And they told him all of Joseph's words that he had said to them,

and he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him,

 and the spirit of their father

Jacob was revived.

(Bereishit 45:27)

all of Joseph’s words: He (Joseph) gave them a sign, viz., in what topic he was

engaged when he (Joseph) separated from him (Jacob). [That was] the section

dealing with the heifer [egla, spelled similarly to "wagon" agala]

that was to be beheaded (Devarim. 21), and this is what [Scripture] says, and he saw

the wagons that Joseph had sent, and it (Scripture) does not say, "that

Pharaoh had sent."

and the spirit of… Jacob was revived:

The Shekhinah, which had separated from him

(Rashi ad loc, Judaica Press

translation)

He (Joseph) gave them a sign. That

is why it is written, and he saw the wagons,

etc.; he did not send Jacob this sign explicitly, but through allusion, hinting

that "I was engaged in this matter when I left you." He did not send Jacob

this sign explicitly by way of his brothers, because that would imply that if

Jacob did not accompany him his brothers would kill him, and that would upset

his brothers, causing them to think that he took them for murderers. That is

why he did not send this to Jacob explicitly, but rather hinted at it by

sending the wagons. And he [Rashi] says, "He

(Joseph) gave them a sign" [meaning] he would not reveal it to them

explicitly, but rather told them, "He was studying this matter with me

when I left him" and they did not know what it was meant to convey.

(MaHaRaL

MiPrague ad loc)

Where Did the Sacrifices

Disappear to?

Shafer Stollman

And Israel and all

the God of his father Isaac.(Bereishit

46:1)

The book of Bereishit is concerned with

sacrifices from beginning to end, starting with Cain and Abel and concluding

with Jacob. While Noah's sacrifices are described in detail, And Noah built an altar to the Lord, and he took of all

the altar, the Torah says little about the sacrifices offered by the

Patriarchs. We hear about the Patriarchs building altars, but not about them

offering sacrifices. Regarding Abraham, it is written: And the Lord appeared

there he built an altar to the Lord, Who had appeared to him (Bereishit 12:7). And

later: And Abram pitched his tents, and he came, and he dwelt in the plain

of Mamre, which is in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the Lord (13:18). The only altar

built by Abraham upon which he offered a sacrifice was the altar he prepared

for his son Isaac.

No mention is made of sacrifices being

offered on the altars built by Isaac and Jacob. Regarding Isaac, we read: And he built an altar there, and he called in the name of

the Lord (Bereishit

26:25). Jacob also built altars and set up monuments: And Jacob arose

he set it up as a monument, and he poured oil on top of it (28:18). And while

fleeing Laban: And Jacob slaughtered a slaughtering on the mountain, and he

mountain (31:54);

but the commentators explain that Jacob did not offer a sacrifice, rather,

"He slaughtered animals for the feast" (Rashi ad loc).

The move from merely

building altars to the offering of sacrifices occurs in our parasha, before

Jacob's descent to Egypt: And Israel and all that was his set out and came

to Beersheva, and he slaughtered sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac

(46:1). The commentators, led by Rashi, find

it difficult to understand why Jacob chose to offer sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac rather than to the

God of Abraham. RaMBaN comments:

"To the God

of his father Isaac: One is required to

honor his father more than he is required to honor his grandfather. Therefore,

the sacrifices are associated with Isaac and not with Abraham" – so writes

Rashi. This is insufficient, since it would have been appropriate

for him to have said "to the God of my fathers" without mentioning

one specific person, as he said [later] the God before whom my fathers

Abraham and Isaac walked (48:15), and

in his prayer he said: the God of my father Abraham and the God of my father

Isaac (32:10)…

However, neither Rashi nor RaMBaN find reason

to comment on the fact that this is the very first mention of sacrifice since

the Akedah – binding – of Isaac. This neglect seems to stem from the

assumption that each time one of the Patriarchs built an altar he also offered

sacrifices on it.

As I pointed out above, the Torah never mentions

that the Patriarchs offered sacrifices on the altars they built – perhaps

because such sacrifices were never actually made. I submit that the Patriarchs

found the sacrifice of animals to be completely insignificant after "The

Sacrifice" in which Abraham was prepared to offer up his son Isaac. That

is why they were satisfied to merely consecrate the altars they made to God. For

them, those altars marked holy places, just as the holy ark lends importance to

the synagogue in our own day. What, then, changed when Jacob took off on his

journey to see Joseph and why did he offer sacrifices

to the God of his father Isaac?

I believe that the Akedah came to guarantee

God's intervention on the behalf of Abraham's descendants when they would find

themselves endangered by those closest to them. This idea finds support in

RaMBaN's comments on the promise made to Abraham after the Akedah: And he said, "By Myself have I sworn, says the Lord,

descendants will inherit the cities of their enemies (22:16-17). RaMBaN

writes:

because you have

done this thing. In the beginning He promised him that he would increase

his descendants as the stars of heaven and the dust of the earth, but now He

gave him the additional assurance that because you have done this

great deed, He swore by His Great Name [that He would increase his descendants as

the stars of the heavens and as the sand that is on the seashore], and that

his seed will possess the gate of its enemies. Thus Abraham was assured that no

sin whatever would cause the destruction of his descendants, nor would they

fall into the hand of their enemies and not rise again. Thus this

constitutes a perfect Divine assurance of the redemption which is destined to

come to us. (Chavel

translation)

RaMBaN does not name

those enemies, but through the course of the book of Bereishit, the existence

of Abraham's descendants is endangered by the brothers of Isaac, Jacob, and

Joseph.

The first threat is

that posed by Ishmael against Isaac. "From

Sarah’s reply, For the son of this handmaid shall not inherit with my son,

you learn that he would quarrel with Isaac regarding the inheritance and say,

'I am the firstborn and should take two portions,' and they would go out to the

field, and he would take his bow and shoot arrows at him, as it is said: Like

one who wearies himself shooting firebrands, etc. and says: Am I not

joking? (Proverbs. 26:18-19)" (Rashi Bereishit 21:10).

The second threat is posed by Esau against Jacob after having sold him his birthright

and losing the blessings: And Esau hated

kill my brother Jacob" (27:41).

Joseph's brothers posed the third threat: And they

against him to put him to death (37:18).

Up until the Akedah,

the Matriarchs secured their children's safety. Sarah needed no guidance to

understand Ishmael's danger to her son Isaac; she took the initiative and had

Ishmael removed from Isaac's vicinity. Similarly, in the next generation

Rebecca sent Jacob off to Laban's house, removing him from Esau's clutches

after the latter had sworn to kill him. Rashi states that the actions of both

of these matriarchs were guided by the holy spirit that rested upon them.

If matters had been

left in the hands of the Patriarchs, the brothers never would have been

separated, not Isaac from Ishmael, Jacob from Esau, or Joseph from his

brothers. The Matriarchs insisted upon these separations. Proof for this is

that Joseph = the only son who lacked maternal protection – was sent by his

father to meet his brothers in Shechem, where they almost killed him. Since

Rachel died while giving birth to Benjamin, it was Joseph of all Abraham's

progeny who required the most divine protection in order to survive and oversee

the process of the decent to Egypt. There is no need to describe what would

have happened if his brothers had succeeded in their plot.

Joseph was the

greatest unknown. Jacob saw his coat soiled with blood and thought he had died.

As far as Jacob was concerned, the promise made by God at the Akedah was no

longer in effect. Despite his having been personally saved from both Laban and

Esau, the promise that no ill would befall Abraham's progeny could no longer be

trusted. It was this despair that led him to object to the idea of Benjamin

going down with his brothers to Egypt: But he (Jacob) said, "My son

gray head in sorrow to the grave" (42:38).

And then, after so many years, Jacob heard that

his son Joseph still lived: And they told him, saying, "Joseph is still

sent to carry him, and the spirit of their father Jacob was revived (45:26-7). At that

moment Jacob understood that the promise made by God at the Akedah had been

kept. Now, on his way to seeing his son in Egypt, he chooses to renew the

offering of sacrifices which he had abstained from all those years. He offers

sacrifices to the God of his father Isaac, a phrase which puzzled

biblical exegetes. Given the above explanations, the matter becomes clear:

Isaac's name is mentioned in order to express acknowledgement that the promise

made by God at the binding of Isaac had been fulfilled with regards to Joseph. From

there on in it becomes known that the Patriarchs and their progeny – to the

very last of them – will be protected thanks to the binding of Isaac, and so it

became possible to renew the sacrifices.

Shafer Stollman

is an ordained rabbi and has an MA in education.

And they took their livestock and their

Egypt, Jacob and all his descendants with him.

(Bereishit

46:6)

that they had acquired in the land of

Canaan: But of what he had acquired in

Padan-Aram he gave everything to Esau [in payment] for his share in the Cave of

Machpelah. He said, "Possessions [acquired] outside the Land (of Israel)

are inappropriate for me." This is the meaning of which I acquired for

myself with heaps (Bereishit 50:5). He placed before him stacks of gold and silver

like a heap [of grain] and said to him, "Take these."

(Rashi

Bereishit 46:6)

…I am the one who told your father do not

go down to Egypt and I am the one who now tells you do not be afraid of

going down to Egypt, for I will make of you a great nation there. If

the sons remained here they would marry local people and assimilate among them,

but that will not happen in Egypt, because the Egyptians could not eat food

with the Hebrews, because it is an abomination to the Egyptians. And so,

the will become a great nation, as they [the Sages] of blessed memory said,

"will become a nation there – this teaches that they stood out

there."

(Seforno

46:3)

The Tenth of Tevet – The General Day for

Kaddish

Rabbi Shmuel Reiner, Rosh Yeshiva of Maale

Gilboa, sent us this article.

The Mystery of the Hidden Book

Once a few years ago, someone wrote a short book

that is crucial for believers. Its title is Lo Ira Ra – I Shall Not

Fear Evil and its subtitle is: 33 Explanations for Believers of Europe's

Years of Wrath. Its table of contents is even more revealing: 14

explanations of where God was during the years 5700 to 5705, and six

explanations of the suffering of the righteous and of school children in this

world. Three chapters deal with question "Is there suffering in this

world?" The book concludes with a number of letters from important rabbis

expressing the need for faith to be strengthened in our times.

After writing the book, preparing its indices of

citations from Scripture, the Sages, and so on, and after the title page was

ready for printing, the author remembered that when he was a young religious

school child he once arrived late to school and when the teacher asked why he

was tardy, the child answered, smiling victoriously, "I have two excuses…

" Glaring at him with a look full of truth and terror, R. Elimelekh

Rabinowitz (Zorkin) answered him: "When someone has two excuses,

apparently neither of them is correct."

And ever since recalling that incident, whenever

people began discussing that war in the House of Study, he would close up into

himself and remain silent.

Readers respond

In his article, "Thoughts on Current Events" (Vayishlah

issue), Pinchas Leiser lists a umber of things that undermine the foundations

of our existence as a democratic society. He was justified in the examples he

cited. However, I wonder why he failed to mention other serious deeds that

undermined – to a decisive extent – the faith of a large Israeli public in the "democratic"

functioning of the State of Israel. I will mention three of these:

The hiring of Yigal Raviv as a government agent who was supposed

to discredit right wing circles through his shocking provocations (such as

dressing up the image of Rabin in an S.S. uniform in Zion Square).

The "purchase" of the votes of Knesset members belonging to

the right-wing Tzomet party in preparation for the important vote on "Oslo

II," which passed by a majority of one vote. Is this what mean by

"democratic government"?

The execution of the "disengagement" that involved several serious

deviations from acceptable democratic procedures.

To these may be added the inability of broad sectors in our country to

express their views properly due to the proven and intolerable bias of the

entire state media favoring the representatives of the political left

and their views.

Indeed, we must all protect the democratic foundations of the State of

Israel, but people who make light of those foundations should not preach about

them to others.

Blessings,

Gavriel H. Kohen

Pinchas Leiser, editor of Shabbat Shalom, responds:

I thank Dr. Gavriel Kohen for his comments.

I certainly agree with him that all of Israel's governments have

suffered from various faults.

I did not relate to them because I came to warn of one particular area

of serious damage to democracy. I did not write because a prime minister of the

"Left" had been murdered; I would have written the same things if a

prime minister of the "Right" had been murdered in the wake of red

lines having been crossed in protests. This murder and the atmosphere of

delegitimization and incitement (yes, perhaps Avishai Raviv's role and

involvement should be investigated) preceding it, constitute a genuine danger,

since they undermine the limits of discourse and protest. That is why they

constitute an entirely different story. I think that there is a

difference between the examples brought by Dr. Kohen and the issue dealt with

in my article.

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