medium. I’ve thought a lot about lashon hara on the Internet, as I’ve crossed the line a few times myself on this medium, though I try to guard myself as much as possible not to let that happen again. Yet lately, one variety of lashon hara on the Internet has my attention.

Joseph and Judah exchanged words, and both understood what the other was saying. It was clear that Joseph heard Judah, given his cry was heard all the way to Pharaoh. Both knew they were dealing with people. I find it interesting that most of the Talmudic and Midrashic statements concerning lashon hara group it with the crimes of idolatry and murder. Idolatry is taking a god as mere object. Murder is removing the life from a person. In a sense lashon hara can do both, and this Internet case might prove insightful. I have a friend in the Pacific Northwest, and she has a real problem with her e-mail. She has several times noted that not only does this happen on e-mail, but in human to human interactions as well in that part of the country. If you try to establish contact with someone, or send them something, they never acknowledge they got the message. In fact they never say anything. If they have bad news, even face to face, instead of telling you the bad news, they simply ignore you and hope the issue goes away.

While the lashon hara of Joseph’s brothers, lying that he was killed, was obviously a bad thing, would it have been worse to say nothing? At least faking Joseph’s death let Jacob grieve. Not saying anything would have left him in the distress of wondering. But how many times do we do this? By not speaking we save ourselves the stress of telling bad news, and sometime even good news. But in an e-mail message, we leave the sender anticipating a response that never comes. We treat the person not as a human being but name@something.com, a mere name, an object, an empty smashable idol. The sender loses life; we murder the person then throw them in a pixilated garbage can.

How easy is it to change this? All e-mail systems have a reply button. Hit it. Type T-H-A-N-K Y-O-U and hit send. With eight letters, or six of you type “thanks,” you have accomplished a lot - you have given life to the bit of person’s soul they just sent you. The key is to simply acknowledge there is a person on the other side of that message. Granted it’s even better to write more, yet most of us don’t have the time to. But simply saying “thank you” is a start. If there is a response to be given, then give it, or say you have to take a few days to respond, and then respond in a few days. There’s enough stress in the world, acknowledging another human being ends a lot of it.

Judging people behind their back, slander and lies are all important and critical forms of lashon hara. For all of them we should hold our tongues. Genesis Rabbah writes

“

R. Aha said: Lashon hara is so cruel a thing
that having created it [the tongue] He [God] made a place for it where it may be
hidden.”

Yet there are times holding our tongues, our keyboards or Blackberries is also lashon hara. I will acknowledge in this time of hundreds of e-mails a day it is sometimes overwhelming to even type “thank you”. But we treat people like objects without feelings or a soul if we do not. In the blessings Jacob give to his sons next week, Jacob says of Joseph

The archers fiercely attacked him, and shot at him, and
hated him; (Genesis 49:23)

Which the Midrash has an interesting comment:

[To those] who cast at him words cruel as an arrow:
Sharp arrows of the mighty (Ps. 120, 4). Why does he [Jacob] compare them to an
arrow rather than to any other weapon? All other weapons smite from close
quarters, whereas this smites from the distance. Even so is slander, for it is
spoken in Rome and kills in Syria. Nor is it like any other coals, but like
coals of a broom tree (ibid.). For all other coals are extinguished inside [when
they are extinguished on the outside], but coals of broom are still burning
within when they are extinguished without. So is he who listens to slander: even
if you go and appease him and he lets himself be appeased, yet he is still
burning within. (Genesis Rabbah 98:19)

In a medium which can move a message to anywhere on the planet in mere seconds, these words from almost two thousand years ago still ring true. The hurt of lashon hara whether intentionally or unintentionally can hurt people far away. And the hurt is not one that goes away easily, but pierces the heart like an arrow, to wound internally for a long time. Mere apology is rarely enough; the wound is too deep and often, like a division of archers, effects too many people.

It is in the story of both Judah and Joseph finally refusing to stoop to lashon hara that leads to a happy conclusion of the book of Genesis. Both were very human in this story, and acknowledged this humanity. Judah’s appeal was to Joseph’s humanity, to how one should treat a father’s hope and love. The point of Genesis is not just the creation of the universe and the story of the Patriarchs. Brothers live in peace when they treat each other as human, not when they fling the piercing arrows of sharp words or of sharp silences.

For 2006, for a secular resolution let us all make a holy resolution to prevent at least the lashon hara of not acknowledging each other.

On that note, thank you for reading this.