Shabbat Forshpeis
A Taste of Torah in Honor of Shabbat
PARSHAT VA-YECHI
OUR DESTINY NOW BELONGS TO EVERYONE
DECEMBER 21, 2002/ 16 TEVET 5763
Why is Yosef (Joseph)
not considered the fourth patriarch?
It can be suggested that, in order to be a patriarch, God must speak directly to you. While Yosef often invoked the name of God, the formula "And the Lord spoke to Yosef" never appears in the Yosef narrative.
Moreover, to be a patriarch, one must receive the covenantal promise of land and children. While Avraham (Abraham), Yitzchak (Isaac) and Ya'akov (Jacob) were given this commitment, Yosef is not.
Additionally, to be a patriarch one must be involved in a process of choice. To wit, Avraham and not his brothers, Yitzchak, and not Yishmael, Ya'akov and not Esau were chosen to be the heirs. Yosef was not chosen as heir over his siblings. In fact, the basic thrust of the Yosef story may be a movement from a belief that only one brother would be chosen, to an understanding that all the brothers would be chosen.
Hence, Rabbi Liebtag concludes, Yosef dreamt about sheaves and stars, symbolic of land and children, the two elements of the covenant - believing that he would be the spiritual inheritor. Ya'akov seems to agree by favoring Yosef.
The brothers, however, insist that Yosef will not be the heir. In effect they said, as our grandfather Yitzchak was wrong to favor Esau, so our father is wrong in favoring Yosef. Indeed, as Rebecca fooled Yitzchak by dressing Yaakov in goatskin, so the brothers in the spirit of Rebecca dipped Yosef's special coat into goat's blood to fool Ya'akov.
In the end, Yosef was sent by his father to seek out the welfare of his brothers resulting in his sale to Egypt. Perhaps Yosef may have felt abandoned by Yaakov and believed that his father no longer wanted Yosef to be the heir. As Yishmael and Esau left home, so was Yosef sent away. No wonder Yosef doesn't contact his father with a letter. He may have believed that his father was not going to choose him to be the heir.
Only when the brothers come to Egypt for food does a transformation begin. There emerges a recognition that all the brothers will be heirs. It reaches the crescendo in our parsha when Yaakov asks that all his children gather for a blessing. (Genesis 47:2) Unlike Avraham and Yitzhak who blessed only one of their children with spiritual inheritance, Ya'akov blesses them all. Yaakov realizes that each and every individual in the family has a unique role in the success of the continuity of the Jewish nation.
We, too, should heed this message. When there is fractionalization amongst our people, the story of Yosef teaches that we all have a role to play in forging the destiny of the Am Yisrael.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Avi Weiss
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