AND WHEN THE TIME APPROACHED FOR JACOB TO DIE, HE SUMMONED HIS SON JOSEPH AND SAID TO HIM, "PLEASE, IF I HAVE FOUND FAVOR IN YOUR EYES, PLACE YOUR HAND UNDER MY THIGH AND TREAT ME WITH KINDNESS AND LOYALTY: PLEASE DO NOT BURY ME IN EGYPT. WHEN I LIE DOWN WITH MY FATHERS, TAKE ME UP FROM EGYPT AND BURY ME IN THEIR BURIAL-PLACE." HE REPLIED, "I WILL DO AS YOU HAVE SPOKEN."

 (Bereishit 47:29-30)

 

And when the time approached - The great weakness brought on by many toils and troubles made him feel his own death's approach. Fearing sudden death, he instructed his son Joseph to have him taken out of Egypt and buried in the tomb of his fathers.

 (ReDaK on Bereishit 47:29)

 

And when the time approached for Jacob to die - It says approached every time someone wants to instruct his children. For instance: When Isaac was old... he called Esau... I do not know how soon I may die (27:1,2), and when the time approached for David to die, he instructed his son Solomon... (I Kings 2:1). This parasha really begins with And Israel settled in the land of Egypt... (Bereishit 47:27), since Jacob lived (27:28) is connected to it. But the communities did not want to have parashat Vayigash end with [the section beginning] and the land passed over to Pharaoh (47:20), so they ended it with And Israel settled.

(RaShBaM ad loc)

 

When Jacob started to die, he began humbling himself before Joseph, and said to him, Please, if I have found favor in your eyes... (47:29). When [does he speak in this fashion]? When he approaches death, for it is said, And when the time approached for Jacob to die.

 (Bereishit Rabbah 96:3)

 

 

From Shimon and Levi to Pinhas and Zimri

Elimelekh Horowitz

In our parasha Shimon and Levi are both castigated for the harm they caused to Jacob as a result of the massacre they perpetrated in Shechem, while in the parasha Zot ha-Berakha, Levi wins Moses' blessing, but Shimon does not appear in the list of those blessed.

How can we explain this? The Sages already addressed this problem in Sifri Devarim (349), answering it, as is there custom, with a parable:

It is like the story of two people who borrowed from the king. One paid back his debt to the king, and even lent him money. The other not only failed to pay back his debt - he borrowed even more from the king. So it was with Shimon and Levi who borrowed at Shechem, as it says, two of Jacob's sons, Shimon and Levi, took each his sword and went stealthily to the city and killed all the males (Bereishit 34:25). In the desert [during the sin of the golden calf), Levi paid back his debt, for it is said, and Moses stood at the gate of the camp and said, "Thus says the Lord: Let each man place his sword on his thigh,' and the Levites did what God had said (Shemot 32:27-8), and he [Levi] went on and lent it to God at Shittim, for it is said, Pinhas son of Elazar son of Aaron the Priest took back my anger against the Israelites, by being zealous for my jealousy among them, and so I did not destroy the Israelites in my jealousy. (Bamidbar 25:11).

It seems the Sages noticed that the expression ish harbo (each man his sword) - appears only twice in the Torah: in connection with the Shechem massacre, and in connection with the sin of the golden calf. In both cases, Levi was holding the sword in question. However, in the first instance, Shimon and Levi killed every male in Shechem, and in the second instance, the Levites killed three thousand of their own brothers and neighbors from among the Israelites. There is another difference: in Shechem, Shimon and Levi acted of their own volition, while in the case of the golden calf the Levites answered Moses' (a fellow tribe-member's) call: Whoever is for the Lord, come to me! (Shemot 32:26), and they executed his command: Go back and forth from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay brother, neighbor, and kin (32:27). One might say that the slaughter perpetrated by Shimon and Levi by their own decision and in the name of brotherly concern was later atoned for when the Levites killed their Israelite brothers on Moses' command. However, they only atoned for Levi's part in the Shechem massacre.

A bit later, when the Israelites were camped in Shittim and attached themselves to Baal-Peor (Bamidbar 25:3), another Levite zealot rose up - Pinchas son of Elazar son of Aaron the Priest, and another sinner from the tribe of Shimon appears - Zimri son of Salu. After Moses commands the people's judges to each kill those of his men who attached themselves to Baal-Peor (25:5), Zimri, chieftain of a Simeonite ancestral house (25:14), arrives and attaches himself not only to Baal Peor, but also to Kozbi daughter of Tzur, the Midianite. In this emergency situation, Pinchas rises up from the community, spear-in-hand, and stabs them both. In a way, Pinchas' action is similar to that of Shimon and Levi; he decided to act on his own. In contrast to the general massacre that took place in Shechem, Pinchas only killed the sinners themselves. And in contrast to Shimon and Levi, who earned their father's reprimand, Pinchas was rewarded with both a pact of priesthood for all time (25:13) as well as a pact of peace (25:12) with God.

Shimon and Levi committed a double sin: they acted without their father's knowledge, and they killed all of the males in Shechem. In their response to the golden calf, Levi's descendants managed to atone for one part of the sin, and in Shittim, Pinchas atoned for the other.

Shimon and Levi acted as partners, and here we see that a descendant of Levi publicly kills a chieftain of the tribe of Shimon, who was sinning in public. As a result, the Levites receive Moses' blessing, and the Simeonites end up doubly disadvantaged.

Brotherly concern has given rise to needless killings in our day as well. May we find the courage to atone for them - not through additional killings - and not leave the matter for our descendants.

Prof. Elimelekh Horowitz, a member of the board of Oz Ve'Shalom, teaches in the Jewish History department of Bar-Ilan University.

 

 

Love Truth and Peace - Justification of Lying and the Motivation of Lies

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did to him!" So they sent this message to Joseph, "Before his death your father left this instruction: So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.' Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father." And Joseph wept as they spoke to him.

(Bereishit 50:15-16)

 

Rabbi Eliezer said in the name of Rabbi Shimon: One is allowed to lie for the sake of peace, for it is said: your father left this instruction: So shall you say to Joseph, etc.

Rabbi Natan said: It is a commandment [to lie for the sake of peace], for it is said: Samuel replied, "How can I go? If Saul hears of it, he will kill me."[The Lord answered, "Take a heifer with you, and say, ‘I have come to sacrifice to the Lord."] (I Samuel 16:2).

The school of Rabbi Yishmael taught: Great is peace, for even the Holy One blessed be He lied for it; first it says: [And Sarah laughed to herself, saying, "Now that I am withered, am I to have enjoyment] with my husband so old?" (Bereishit 18: 12), but later it says, [Then the Lord said to Abraham, "Why did Sarah laugh, saying, ‘Shall I in truth bear a child,] old as I am?'" (18:13).

(Yevamot 65b)

 

And Joseph wept: He understood that his brothers had sent the messengers, telling them what to say, and that Jacob had not commanded any of it. Had he wanted to, he [Jacob] would have told him while he was still alive. He cried because he saw how troubled his brothers were, fearing for their lives, forced to invent ploys to save themselves from his wrath.

 (ShaDaL on the Torah, as quoted in Prof. Nehama Leibowitz's Iyyunim le-Sefer Bereishit)

 

Vindictiveness and Suspicion vs. Forgiveness and Peace

When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead. What did they see then that made them fearful? They saw that on the way back from burying their father, Joseph visited the pit into which they had sent him in order to say a blessing, as one is required to say a blessing at a place where a miracle happened for one's sake: "Blessed is the omnipresent who performed a miracle for my sake at this place." When they saw this, they said, now that our father is dead, "What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!" So they sent this message to Joseph, "Before his death your father left this instruction... So shall you say to Joseph, Forgive... " (50:15-17). We have searched and not found that Jacob commanded this thing. But come and see how great is the power of peace, for the Holy One blessed be He wrote these things in His Torah regarding the power of peace.

(Tanhuma Vayehi 17)

 

The midrash tells us that Joseph the Righteous had acted for the sake of Heaven, he went to fulfill the commandment taught him by his father, to recite the customary blessing for a miracle which had occurred. Nevertheless, the brothers are unable to shake off their suspicions. They were entrapped by their old prejudice that had caused them to err even after the reunion; they were incapable of understanding the reality that someone might be guided by forgiveness, even for a terrible deed such as that which they had done to their brother Joseph.

(Y. Leibowitz: Sheva Shanim shel Sihot al Parashat Ha-Shavua, pg. 186)

 

Between Regime and Morality

When David's life was drawing to a close, he instructed his son Solomon as follows: "I am going the way of all the earth; be strong and show yourself a man. Keep the charge of the Lord your God, walking in His ways and following His laws, His commandments, His rules, and His admonitions as recorded in the Torah of Moses, in order that you may succeed in whatever you undertake and wherever you turn. Then the Lord will fulfill the promise that He made concerning me: "If your descendants are scrupulous in their conduct, and walk before Me faithfully, with all their heart and soul, your line on the throne of Israel shall never end."

Further, you know what Yoav son of Zuriah did to me, what he did to the two commanders of Israel's forces, Abner son of Ner and Amasa son of Yeter: he killed them, shedding blood of war in peacetime, staining the girdle of his loins and the sandals on his feet with the blood of war. So act in accordance with your wisdom, and see that his white hair does not go down to Sheol in peace.

(I Kings 2:1-6, from the Haftorah for parashat Vayehi)

 

Every king or sovereign or ruler among human beings, in as much as they are human beings, even amongst Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even if he is called "Messiah of the God of Jacob", will become evil as a result of his ruling over his brothers. There cannot be a monarchy that is not wicked. This is something that the greatest believers and Torah scholars would occasionally mention even in connection with King David, who was in their eyes the great example of a just and pious king, as they said: "Any one made a leader below becomes evil in [the eyes of God] above."

(Y. Leibowitz, op. cit. pg. 190)

 

Forces from without compelled us to forsake the political arena of the world, but our withdrawal was also motivated by an inward assent, as if to say that we were awaiting the advent of a happier time, when government could be conducted without ruthlessness and barbarism. That is the day for which we hope. Of course, in order to bring it about, we must awaken all our potentialities and use all the means that the age may make available to us: Everything evolves by the will of the Creator of all worlds. But the delay is a necessary one, for our soul was disgusted by the dreadful sins that go with political rule in evil times. The day has come - it is very near - when the world will grow gentler; we can begin to prepare ourselves, for it will soon be possible for us to conduct a state of our own founded on goodness, wisdom, justice, and the clear Light of God.

"Jacob sent the royal robe to Esau": Let my lord go on ahead of his servant (Bereishit 33:14). It is not meant for Jacob to engage in political life at a time when statehood requires bloody ruthlessness and demands a talent for evil. At the beginning of our history we were granted only the foundation, the minimum that was necessary to establish a nation. After our race was weaned, our political sovereignty was destroyed, and we were dispersed among the peoples and sown in the depths of the soil, till the time of singing is come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land (Shir Ha-Shirim 2:12).

 (Rabbi A. I. Kook, ztz"l, Orot, pg. 14. Translation based on Arthut Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea, pg. 422)

 

Jacob - the Galut aspect of the Jewish People, oppressed and persecuted.

Israel - the "God won" victorious aspect of the Jewish People.

Accordingly: the danger to the general weal by Shimon and Levi's excessive impetuosity and choleric disposition is only present at a time when the nation is flourishing, when it forms a powerful body of a people who could easily be influenced by two compact tribes filled with glowing feelings of strength and power and of the unity and brotherhood of the whole nation. Therefore in Israel: I will scatter them. In a flourishing state of Israel they are to be scattered. As actually happened. Levi received no province at all when the land was divided up, and his existence was, through tithes, made entirely dependent on the good-will of each individual. For the Jewish tithe, in contrast to the later and present-day tithe of the Church and landlord, was absolutely "property that no one could claim," a tax which it was certainly the duty of the occupier of the land to pay, but to which no particular Levite had any direct claim. The one who had to pay it could give the tithe to any one of the tribe of Levi that he pleased and none had the right to demand it from him...

But in Galut, where the pressure of our fate bows everything down and the nation itself torn asunder, there the danger lies, that all feelings of one's own importance becomes lost, and the sense of oppression kills all spiritual force and energy. That even the wandering Jew, peddling through Europe, still looked down on the street boys of the various countries with proud feeling of his own value, and he, downtrodden and driven all over the world still keeps the feelings of the importance of his own person and the sense of belonging to his people, for that I shall divide them among Jacob, it was of the greatest benefit that the tribes of Shimon and Levi were scattered amongst the other tribes, which had the natural result that, when the state collapsed and the nation scattered in all directions, in this dispersion, Shimonites and Levites would be found everywhere, who, with their fiery and proud dispositions would keep alive the energy and the courage, the fire and the noble Jewish pride of the Jewish spirit, outliving the loss of the state.

(R. S.R. Hirsch on Bereishit 49:7, Levi translation)

 

 

 

 

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