FAMILY REUNION

Much of the country has been gearing up for annual festive season celebrations. Media outlets discuss menus and the tricky dynamics of family members and friends who have not been together for some time.

Family dynamics of a different kind emerge in this week’s parasha.

When Joseph has revealed his identity to his brothers, he sends them back to the land of Israel with a message that Jacob should relocate to Egypt. In order to facilitate the long journey for his father, Joseph sends wagons to Jacob. The Bible says that when the brothers returned to Jacob:

“They told him all the words that Joseph had said to them. When he saw the wagons which Joseph sent to transport him, Jacob’s spirit revived.”
(Bereishit 45:27)

Our commentators discuss what it was about these wagons that “revived Jacob’s spirit”.

The late Dayan Isaac Golditch (1906–1987), head of the Manchester Beth Din in the 1960s, once offered an insight that expresses the basic meaning of this verse in very human terms.[1]

Imagine, he says, parents who have a son who goes away to make his fortune and becomes successful. Time goes by and the parents do not hear from him. They worry. Does he still keep kosher? Does he keep Shabbat? Does he have a Jewish girlfriend? Eventually, the son makes contact and tells them that he very much wants to meet up. If the son says he will come and visit them for a Shabbat, of course they would be happy to see him – but would their concerns be allayed? Anyone can “act religious” over Shabbat, and it would not indicate how he was spending his life the rest of the time. If, however, the son says, “I am sending airline tickets and a car to fetch you from the airport, so that you can stay with me for a couple of weeks,” the parents would be relieved. Clearly, their son was happy for them to see his home and what his life was really like.

When Jacob heard that Joseph was a ruler in Egypt, he was immediately concerned that Joseph had embraced the alien values of the Egyptians. But when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to invite him into his home, he was reassured, and his spirit was revived.

For parents, reassurance often comes not from what children say about themselves, but from the confidence that they have nothing to hide.

May we all have nachas from the next generation.

 

[1] Quoted by the late Rabbi Isaac Bernstein in one of his shiurim