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Tuesday, December 27, 2016

The story of Yosef is well known: As the favorite son, Yosef becomes the object of the jealousy and derision of his brothers. He is sold into slavery, and, after many trials and tribulations, rises to the second most powerful position in Egypt. Many years later he confronts his brothers, and the visions for which his brothers mocked him in his youth come to fruition.

Biblical stories are often quite compelling, and this saga is truly great literature. For Jews, however, these stories are much more than a “good read.” Many levels or layers of meaning and insight are encapsulated in the verses of these “stories,” and the account of Yosef’s life is no exception. Each verse, each word used to tell Yosef’s story, is loaded with theological and mystical implications.

בראשיתלז: ב

אֵ֣לֶּה׀ תֹּלְד֣וֹת יַעֲקֹ֗ב יוֹסֵ֞ף בֶּן־שְׁבַֽע־עֶשְׂרֵ֤ה שָׁנָה֙…

These are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef was seventeen years old... (Bereishit 37:2)

The story of Yaakov is inextricably linked with Yosef; of all his sons, Yosef holds the key to Yaakov’s legacy. The fulfillment or completeness of Yaakov, the “generations of Yaakov,” will be realized through Yosef.

בראשיתלז: ג

וְיִשְׂרָאֵ֗ל אָהַ֤ב אֶת־יוֹסֵף֙ מִכָּל־בָּנָ֔יו…

And Yisrael loved Yosef more than all his sons… (Bereishit 37:3)

Yisrael – and not Yaakov – loved Yosef more than the other sons. The use of this name reflects national identity and national destiny, and not the sentimental, personal relationship between Yaakov and his children. Yaakov’s mission was a spiritual one; if he favored Yosef, it was because he believed that Yosef was best suited to fulfill that mission.

בראשיתלז: ה

וַיַּחֲלֹ֤ם יוֹסֵף֙ חֲל֔וֹם…

And Yosef dreamed a dream… (Bereishit 37:5)

Yosef was a visionary; perhaps this was one of the reasons why Yaakov loved him. Yosef had a unique ability to dream and to understand the meaning of dreams. Yisrael – the name used to describe the third of our founding fathers, as opposed to the name Yaakov that refers to his personal life and times – identified Yosef as the son most capable of carrying the nation’s spiritual mission forward. Like his father and grandfather, Yaakov looked to the future: Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov were not merely three highly accomplished spiritual individuals. They formed a dynasty, a shoshelet; Yisrael identified Yosef as the link in the shalshelet (from the root shalosh, three) that would hold the entire chain together.

Avraham was ninety-nine years old. God appeared to Avraham, and said to him, “I am El Shaddai;[1] walk with Me and be complete. I will make a covenant between Me and you and multiply you exceedingly.” Avraham prostrated himself, and God said to him: “This is my covenant with you; you will father many nations. You will no longer be called Avram; your name shall be Avraham because I have made you the father of a many nations. I will cause you to multiply exceedingly and make nations from you; kings will descend from you. And I will uphold the covenant between us, and with your offspring and their descendants through the generations, in an everlasting covenant, to be their God and the God of their children after them. And I will give to you and your descendants the land in which you dwell, the entire Land of Canaan, as an eternal inheritance, and I will be their God.” God said to Avraham: “And you shall safeguard the covenant with Me; you, and your descendants throughout the generations. This is My covenant which you shall keep between Me and you, and your descendants after you: Every male child among you shall be circumcised. You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between Me and you. Every eight-day-old male among you, throughout the generations, shall be circumcised....” (Bereishit 17:1–12)

This epiphany takes place prior to the birth of Yitzchak. Avram becomes Avraham, the new name signifying his new identity and spiritual mission as a father of nations and progenitor of a covenantal community. Avraham is commanded to circumcise all his descendants. As a result of these changes, Yitzchak will come into the world and the chain will continue: The covenant creates a new relationship between Avraham and God that will be carried on by Avraham’s children. With the commandment of circumcision, the dynasty begins.

This passage, almost-literally pregnant with religious, national and historic importance, contains another significant element: This is the first time Kel Shakkai appears in the Torah. Just how significant this fact is, becomes apparent when we note its subsequent appearances in the text: When Yitzchak orders Yaakov not to take a wife from among the local women, he sends him away with a blessing:

Yitzchak called Yaakov and blessed him, and commanded him, saying: “Do not take a wife from among the Canaanites. Go, travel to Padan Aram, to the house of Betuel, your maternal grandfather, and take a wife there, from the daughters of Lavan, your uncle. Kel Shakkai shall bless you and make you fruitful and multiply you, and you will become a large nation. He will give the blessing of Avraham to you and to your descendants with you, to inherit the land in which you live, which the Almighty promised to Avraham. (Bereishit 28:1–4)

When the blessing of nationhood, given to Avraham by Kel Shakkai, is passed on to Yaakov, the Name of God invoked is, once again, Kel Shakkai.

The Almighty said to him, “Your name is Yaakov. No shall no longer be called Yaakov, but rather Yisrael shall be your name,” and He named him Yisrael. The Almighty said to him, “I am Kel Shakkai. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a congregation of nations shall descend from you, and kings will emerge from your loins.” (Bereishit 35:10–11)

Each time God bestows the blessing of progeny upon the Patriarchs, He refers to Himself with the Divine Name Kel Shakkai. In fact, these are the only instances in which this Divine Name is used until this point in the Torah; it is not used in any other context. Instead, the more familiar Tetragrammaton (translated as Eternal) or Elokim (which we translate as Almighty) are used.[2]

The next appearance of Kel Shakkai is in this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Miketz. Yaakov is finally persuaded – with great difficulty - to allow the brothers to take Binyamin to Egypt. His parting words to his sons are as much a prayer as a blessing:

May Kel Shakkai give you mercy before the man [the leader of Egypt]. May He send your other brother [Shimon], as well as Binyamin, back; as for me, just as I mourned [for Yosef] I will mourn [for Binyamin]. (Bereishit 43:14)

Yaakov is tormented by the prospect of losing Binyamin. He has mourned Binyamin’s brother Yosef for decades, and is consumed with dread that he will lose the only son that remains from his beloved Rachel. However, if we view this dialogue as Yaakov speaking not only as a father but as the leader of a nation, the statement takes on a different meaning. He fears for the future of his nation – the nation promised to him and his father and grandfather by Kel Shakkai.

In the last days of Yaakov’s life, he invokes Kel Shakkai twice, both times in discussions with Yosef: First, Yaakov recounts the crucial moments of his life story. Once again, the topic is children or descendants, as Yaakov prepares to bless Yosef’s sons— the only grandchildren to receive his blessing directly.

May the God [Kel] of your father help you, and Kel Shakkai shall bless you, blessings of the Heavens above, blessings of the depths which crouch below, blessings of the breast and womb. The blessings of your father are potent beyond those of my ancestors, to the utmost boundary of the everlasting hills. They shall be on the head of Yosef, and on the crown of the head of he who was separated from his brothers. (Bereishit 49:25–26)

Yaakov passes on to Yosef the powerful blessings he himself received from God directly, as well as from his own father and grandfather. Once again, the Name associated with this blessing of progeny is Kel Shakkai.

These passages are the only ones in Sefer Bereishitin which this particular Name of God appears, leading us to two conclusions: First, that Shakkai is intrinsically connected with the blessing of progeny, and second, that this blessing is bestowed exclusively upon Yosef.

And this is the teaching of Resh Lakish; ‘What is the meaning of “I am KelShakkai”? I am He who told the world, “Enough!” Reish Lakish taught: When the Holy One, blessed be He, created the sea, it kept on expanding until the Holy One, blessed be He, chastised it, and it stopped… (Talmud Bavli Chagigah 12a)

Resh Lakish explained that the Hebrew word dai, “enough,” “stop,” “cease and desist,” forms the core of the Divine Name Shaddai: The forces of Creation, when unleashed, threatened to overwhelm what had been created. Nature had to be restrained from running amok, so God set boundaries, creating a tension between the various forces of nature that enabled our world to exist.

The Name of God used in the description of Creation is Elokim, the Almighty or Omnipotent. According to Kabbalistic tradition, Elokim does not describe the essence of God; it expresses one aspect of God, one facet that is revealed to us. Kabbalistic texts more commonly refer to God as Ein Sof- “without limits,” or “The Infinite.” At first glance, we might think that Elokim, “The Almighty” best describes God’s role in the cosmic drama. Why, then, do the Kabbalists prefer Ein Sof?

The Kabbalists grapple with a fundamental problem: The essence of God is transcendental, completely beyond man’s grasp or ability to categorize, and therefore beyond articulation. Consequently, even the term ‘Almighty’ is, in effect, an anthropomorphism; it describes God as the possessor of all the powers we can conceive of, all the powers known to us or imagined by our limited minds – which is, in God’s terms, a very limited purview indeed. The Zohar attempts to point out our inability to grasp or express that which lies beyond us, suggesting that the first verse of the Torah should be translated as “In the beginning, Elokim was created [by the transcendental Ein Sof]…” (Tikunei Zohar, Tikunim Chadashim, Ha’idra Kadisha).[3]

The name Elokim is identified with the unbridled forces of nature;[4] it is this aspect of God that creates heaven and earth in six days. However, in the Kabbalistic description of Creation, the world’s emergence is made possible by the transcendental God “holding back” His transcendence and allowing a finite world to exist. This process is known as tzimtzum(‘contraction’ or ‘self-limitation’); the result is the creation of “nature.” The aspect of God expressed in the Divine Name Shakkai denotes this limitation of nature.

Avraham came to recognize God through nature;[5] God’s response was to give Avraham the mitzvah of circumcision, which implies that man must perfect nature, rise above it, control his natural instincts - in imitation of God’s own self-limitation. For the Jewish People to emerge, Avraham must connect with the Infinite by developing the ability to rise above “nature.” This is the symbol of the eighth day: There are seven days of the week in the process of creation; the eighth day lies beyond the natural, beyond the physical. The Jewish People could not emerge as a nation until they accepted the mitzvah of circumcision; the self-limitation that is the essence of the Covenant of Avraham is the prerequisite for the birth of a holy nation, a “kingdom of priests.”

More than any other biblical figure, Yosef epitomizes the ability to control base human instinct: He resists sexual temptation, he overcomes the human tendency toward vengefulness, spite and hatred – even when these might have been perfectly well-deserved. Yosef, and no other, is known as “Yosef the Tzaddik,” and Kabbalistic sources refer to him as Yesod – the foundation.He completes the process of self-limitation that brings about the transition from family to nationhood: Yosef internalizes the concept of tzimtzum expressed in the Divine attribute of Shakkai.

As the long and oppressive exile in Egypt comes to an end, the Israelites set about collecting their unpaid wages from their Egyptian taskmasters, in fulfillment of the promise God made to Avraham centuries earlier:

“…Enslave them and abuse them…and then [Your children] will leave with great possessions” (Bereishit 15:14).

Moshe, their leader, heads instead to the Nile River to collect Yosef’s remains. Why did Moshe occupy himself personally with the task of fulfilling the promise made by the brothers to Yosef to redeem his remains from Egypt? Could this responsibility not have been delegated, perhaps to one of Yosef’s direct descendants?

While still an infant, Moshe was hidden in an ark and set afloat in the Nile. Pharaoh’s daughter found him and took him in, saving him from the death sentence her own father had issued for all Jewish males. Moshe’s sister Miriam offered to find a nurse for the baby, and Pharaoh’s daughter agreed. Thus, Moshe was returned to his parents’ home for two years, until he was weaned; he then went back to Pharaoh’s place, where he was raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter (Shemot, Chapter 2). Moshe’s parents had a brief opportunity to educate their son prior to his return to the daughter of Pharaoh and to life in the palace. What sort of things did they teach him? He certainly was aware his Jewish identity:

It was in those days, when Moshe was grown, that he went out to his brothers and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, from his brothers. (Shemot 2:11)

Despite his life of privilege and comfort in the palace, Moshe knew and acknowledged his brothers, the Israelite slaves. His parents had obviously taught him well, had equipped him with the tools to retain his Jewish identity in the palace. Surely, there could have been no better role model than their great-great uncle Yosef. Who but Yosef had spent long years in the palace, living among the uppermost echelon of Egyptian society, and, despite all its depravity and seductiveness, retained his identity? The example of Yosef the Tzaddik almost certainly inspired Moshe, fortified him in the years of separation from his family, and gave him hope for a reconciliation - as well as a deep understanding that God’s plan for the salvation of the Jewish People sometimes requires that individuals be placed in this situation for the good of the nation. Yosef, once again, is the Yesod - the foundation upon which the Exodus from Egypt was built.

And so, in a gesture of gratitude for the uplifting example and inspiration Yosef provided, Moshe himself lifted Yosef’s remains from the Nile and out of Egypt. Had Yosef been merely one more great-uncle, Moshe could have delegated the chore of locating his remains to someone else. Rather, it was Yosef the Tzaddik, the foundation of Moshe’s faith in Jewish unity and Jewish destiny, the symbol of man’s ability to control his own nature, the human manifestation of Shakkai, whom Moshe liberated.[6] Kabbalisitic thought stresses the spiritual connection between Moshe and Yosef:

The Almighty spoke to Moshe, and said to him, “I am The Eternal God. I appeared to Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov as Kel Shakkai, and My Eternal Name [the Tetragrammaton] I did not make known to them.” (Shemot 6:2–3)

To fulfill his mission, Moshe will need a different type of relationship with God than the one enjoyed by the patriarchs. These relationships are expressed in the different names through which God reveals Himself: The aspect of God expressed by Shakkai is a powerful one, and surely no holy nation of Jews could have come into existence without it. God, however, has many more plans for the Jews — plans that Moshe is now tasked with setting in motion: Standing at Mount Sinai, receiving the Torah, taking possession of the Land of Israel, and, eventually, mending and perfecting the world. For these missions to be accomplished, more Divine Light must be revealed, other aspects of God must become known and manifest in this world. The blessings bestowed upon the Patriarchs by Kel Shakkai were brought to full expression in Yosef, the Yesod or foundation of the Jewish People - but the building which will stand on this foundation had yet to be built. That would require a new relationship with God, a new covenant that would be forged at Mount Sinai, built upon the foundation laid by our Forefathers.

[1]As with all names of God, the word itself is considered too holy to be used commonly. Thus, with the exclusion of the recitation of blessings or in mandated Torah reading in the synagogue, none of the names of God are pronounced by the devout as they appear in the text: Elohim is pronounced Elokim, El is pronounced Kel, Shaddai is pronounced Shakkai, and the Tetragrammaton is replaced with Hashem (meaning, quite simply, “The Name”).

[2] There are those who note the name Shaddai is suspiciously similar to the Hebrew (plural) word for “breasts”, which would explain why this name always seems related to blessings of fertility. See Zohar Shemot 153a, and Ben Yehidaya Shabbat 97a.

[4] This Divine Name has the same numeric value as hateva (nature).This teaching is hinted at in the writings of Rabbenu Bachya (Bereishit 2:4); it appears in the writings of Rabbi Moshe of Cordovero’s Pardes Rimonim (Shaar 12, chapter 2), and is cited by the Shla Hakadosh from the Pardes Rimonim,and by numerous later writers.

[6] On a more basic level, we may posit that Moshe, as a descendant of Levi, felt an historic responsibility to “right the wrong” and to return Yosef home. According to tradition, it was Levi who first suggested to kill Yosef; perhaps Moshe felt particular responsibility for the schism created by the sale of Yosef, and this was his way of making amends and healing the nation’s wounds of discord.

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About Me

Born in Brooklyn NY, moved to Israel in 1984.
I teach and write about Torah topics. Author of "Explorations" on the weekly Parsha and "Emanations" on holidays - both published by Targum/Feldheim
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