A Monentous Discovery -- Parasha Vayigash and Vayechi

A Momentous Discovery

Do you remember the first time you heard about email?  For me it was through the television show, Seinfeld. Jerry was sitting at a counter table with a young woman he had just met. They hit it off, and he asked for her number. “Let me give you my email,” she said to him. Jerry looked a bit bewildered. “What are you, some kind of scientist?” he asked her.

E-mail is one of those revolutions in technology that have changed our lives forever. It was all over the news last week as Sony Pictures was hacked into and thousands of embarrassing emails were made public.  It is a reminder that we all need to be careful of what we write in emails. This brings to mind a midrash about Joseph and his brothers. When Joseph’s brothers threw him into the pit, they wanted to kill him. Reuven, the eldest, stopped them by saying, “What do we profit from killing him? Let us sell him instead.” The midrash says that had Reuven known that his words would be recorded for posterity, he would have never said the words he did. It makes him look very bad. Instead, he would have immediately stood up to his brothers and taken Joseph back to their father safely. Would Sony Pictures executives have said the things they said had they known that there would be a permanent record of them and that they could be made public? No --They would have been more careful about what they wrote. We all need to be more careful about what we write.

In this week’s parasha, we have another innovation that changed our lives forever. This was brought to my attention by an article by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, the former Chief Rabbi of Great Britain. Rabbi Sacks writes that this week’s parasha marks the first time in history where forgiveness is granted to a person or persons. Next week’s parasha marks the first time that the word “forgive” is used in the Torah. You all know the story. Joseph is sold by his brothers into slavery and rises to be second in command to Pharaoh when he successfully interprets Pharaoh’s dreams. During the years of famine, Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy grain. He recognizes them, but they do not recognize him. He puts them through a series of tests, which proves to Joseph that they regretted what they had done to him. When Joseph finally reveals himself to his brothers, they are terrified. They expect him to take revenge on them for their selling him into slavery. But Joseph does not do this. He tells them not to fear. He tells them that their actions were clearly part of G-d’s plan to save their lives. “It was not you, but G-d, who sent me here,” he concludes.  He doesn’t use the word “forgive” but the meaning of his words are clear.

Later on in the story, another thing becomes clear. The brothers did not fully understand Joseph. Seventeen years later, when their father Jacob dies, they fear that Joseph will take his revenge. Perhaps he was waiting for their father to die to do so, they think. So they send a message to Joseph, asking that he forgive them. In the brothers message is the first use of the term in the Torah. Joseph weeps. The text does not tell us why. Perhaps he only now realizes that they never understood what it meant to truly forgive another person.

So, “forgiveness” is literally invented by Joseph. Adam and Eve don’t ask forgiveness from G-d. G-d never explicitly forgives Cain from killing Abel. When Abraham pleads for Sodom and Gomorrah, he never asks G-d to forgive their wickedness. Jacob never asks Esau for forgiveness either. He appeases Esau, he bows down to Esau seven times, he addresses Esau as “My Lord” but he never asks for his forgiveness. Rabbi Sacks, referring to a book by American classicist David Konstin entitled Before Forgiveness, argues that this is because the concept of “forgiveness” was unknown before the time of Joseph.  Not every society has a concept of forgiveness, he writes. For example, in ancient Greek society, if you wronged somebody, you could appease them. You could make excuses for your actions. You can abase yourself, as Jacob apparently did with Esau. The offended party might then let it go. Their honor is restored. They no longer need to take revenge. Rabbi Sacks calls the ancient Greeks a “shame and honor culture”. Judaism, on the other hand, is a “guilt and repentance” culture. The difference is important.

Teacher and author Brené Brown explains the difference between shame and guilt succinctly. Shame is a focus on self, guilt is a focus on behavior. Shame is “I am bad”. Guilt is “I did something bad”. Guilt is “I’m sorry, I made a mistake”. Shame is “I’m sorry, I AM a mistake.” When one feels shame, the stain of the wrongdoing sticks to one. It soils the person, it defines who they are. One might restore honor and dignity on the one who was wronged, but one could never undo the wrong or rebalance the relationship. Guilt, on the other hand, is the acknowledgement of an action that has wronged someone else. With guilt there is the possibility that one can repent of the action. Forgiveness has the capacity to restore the relationship and to free it to grow and develop. In a “shame and honor” society, relationships remain stuck in the dynamic of the one who wronged and the one who was wronged.

It is tragic when you see this shame and honor dynamic in action. Rabbi Jack Riemer tells the story of a  man who came to see him one Yom Kippur. Twenty years before, he had been wronged by his brother and they had not spoken since.  The Rabbi asked the man, who was fifty at the time of the conversation if he was the same person he was twenty years ago, when he was thirty. “Of course not,” said the man, “I’ve changed in those twenty years.” “Don’t you think your brother has changed as well?” the Rabbi asked.

In inventing the dynamic of “repentance and forgiveness” Joseph gave the world something far more valuable than email. He gave us a way to begin our lives again after we make a mistake. We can change -- we need not replay endless repetitions of the past.

Shabbat Shalom