MISSION

For Parshat Va-Yehi

With the close of Genesis, all the strands of the story of Joseph and his brothers are woven together, and all the strands of the first stage the story of Jacob and his sons are interwoven, and now the work of the sons begins. Our Sages have a very basic statement, “there are none but three Patriarchs.” When we speak of avot, we sometimes use the term avoteinu and refer to all our forefathers but the term avot originally refers to the first three.

Now the patriarchal period has ended, the baton has been handed on to the sons. All of this begins in the parshah when Jacob dies , and Joseph begins to lead the next happenings. As the parshah unfolds , we see two main figures, that of Joseph and that of Judah. Joseph has been destined for a role by Jacob from the outset, at a very young age he had already sent him on a mission, the one from which he did not return, and because of which he ends up moving them all to Egypt, and things continue on as we all know. As for Judah, we do not see Jacob earmarking him for anything special, at least not until this parshah. The roles of these two tribes are first given expression only in the blessings they receive. Only regarding Joseph and regarding Judah does Jacob refer in his blessing to the relations between all the other brothers and each of them, to their being a central figure to whom the brothers must relate.

Regarding Judah it says, “You, Judah, your brothers shall praise you, your hand shall be on the nape of your enemies, your father’s sons shall bow down to you” (Gen. 49:8), the attitude to Judah at least externally is “your hand shall be on the nape of your enemies,” and the attitude for internal purposes is “your father’s sons shall bow to you”. By the way, the one who dreamed that the sun and the moon and the stars would bow down to him was Joseph, but the but one who was blessed that this would happen to him was Judah. The only other son in whose blessing there is mention of the relationship between his brothers and himself is Joseph. If for Judah we cited the verse that opened the blessing, for Joseph it is the verse that closes the blessing, after all the long blessing of “Joseph is a fruitful son...” “The blessing of your father exceed the blessings of my progenitors to the utmost bound of the everlasting hills, may they rest on the head of Joseph, on the head of the elect of his brothers” (Gen. 49:26). This one is called nezir ehav. We do not know precisely what this means, but it is clear that we are dealing here with nezer, something that is separate, and crown and kingdom and that there is a relationship between him and all of his brothers, and this is called “your father’s sons shall bow down to you,” your brothers shall praise you,” all of your brothers, even the sons of your mother, “your father’s sons will bow down to you.”

When does Jacob’s attitude to Judah change? Or, when does something develop between Jacob and Judah? Regarding Joseph I have said previously that we see that this had already taken shape by the time he was 17 when Jacob sends him from the Hebron Valley to Shechem. Yet, I think that if we look closely at the verses the special relationship between Jacob and Joseph was created much earlier, not only with the coat of many colors that we all know about, but rather it sprang into being the minute Joseph was born, the very second. Look closely at the following verse, we shall return to it later in a totally different context: “And after Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away [shalheni] so that I shall go back to my place and my country” (Gen. 30:25). Jacob had waited twenty years to make this decision, and the verse says explicitly that ripeness to carry it out is related to Joseph’s having been born. It does not say, “And Jacob said to Laban, ‘There are many who were born there,’” eleven sons had been born until then, and the story of Joseph’s birth had already appeared, but rather “And after Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away [shalheni] so that I shall go back to my place and my country.” The famous Rashi there [on Gen. 30: 25] cites a well-known midrash, that now Esau’s adversary had been born, “And the house of Jacob shall be a fire and the house of Joseph a flame, and the house of Esau for stubble.” Jacob feels this type of continuity, “These are the generations of Jacob Joseph.” By the way, it is quite reasonable to assume that the brothers feel it, perhaps this also causes tension and envy, but the envy and tension are beyond the ken of this lesson.

Another question interests me, one I wish to pay attention to. When does this begin regarding Judah? Was it always this way and only given expression for the first time in the blessing, many, many years later? We see a special attitude of the brothers toward Judah, Judah is the one who decides in the morning what will happen, Judah is the one who approaches Joseph. But do we have somewhere a description enlightening us about Jacob’s attitude to Judah? We remember Judah addressing Jacob when he wants to take responsibility for Benjamin, in a manner differing from Reuben’s, but what exactly is going on there? I want to take all this slowly, but to get to it I want to begin with a number of points in the long story about Joseph and his brothers which offers us new worlds every time we look into it.

As I see it, what we have here is a code, a simple basic cipher, once perceived it answers not only the previous question but also something fundamental running through all of Genesis and perhaps, or so I see it, it is the most central message that Joseph wants to pass on to his brothers and to us. This is perhaps the code that explains the exact timing of when Joseph “decides” to break down and can no longer restrain himself. This is not a random happening, something that happens at the moment when Joseph decides to make himself known to his brothers. This is the same code by which Jacob decides for the first time to depend on another of his sons besides Joseph, and this will be Judah to whom Jacob gave the responsibility for Benjamin. This is a very simple code, yet one must crack it. But once understood, it seems to me that it is a very simple message carried throughout the book, one is relevant to us today.

I would like to begin from the moment Joseph’s makes himself known to his brothers or from the final moments of Judah’s speech to Joseph. Last week we dealt at length with Joseph’s statement to his brothers, “Be not grieved, nor be angry with yourselves,” which is also an ancient code, this too took place in Shechem, as we have previously learned. Judah is about to conclude his speech and he says, “Now, if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us and his life is bound up with his” (Gen. 44:30) This is the close of “Then Judah went up to him” with all the story from the beginning. So what is the actual problem? That the father’s life is bound up with that of Benjamin, I cannot do this to Father, that is, the problem is Father. He wants Joseph to take pity on his old father. “When he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die and, and your servants will send the white head of your servant our father down to the grave in grief” (Gen. 44:31). Here essentially ends the argument that their father would not be able to take it should Benjamin not return. This is a very strong human argument, and it very well might be that it is sufficient. But certainly in fact it is not, for if it were, Joseph would stop here and the whole story would be finished.

Now, Judah adds another sentence, and it is a very important one, for it is the closure to his speech. (The two verses that follow are actually conclusions drawn from it.) “For your servant has pledged himself for the boy to my father, saying ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father for ever” (Gen. 44:32). What was the subject two verses earlier? Abba, father. While now, what is the subject? I am. This confuses Rashi as to what is going on here, what is meant by “For your servant,” who asked you about this now? Why do you suddenly get involved in this, that’s not what we are talking about. You said Father’s old, he can’t take this, so if you want to add an argument, then say, “Besides, your servant..” but you can’t jump from one reason to another! Rashi on 44:32 makes an important comment, “For your servant became surety for the lad. And if you ask,” you are the ruler of the land, alienated Joseph, “why I enter this strife more than the rest of my brothers,” in other words, the argument is really from concern their father. But what do you ask, why am I the one speaking here? Yes, I have taken charge here. I approached by myself and began to talk, nobody called on me to do so. You are even aware, since you already know us, that I am not the eldest , Reuben is here, Shimon is here, Levi is here, and suddenly I jump into the thick of things. This may be very suspicious to you, you kept on asking us questions, where is you smallest brother, etc. Apparently you understand that I may want to take over here, so I’ll tell you “why I enter this strife more than the rest of my brothers,” an astounding phrase in Rashi. “[it is because] they are all from outside, but I am bound by a strong bond to be excommunicated in both worlds (this and the next)” What does this expression mean?

They are all from the outside, I’m from inside. Are they less connected? They are from outside, and I am not; we have to understand the meaning of this, “but I am bound by a strong bond to be excommunicated in both worlds.” I have a different link to two things, to Benjamin, “for your servant became surety for the lad” and to Jacob. Where did Rashi get these two worlds? Rashi apparently doesn’t understand the expression “for ever” and it is apparently very important. “If I do not bring him back to you,” so I said to Abba, “If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father for ever.” This expression is still not so clear to me, but it is very significant because it is what closes the entire discussion, and here Joseph breaks down! And what is the conclusion? “Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord, and let the lad go up with his brothers. For how can I go up to my father,” Now it is clear, how I came to be so strongly connected, how can I go up to my father, “lest I look upon the evil that shall come on my father” (Gen. 44:34).

In Joseph’s place, I would have asked: “And your brothers would not look upon the evil that shall come to your father, only you?” and the answer is—yes! What just happened to me obligates me on two issues: (a) I am so close to Benjamin, I’m not moving from here .... I am so bound up with him; (b) I am so closely committed to Father, I cannot look upon the evil that shall come to him. You ask, what about my brothers: They are from the outside. I am from within, so Rashi says, but it still seems like an unclear riddle.

The words essentially concluding the speech are “for ever”. Let’s look at the conversation from the minute Judah and his brother’s return, they discover the goblet in their sacks, tell their father Jacob what happened, and then Jacob says: “It is always me that you bereave: Joseph is no more and Shimon is no more, and now you would take away Benjamin. Everything happens to me. Then Reuben said to his father. — I want to read Reuben before Judah, since Judah we can understand only against the background of Reuben. It was most natural that Reuben should speak first, it also was most natural that he speak to Joseph. He was also the first to get involved in the morning, and in every instance, his intervention failed. He was also the first to say to his brothers, “Did I not speak to you saying: Do not sin against the child...therefore also, behold, is required,” and Joseph hears and weeps. That is, [this is] the first time something happens to Joseph following his meeting with his brothers, it is because of Reuben and not Judah. But then too he only cries, it prompts him to nothing more than weeping. He turns around, cries, and comes back to reality. He can restrain himself. Yet, Judah causes him something Reuben does not, the same way Judah made the brothers to do something at the pit that Reuben did not, the same way Judah persuades his father to give him responsibility for Benjamin after Reuben had failed to get it. So one cannot learn about Judah without Reuben, since the two always go together.

Let’s read for a minute what Reuben says: “You may kill my two sons If I do not bring him back to you. Put him in my care, and I will return him to you” (Gen. 42:36-37). The reply is terrible, “And he said,” Who? Jacob. To whom? To all of them. In the previous verse the reference is personal, “And Reuben spoke to his father,” Jacob talks to the air, Jacob speaks to the brothers, Jacob says it to all of them and in principle does not even refer to Reuben’s argument, he simply does not respond to him at all. What have you suggested, “You may kill my two sons”? How does Rashi put it, “This firstborn is a fool, are they his sons and not mine.”? Then Jacob says: “My son shall not go down with you; for his brother is dead, and only he is left, and if harm should befall him by the way in which you go, then you will bring my white head down with sorrow to the grave” (Gen. 42:38).

But before I deal with Judah, it is very difficult to suffice with Rashi’s statement, “This firstborn is a fool.”. And what is the explanation for Reuben? What is this “firstborn is a fool”? This is Reuben, the firstborn of Israel. What did he really think that he could tell his father, you can kill my two sons? Did he intend to kill them? Or, perhaps, he just wanted to use a superlative? That is how you speak to a father who just a moment before had said “It is me that you bereave: Joseph is no more and Shimon is no more, and now you would take away Benjamin,” that’s how you calm him down? You’ll kill his grandchildren?

Then Judah presents himself. The famine is severe. Jacob is unwilling, “And Judah said to Israel his father” (Gen. 43:8) — by the way pay attention to the difference in the opening, to whom is Reuben speaking? With his father, not even with Jacob his father but with his father, it is Reuben speaking with his father. Now Judah the King speaks with Israel his father, a totally different manner of address. What does he say? “Send the lad with me, and we will arise and go, that we may live, and not die, both we, and you, and also our young children,” we shall all live, no one will die, you and us and our young children, all of them. “I will be surety, you may hold me responsible” — okay, these are the words, let’s see you provide a surety. The term surety comes from you , for all history we will remember you and a security, “I will be surety, you may hold me responsible if I do not bring him back to you and set him before you.” So what will happen? “Then I have sinned against you for ever.” Again, that’s all. That is the breaking point, then Jacob is willing, Judah adds a sentence, “For if we had not lingered, surely we would have returned now a second time.” This simply is an interesting verse, what is meant by this expression, “we would have returned now a second time.” It sounds like slang. We must understand it to be able to delve into the deeper meaning.

“And he said to them,” now it is not just “And he said”. Previously it was “And he said, my son shall not go down with you”, what an alienated conversation. A conversation whose beginning was so personal “And Reuben said to his father” and continued so distanced, “and he said, no.” In contrast, this conversation begins “And Judah said to Israel his father,” this is a speech. And now he says, ““If it be so now, do this: take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels.” “If it be so now,” what does that mean, if it be so now.” If you are willing to take on this obligation, then so be it. “If it be so now,” the expression, “if it be so now” means — so why didn’t you say so until now? If it had been so 20 years earlier, the thing would have been over. “If it be so now,” what did he say precisely? He said, “send the boy with me,” and he took no obligation upon himself that Reuben did. Reuben’s obligation was not good, but what was good about Judah’s? “Then I have sinned against you for ever.” Okay, that’s not so complicated. It turn out that this “for ever” opens the doors to both Jacob and Joseph. And following it Jacob says: “Take of the choice fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down to the man a present, a little balm, and a little honey, spicery and laudanum, nuts, and almonds, and double money take in your hand; and the money that was returned in the mouth of you sacks carry back in your hand; perhaps it was an oversight” (Gen. 43:11–12). At no stage did he ever speak so practically. “And your brother take, and arise, go again to the man: and God almighty give you mercy” (Gen: 43:13–14)—a prayer. “Before the man, that he may release to you your other brother and Benjamin,” but how does it conclude? “And as for me, if I be bereaved, I am bereaved.” It may be that I will indeed be bereaved, I am not certain, but now I am ready to do this, but for what? What happened? “For ever”—what is it?

I think the code is not “for ever”, the code is in another word, the code is the word that opens this short speech by Judah, “And Judah said to Israel his father, send” This is astounding. Judah pleads, father a long time ago you made Joseph an emissary, are you ready to try me also one time as an emissary?

I want to explain the concept. A mission is not a technical act. Abraham sends Isaac, Isaac sends Jacob, and the question is always—who will Jacob send? An emissary in its legal definition is bar da’at, a self-aware, reasoning person; a shoteh, a fool, cannot be an emissary because he is not bar da’at. An emissary is one who sets his own opinion on hold in favor of that of the one sending him. The highest type of mission is when the emissary turns into the body of the sender, in a halakhic definition: “A person’s proxy is just like him to the point of being his actual replacement.” In the Bible we have lishlo’ah and le’shale’ah, which is completely different than lishlo’ah, it is almost the opposite. I send you away from here, I send you there. “and he sends her from his house”, “they shall send him away free”. Sometimes I make us of a mission in leshale’ah, but it is not this type of mission. Noah sends forth the dove, the dove is not a bar-da’at, and Noah does not want the dove to return, quite the contrary, he want the dove not to return, and when she does not come back he is calm. He is actually sending her forth to see if something has happened. When God created Adam, he let him be the one to give names to all of creation, he carries out his function here in the world, he is God’s emissary. When Adam failed, he was sent forth out (shile’ah) of the Garden of Eden.

When the Matriarch Rebecca calls Jacob and tells him to hurry to Paddan Aram, she calls Isaac and tells him to pass on to Jacob everything he wanted for blessings for the way to Paddan Aram, because this was a simple journey. Then Isaac calls to Jacob “So Isaac sent for Jacob and blessed him. He instructed him, saying, “You shall not take a wife from among the Canaanite women. Up, go to Paddan Aram, to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father, and take a wife from there...May El Shaddai bless you, make you fertile and numerous, so that you become an assembly of peoples. May He grant the blessing of Abraham to you” (Gen. 28:1–3). Pay attention, all of the promises are here, the blessing of Abraham over the land, the family, who his wife will be, all the promises the first Patriarch gave to the second Patriarch. “May He grant the blessing of Abraham to you and your offspring, that you may possess the land where you are sojourning, which God assigned to Abraham,” and that’s that. “Then Isaac sent Jacob off and he went to Paddan Aram, to Laban the son of Bethuel the Aramean, the brother of Rebeccah, mother of Jacob and Esau.” Now, we must understand this verse very well, from this second on Jacob is Isaac’s emissary, he has just been appointed this second as emissary, from this moment on it is not important whether he is supported by his father or not, he is at all times emissary there.

What does it mean to be an emissary? To be an emissary means to spend 20 years with Laban, to work 18 hours a day. To say I have worked for you 14 years for your two daughters, 6 years for your sheep, to suffer heat in the day and cold in the night. And after 20 years, when Jacob is 97, and Laban asks him, “Where are you going?” He does not have to wait for an answer, he tells him precisely, “for I sorely yearn” not for your country, nor for your birthplace, but for father. The emissary is ever drawn like a magnet to his sender. For 20 years I worked here, my livelihood was here, 20 years I was my father’s emissary, everything I did was for my father, I have nothing beside my father. Although I have not spoken to him—all is for father.

When Joseph reached Egypt he arrived not because Jacob had sent him there, rather he had said “Are not your brothers tending their flock in Shechem, come and I will send you (ve-eshlahekha) to them...so he sent him (va-yishlahehu) out of the valley of Hebron” (Gen. 37:13, 14) from that moment on he was Jacob’s emissary. If you want to know how a man who almost succumbed to the wiles of Potiphar’s wife, his garment already in her hand, and he is alone in the house and he is seventeen years old and handsome and of good form, and everything was about to crash, how was he saved? His father’s image was reflected to him in the window. If you are his emissary, indeed if you are his emissary, you are identical to him. If Joseph had gone down to Egypt with a doctorate on Jacob, a shas of Jacobology, wonderful for symposia and classes and explanations, but there would have been no gut feeling [to act properly] with Potiphar’s wife in front of me. His self-sacrificing devotion functioned because he was totally connected. The word “connected” is not the right one, rather I and the sender are one! I am a self-aware person totally effacing myself by the awareness, the consciousness, of the sender. The first sender is God and I am the emissary of an emissary on the condition that the second emissary is acceptable tot he first sender, this is the halakhic definition.

Abraham had one son from Sarah and many sons from his concubines and Hagar. He doesn’t want to send Isaac away, he wants to give everything he has to Isaac, and let Isaac stay where he is. So what does he do “And Abraham gave all that he had to Isaac. But to the sons of the concubines that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts” (Gen. 25:5–6)? How can that be? He already given everything he had to Isaac? But everything does not mean what’s in the bank, all he had (hakol)—. This hakol is what he has handed on to Isaac. “But to the sons from the concubines that Abraham had, Abraham gave gifts, and he sent them away from Isaac his son while he still lived, eastward, to the east country” (Gen: 25:6) Those sons he sends away, not simply sends. From where? “Away from Isaac his son.”

Jacob became the emissary of Isaac and the emissary of Rebecca. His mother tells him, “until your brother’s fury turns away” and when your brother’s fury abates, then “I will send and fetch you from there.” You will have a mission and you will return. We shall return at the end of Joseph’s birth. After 17 years Jacob calls Isaac and says to him: “You are going out on a mission.” This is the first time a Patriarch has to choose one of his sons for a mission. An emissary—we have said is one who effaces himself in favor the sender. You now understand the meaning of “These are the generations of Isaac...Abraham begot Isaac” and “These are the generations of Jacob Joseph.” Joseph is Jacob and Jacob is Joseph, Isaac is Abraham and Abraham is Isaac. Whoever knows Abraham and Isaac knows they are two very different worlds but it makes no difference the emissary is the emissary of the sender. He is not without consciousness, he is a bar da’at. A bar da’at who is an emissary means that he will now discover in his own way what the sender would have done. The sender could not have done it, because the sender is not Isaac but Abraham, he doesn’t have the strengths of Isaac. Joseph does what Jacob could not have done, but all of Joseph’s strengths come from his having effaced himself in favor of the sender, Jacob.

The most important thing is to know that if I am an emissary, I am an emissary for life, this is the main point of all the issues here. A few years ago someone came up with a kind of modern phrase shelihut for a year, shelihut for two years, shelihut for a month. That’s fine for the Jewish Agency. It’s important, it’s wonderful, it’s very important work, it’s a calling, only the term shelihut is out of place here. An emissary is a person who has self-effaced in favor of an idea from the minute he takes upon himself the mission to the end of all time. He can work at a million other things, but he is at all times an emissary, and it does not matter what else he does. Shelihut is that vision we cannot do without and that we so sorely need. Shelihut means, for instance in education, that the factor responsible for success is not what you leave school with, nor what you know, what you received or did not receive, but a totally different question. Will you be forever the emissary of that which you received? For, quite the contrary, I want everyone to go into his own world, but I want everyone to be 100 percent emissaries. Each person is to be an emissary of what he is, and he is to be a bar da’at just as he is when expressing the idea, effacing his own consciousness in favor of the sender’s. When he is confronted by the wife of Potiphar, the image of his father will appear.

How do some of the darshanim put it? Written there we find “his father’s image appeared to him in the window.” Some of the darshanim say, wonderful, how come he suddenly saw his father’s image in the window? From a window you see a view, but in Potiphar’s house it happened to be, in Ancient Egypt, that there was something special, and perhaps in this house there actually was a mirror. It could be that in Potiphar’s wife’s room, to which she brought Joseph, there was perhaps a mirror. And Joseph looked just like his father, and suddenly when Joseph looks in the mirror, he sees his father. He had not seen his father for a long time, and now unexpectedly he sees him in the bedroom, because when he sees himself, he sees his father. When he saw his father, he suddenly decided that though his career, his clothes, his livelihood are now in the hands of Potiphar’s wife, his heart has remained with his father. Then he can forgo his garment — this is the sign of his treachery by her hand, and take himself outside. Then she too will discover, who is it that he is the emissary of? For she cries out loud, “See, he has brought in to us a Hebrew.” Finally someone says it explicitly. Yes, a Hebrew man, and I have remained the emissary of this idea, you are right. It was inconvenient for me to say it until now, but just now you have given me the strength to say it. From now on whenever they ask me, who I am, I will say “For indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews” (Gen. 40:15). This is precisely the idea, you have noticed that I am an emissary, I had forgotten, it is good that you have reminded me.

When Jacob calls to Joseph and charges him with his mission, it is written: “And his brothers went to feed their father’s flock in Shechem. And Israel said to Joseph: Are not your brothers tending their flocks in Shechem? Come and I will send you to them. And he said to him: Here am I. And he said to him: Go, now, see the welfare of they brothers and the welfare of the flock; and bring me back word” (Gen. 37:12–14). And we have already mentioned that this is surprising, “So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.” This is the first mission carried out by an emissary in which he does not have to do anything. When Yishai sent his son David to his older brothers at war with Goliath, he says to him: Take them cheese, bring them something, take something to bring to your big brother. But here what does Jacob want Joseph to bring, what is Joseph supposed to bring back? “Go, now, see the welfare of they brothers and the welfare of the flock; and bring me back”—what? “A word.” He is supposed to come back and say something. What was he supposed to say? Good, Everything is fine. What do you want, don’t you know this is dangerous? What am I supposed to do? Nothing, you are supposed to know that your mission is only beginning now. Come back quickly, come back safely “Go, now, see the welfare of they brothers and the welfare of the flock; and bring me back word”, that is what you are to bring back to me, a word. This word will echo for all time—davar, a word.

Joseph is sent out of Hebron Valley and he goes to Shechem, and we have said this more than once, and I have no doubt at all, that Joseph’s understanding that he was an emissary explains why he never sent a letter to his father from Egypt, saying: Father, I live. For if he sent [a message] to tell him, I am alive, the meaning of that sentence would be — Father, the mission failed! And an emissary is an emissary forever. What does “Father, I live” mean? Father, I live means, Father it is all right, I too am alive. What was the problem? That Joseph and Benjamin had been in Hebron with their father, to put it another way—Rachel’s children were in Hebron and the sons of Leah and the handmaidens were somewhere else, and that was the problem. They lived in peace. They lived in peace in Shechem and they lived in peace in Hebron, and everything was fine, except that everything was wrong! Since I am not willing for the sons of Leah to not live with the sons of Rachel, or vice versa, that means that it is worthwhile for you to endanger yourself so that the situation will change. So should I send a letter to Father that it was not worth it to put myself in danger, I’m alive.

Only that will explain the basic meaning of this verse and of the story of the goblet he leaves in Benjamin’s sack and of the taking of Benjamin as a slave. For, you Joseph are a great politician, and if this should fail? And if your brothers tell you its all right? They have already done so once. If they tell you, all right, you keep Benjamin, what would that be? What would you gain? What political idea underlies this? The idea is very simple, perfectly all right, if the brothers say it is acceptable, I am returning the mission back to the start. Benjamin is with Joseph, and the sons of Leah are with the sons of the handmaidens. Everything starts all over again, and long before you will reach Father, I will have already sent my security people and tell him: Father, the situation has gone back to what it was 22 years ago, it’s all starting again. Lets see, you want that there will be the sons of Rachel , the sons of Leah, and we will see how it goes. I do not stop a mission in the middle, I am an emissary.

“So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron,” and is Hebron in a valley? Hebron is in the mountains. The Sages knew this, but rather he sent him with the profound counsel of the one buried in Hebron, Abraham. He sent him from the brit bein ha-betarim. He sent him from that same covenant “that your offspring will be strangers in a land not theirs, and they shall be enslaved and oppressed” (Gen. 15:13). “So he sent him out of the valley of Hebron,” he said to him: You are the emissary of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, carry on the mission now, the torch has been passed, carry it on.

There is another important rule to be learned here, an emissary does not lose his values even when he is very far away, if he is a true emissary. There is much we can learn from the great Habad here, nothing happens to an emissary by virtue of his being an emissary. Psychologically a very interesting thing happens here, the brothers close themselves into neighborhoods in Eretz Israel, and when they arrive in Egypt, the first thing they do is close themselves into a ghetto in Goshen, and the emissary remains in the area of the palaces. Jacob really thinks the sons of the emissary have become a bit influenced by foreign culture, and he asks him in this parshah, who are they? And he realizes that they are dressed as they are because they have grown up with the emissary, but they are as righteous as the others, and he says to all of us, “May God make you as Ephraim and Menashe.”

Now I return to the beginning. Judah turns to his father and says, “And Judah said to Israel his father, send”, I too want to be an emissary. Let me try once to being an emissary, things are not going to turn out the way you thought with only Joseph being an emissary, if that was your agenda, you will not succeed, you have another emissary here. You are afraid because you think we will not get along, don’t worry. If we are really emissaries, emissaries have no problem getting along, because they are all messengers of the same king, each one knows what he is charged to do. The problem begins when I think I am king, and you think you are, so I bother you and you bother me. Now I am asking for the first time to be an emissary. Go over all the previous perakim, and wonder of wonders, with the other brothers there is not even one time a mission, and whatever there is appears in the worst light. Once it is written, “And they sent the coat of many colors” (Gen: 37:32), this is a mission. Once Judah says to Tamar, “I will send you a kid of the goats” (Gen. 38:17). These were the missions until now. And there was another one, “And Judah sent the kid of the goats by the hand of his friend the Adullamite” (Gen: 38 20). The Adullamite friend who goes to fetch the kid for the one who disguised herself as a harlot on the way, this is the emissary, “Recognize now, if it is your son’s coat,” do you understand the meaning of vayeshalehu f this coat, that they sent this coat away is like “and he sent her away from his house,” they have freed themselves from an emotional burden they have because of this coat, let it go away from here, “And they sent away the coat.” Judah, too, has a very emotional, unpleasant burden over what happened with Tamar, so he says, “I will send a kid of the goats.”

Now for the first time he turns to his father and says: Father I want to be an emissary, I want to be your emissary, not only Joseph. From this moment I ask that he be Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and Judah. And if am this emissary of all time, if I will be an emissary, I cannot act in any other way.

When Judah finishes his speech, nothing has happened as yet. Joseph doesn’t do anything, but them he comes to the final, most important sentence “For your servant became surety for the lad, to my father, saying”, a pledge, you hear the word arvut? This is the result of a mission. “For your servant became surety for the lad, to my father, saying: If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father for ever”” This is for his entire life. Do you know what Reuben said? Reuben said the following sentence, but he did not mean by his father’s life that he would kill his two sons. Reuben only said a simple thing. Father I take this upon myself! And Jacob cannot bear it. You take it upon yourself, who are you to promise? I promise, you promise, do you know how many things I have gone through in my lifetime in order to not hear again that phrase, I promise. Are you promising me that you will return Benjamin? You are saying the exact opposite, you are assuming here some kind of paternalism over the whole issue. You promise? An emissary never promises, an emissary promises only one thing—Father I take it upon myself to continue the mission as long as this world lasts and in the world to come, that is what I wish to pledge!

Do you know why Judah is the first firstborn? For there were three before him —Reuben, Shimon, Levi. We have met only the three of them, only when each one did something contrary to their father’s approach. Reuben slept with Bilhah, the opposite of his father’s stance, and Shimon and Levi carried out their deed in Shechem, the opposite of their father’s view, they were not emissaries. Now comes the first emissary “send the lad with me.” Do you know what the result of that will be? The result will, wonder of wonders, be absolutely simple. Joseph will send the wagons, Joseph will make himself known to his brothers. Joseph will teach them endlessly about mission, and now you did not send me, you did not sell me, for livelihood he sent me away, sent me away, sent me away, I am an emissary, you are emissaries. When he finishes this they will go the next day to Jacob, they will meet in Beersheba, Jacob will see before Beersheba the wagons that Joseph has sent to carry them, he will reach Beersheba, God will reveal himself to him, and say to him: “Jacob Jacob and he said: Here am I.”

And then they came to Egypt and immediately the following verse occurs “And Judah he sent before him, to Joseph, to show [the way] before him to Goshen; and they came to the land of Goshen” (Gen. 46:28), the term lefanav, before him, appears twice. The commentators explain that the first time refers to the person before whom he stands —before Jacob. He had sent Judah ahead of him at the start to Joseph. Lehorot le-fanav this time to whom does the lefanav refer. This time it is Joseph. Run, run quickly to Joseph, tell him that that there are two emissaries, bring him up-to-date, and tell him also that you are standing before him—he is the Messiah the son of Joseph, you are the Messiah son of David, run quickly to tell him this. It can be no other way. Jacob does not send Judah to seek out the topographic map of Goshen, he has Joseph waiting for him at the entrance to Egypt at the airport, he will take him to Goshen. He needs to send Judah so that he can explain to him how to get to Goshen? Joseph the king is waiting for him with wagon of the kingdom of Egypt, and the wagons of the palace, Judah has to be a guide? This doesn’t even begin to be a homiletic interpretation.

But “Judah he sent before him to Joseph to show (the way) to Goshen,” as Rashi says: “to establish for him a house of study.” He says to him: Go quickly to tell him, David before Rehavam, Judah before Joseph. I have two emissaries, two Messiah, a messiah is one who continues all his life, go quickly to teach him the innovations. To be sure, he already knows the main innovation, for he has heard you say “For your servant has pledged himself for the boy...I shall stand guilty before my father for ever,” now you will teach him that two emissaries are arriving. The last time I sent one of you to the other, it was very dangerous, now this time it will not be dangerous, why? For now both of you are emissaries, emissaries are not dangerous. The previous time one was not an emissary, so it was very dangerous. When I sent Joseph to you to Shechem, you did not receive him as an emissary, nor did you take yourselves as such. Now you do, there is no problem.

There is a wonderful midrash, that we can now understand, it is the final code in the concept shelihut, mission. The midrash says (Tanhuma, Vayigash, 6) “And Judah he sent before him since they came [to Jacob] and informed him that Joseph lived, he sent Judah [as an emissary] to him.” What’s the connection? He says to him: Listen, Joseph is alive, then he says: Now it is Judah who will go to be an emissary. The midrash continues “And Judah he sent before him, that refers to what is written in Job “Dominion and fear are with him; He makes peace in His high places.” We know the verse “ He who makes peace in his high places, He will make peace over us, “, it is a prayer taken from the second half of a verse. The verse is the verse in Job in which one of his companions says, who tells him: Do you know how great the Lord is? In the heavens he has competing powers, dominion and fear, there is fire, and water and angels, there are so many powers, and despite that he makes peace in His high places, we do not find there coalition and opposition. Everyone gets along. “Dominion and fear are with him; He makes peace in His high places,” we pray that He thus will also make peace over us. “Dominion is Michael and fear is Gabriel, Michael is of the water, and Gabriel is of the fire, and they stand before the Shekhinah and do not harm each other, let us say, He makes peace in His high places.” How do fire and water not cause harm? “R. Simon said: all of the heavens are of water and the angels fire and his servants intense fire, and the water cannot quench the fire nor the fire burn the water.” Now the midrash continues “Judah and Joseph, are lion and bull.” “Yesterday they were clashing with each other and now he is sends him away to him as is says ‘and Judah he sent before him’”. How is it that he is not afraid again. “Let us say, He makes peace in His heavens.”

The midrash seems to be a riddle, but after what we have just said, it is simple. Why don’t the angels clash with one another? Because they are angels. Then in any event “Dominion and fear are with Him,” they can function together, on the contrary, one angel cannot have two missions, how can one angel carry out two missions? How did we read in the Haftarah last Sabbath, “Take you one stick and write upon it: For Judah, and for the children of Israel; then take another stick, and write upon it: For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and all of the house of Israel his companions; and join them for you one to another into one stick, that they may become one in your hand.” When everyone will understands that he is one tree and that there is another tree here and these trees express an idea that can become one “and David my servant shall be their prince forever,” they will have no problem with it, for David is also an emissary of the sender. “yesterday they were clashing with each other and now...Judah he sent before him.” This is an essential code which when understood, makes many things clear.

Joseph leaves for Shechem as an emissary, who does he meet on the way? A man wandering in a field. Hazal say that this man was an angel, he manages to get along with him. The angel says to him: Forget it, your mission will not succeed, “I have heard that they have traveled on, ”leave it, forget it, you don’t have a chance. I am here on my mission, you have your mission. By the way, who was this angel? Gabriel—the fire. This was an introduction before they meet the fire itself, let’s meet the angel of fire. This also happened to Father before he met Esau, since he had to make a general rehearsal beforehand with the angel.

Incidentally, there is an interesting expression, we have spoken about “to send away” (le-shale’ah) and to send (lishlo’ah), the term le-shale’ah repeats in the Bible only one time, that is, it appears only once, that’s very logical. Sometime a person himself says—Send me out, that is, this is not send me, but send me out. Send me out does not mean drive me out, send me out is one facet of liberate me but from the opposite side it is an understanding that I cannot be set free without your releasing me. This “send me out” — give me some purpose. In Genesis it appears twice more, only twice. David asks of Jonathan, “shalheni” when he flees from Saul he says “shalheni” give me a mission, purpose. Shalheni appears twice, both times in Genesis. The first time is with Jacob and the angel, Jacob clings to the angel all night, and the angel says “send me away for dawn is breaking“ and Jacob says to him “I will not send you away.” What is this “I will not send you away” mean, for isn’t he an emissary of God? Yes, I am an emissary from God, too. He is an emissary, I am an emissary, and now two emissaries clash, the situation must be clarified. Do you want me to send you away, please give me the blessing you have for me. You have power, why? Because you are an emissary, fine, now I will give you power. When Jacob comes later to Esau why is it worthwhile for him to accept his gift offerings, he will tell him “For to see your face is like seeing the face of God, and you have received me favorably.” Rashi explains: I have seen your guardian angel, so take this present from me. I have seen your angel, means, “what do you think, I am meeting you here for the first time here? I am meeting with you by virtue of the sender. We have already met, at the initial meeting we were sent, I have seen the emissary. I am telling you that I know your source right now, we met last night with your angel, so take this blessing, it will help you. I know what your power is.

The next time shalheni appears it is astonishing. Jacob comes to Laban, and tells him, the verse we opened with, “After Rachel had given birth to Joseph, Jacob said to Laban, ‘Send me away.’” The inifinite shelihut has arrived, Joseph has been born, there is shelihut. But leave Joseph aside for a moment, I have never understood this verse, why do you ask him shalheni, do you belong to him? God says to you: Rise up and go: Here it is not an angel who says, “I must be freed.” This is something more. God tells you, “Go away from here.” So why do you ask him to “send me away.” I could understand it if you said, “Give me my wives and my children.” So Rashi says: He wanted to leave with permission. But what is this shalheni? Permit me to say something deep here. Jacob comes to Laban and says I know very, very well why you want me to stay here, for you do not wish to kill me, you just want me to stay here and not go to the Land of Israel. You want me to stay here, because here I help you, economically, you are making a profit. You yourself described the former situation and how it has been since I have come. Why don’t you want me to go to the Land of Israel? Because you do not want me to establish a country, you do not want me to go with my children and establish the Land of Israel, since you want me to stay here and do for you whatever you need. Listen Laban, I came here to teach you a lesson. We have a role, we must be a light unto the gentiles. If you want me to fulfill my mission, it can only be in my place and my land, and it will not be here. I know you do not want, only understand that you have to ask us to be in this country, we will keep it up, and we will carry out our mission in this country and in our place, then you will understand we are your emissaries.

“Shalheni,” send me away, make me your emissary, I will not be your emissary here, I am my father’s emissary, and if you let me fulfill my father’s charge the person who will from it in this world is you and whoever you represent her. I know that you think differently on a political level, but the day will come and you will realize that what you need, what the world needs, is me living in my land, and giving you and the world what it needs. Why didn’t you say this until now? For now the flame has been born, Jacob is the fire and Joseph is the flame. Do you know what is flame and what is fire? It is an emissary. There is no flame without fire, but without fire there is no flame. Flame is not fire thrown in the air. Fire in the air are fireworks, ratings, it last for 10 years, 60 years, 70 years, then it falls. A flame? A flame continues endlessly, these are large issues in the law of damages. Flame being emitted from a fire is a concept that never ceases. Send me to my place, to my land, Joseph has been born, now the House of Jacob is fire and the House of Joseph is flame, now things can begin to put the world in order. If you do not want, I will do it anyway, for that it my mission., this is the mission I received from my father and father from grandfather, and God gave it to him. But now I see that my emissary has been born so I say to you, only you will benefit, do this as a mission on your part.

One final point. Judah is worthy of being the final emissary of them all, he will be an emissary to the end, he will be the Messiah of David. He did, of course, receive his charge later than Joseph, but wonder of wonders, Judah is the only emissary in the entire Bible that does not receive his mission, but asks for it. I want to be an emissary, “send the lad with me.” The one who asks for a mission, is the one who is ultimately the Messiah of David. The whole development is the course of a mission through which Joseph wishes to teach his brothers. When he sees Judah becoming an emissary, he turns to his brothers and says to them: Now you approach me and they approached, go through what Judah went through. When you will go through what he did, you will cease being outside, you will begin to be connected tightly.

When we ask ourselves educational questions, how is it possible to transmit a wealth of things and still find the pupil remains outside? Because there is no mission. There are a great many things, but there is no flame and fire. So he teaches his brothers, you essentially are the ones who caused yourselves to learn “that for sustenance God has sent me before you.” “Before you” is a fascinating term. Before you is not just to be here, before you says that you too are actually emissaries, only I arrived here earlier. Then Jacob does one last thing, that is right, Judah is before you. Joseph has no problem with that. When Joseph will die, the next emissary will be appointed and the next one is Moshe Rabbenu. When Moshe accepts his mission, he will turn to God and tell him, “Send, I pray thee, by the hand (of he whom) you will send” (Ex. 4:13). And our Sages say, send, I pray thee by the hand of the one whom you will send in the ultimate future. The verse that seals all of prophecy is “Behold I am sending you Eliyahu the Prophet.” When Joseph dies, he orders his brothers that when they go up to their land, perhaps even in the middle of a great catastrophe, but you will go up, since the mission continues, even if it takes 22 years. Outside does not continues, mission, you can throw me in the pit, but my mission? Not snakes, nor scorpion, nor pits, I am an emissary. There is no Potiphar’s wife when I am an emissary, there is, but there is a mission. So take my bones back to the Land of Israel. Who will take my bones? The next emissary. For 40 years the emissary Moses will carry Joseph’s bones, and when they reenter Shechem, they will bury the ancient emissary, and from then on there will continue the whole process with this great consciousness that begins with that “va-yeshalhehu”, “and he sent him from the valley of Hebron, from the deep counsel, to conclude with “Send, I pray thee, by the hand (of he whom) you will send,” by the hand of the one you intend to send.

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