Parsha: Va-Yechi –From Darkness to Light, Reconnecting To our Food Source

By Zelig Golden

In Va-Yechi, our creation story culminates with Jacob on his deathbed blessing his sons. (Gen. 49.) He highlights characteristics that are unique to each of his twelve sons, the fathers of our twelve tribes. According to Rashi, five of these blessings focus on the agricultural specificity of each tribe's territory in the Land of Israel. For instance, Talmud Megillah tells us that Zevulun’s territory was agriculturally poor but a lucrative resource for farming the snails from which blue techelet dye is made to dye tallis threads, while Issachar, whose tribe's destiny was immersion in Torah learning, was bestowed a place where fruits grew in abundance, making food production easy and leaving time for devotion to study.

As Rabbi Julian Sinclair teaches, Rashi shows us that each region of Israel has its own native crops, that each tribe, connected to different regions of the Land, is also connected to different crops – Judah grows grapes, Asher grows olives for oil, Issachar harvests fruit. Biblical Jews knew their food with a direct relationship to the place and the people who brought it forth from the earth.

Today, in modern Israel and the U.S., we have all but lost such intimate connection to the land, the source of our food. For over 100 years, the “Green Revolution” has brought us industrial agriculture and the global commodification of food. Yes, we eat mangoes in Berkeley, and we have abundance in January, but we have also lost a primal connection to our source.

It is striking that the Torah raises the land-food connection during this final story of Genesis. Due to famine, we have become dislocated from our land, beginning nearly two centuries of life in Egypt, most of which will be spent enslaved. The end of Genesis thus marks a distinct movement toward the darkness.

In the first moments of the Torah, however, we are taught that from the darkness comes forth the light. (Gen 1:2-3.) Thus, our exile to Egypt is the planting of the seeds of our return to ourselves, and to our land. Likewise, our current disconnection from land is merely the ground upon which we are planting the seeds of renewed connection. This summer, for example, Chochmat Ha Lev piloted the first west coast Tuv Ha'Aretz (“best of the land”) program, connecting our community to Eat Well Farm to bring us fresh produce every week. And next December, Hazon (www.hazon.org), the organization that brings you Tuv Ha’Aretz, will bring the annual Jewish Food Conference, the heart of the Jewish Food Movement, right here to the Bay Area (Dec. 25-28, mark your calendars!).

As we pass through the winter solstice, literally the darkest time of the year, the Torah teaches us that even as connection to land is lost, we must remember and begin our return. Just as we begin our return to longer sunnier days, let Jacob’s blessing be a reminder to begin the return to our connection with land and food.

Some ideas and references in this commentary adapted from Rabbi Julian Sinclair, “Eating Holy Food in a Holy Way,” Eitz Chayim Hee (evonne@canfeinesharim.org )

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Drash: Vay’khi Ya’akov b’eretz Mitzrayim sheva esrei shana- “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years…”

By Brian Schachter-Brooks

Vay’khi Ya’akov b’eretz Mitzrayim sheva esrei shana- “Jacob lived in the land of Egypt for seventeen years…”

In this last parashah of Bereishit, we come to the end of Jacob’s life during the time which is the beginning of the Israelite sojourn in Egypt. Jacob calls to his son Joseph and asks Joseph to swear that he will not bury him in Egypt, but instead will transport him back to the cave of Makhpelah, where Abraham and Isaac are buried. On the surface, the request seems straightforward; Jacob wants to be buried with his ancestors. But the symbolism of this narrative reveals a deep commentary on the spiritual function of suffering.

To uncover this symbolism we must look at the context in which the narrative takes place- the Israelite descent into slavery and the eventual Exodus from Egypt. There is a kind of irony to the story, because on one hand, our liturgy seems to celebrate God’s power of liberation. We sing, “Mi khamokha b’eilim Adonai?- Who is like You among the gods, Hashem?”, celebrating that God was able to overthrow Pharaoh and his army. But the Torah makes it clear that it was God who put us into slavery in the first place. In Bereishit 15:13, God says, “…yado’a teda ki ger yiyeh zarakha- know for sure that your descendants will be strangers- b’eretz lo lahem- in a land that is not theirs- v’avadum v’ino otam- and they will be enslaved and oppressed.”

This is expressed most poignantly during the ten plagues narrative. After each plague, Pharaoh is about to relent, but then his heart hardens, and he brings yet another plague upon himself. Before the narrative of the plagues even begins, Hashem tells Moses, “va’ani akshe et lev paro… I shall harden Pharaoh’s heart…” It sounds almost like a sadistic version of the Divine- Hashem punishes Pharaoh for not letting the Israelites go free, but at the same time prevents Pharaoh from doing so.

How can we understand this? Why are we praising God for freeing us, when it was God’s fault that we were enslaved in the first place?

According to tradition, the purpose of the slavery was that the Israelites had to “bake” in the oven of slavery in order to become spiritually ready for peoplehood. They also had to emerge from the oven of slavery at exactly the right time. This is also one of the explanations given for the fact that the matza is eaten in haste on Passover- the Exodus had to happen quickly at the precise moment. If it were to be too early, they wouldn’t be “done” yet; they wouldn’t be forged into a people through their suffering. But if they waited too long, they would have solidified into the identity of being slaves to Egypt, and they would have lost the ability to meet their destiny.

So the real power that is being celebrated is not dualistic; it is not the triumph of God’s power over Pharaoh. Rather, it is the power which uses the totality of the story- both the “good” and the “bad”, toward the goal.

And what is the goal? The answer is in the Torah itself, in the mitzvot that Hashem gives the Isaelites: “…v’ger lo toneh v’lo tilkhatzeinu- don’t wrong the stranger and don’t oppress him- ki gerim heyitem b’eretz mitzrayim- for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Ex 22:20). Again, in the next chapter, we read: “…v’ger lo tilkhatz- do not oppress a stranger- ki atem y’datem et nefesh hager- for you know the soul of the stranger- ki gerim heyitem b’eretz mitzrayim- for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (23:9).

The Torah is trying to point to a genuine way; it is showing how suffering can be used to create connection rather than alienation. The root of suffering is alienation, which is why the archetypal example of suffering is slavery in Egypt. Our ancestors experienced this suffering, and then produced this Torah which functioned to elevate that which was degrading into something which was ennobling. In this way, suffering is not random misfortune or Divine wrath, but it is a kind of sacrifice; it is that which allows us to truly understand the one who appears to us as the ger, the other.

But it is not enough to merely refrain from oppressing others. In the last book of the Torah, D’varim, we read: “…v’samakhta lifnei Hashem Elokekha- and you shall rejoice before the Divine!- atah uvinkha uvitekha- you and your sons and your daughters… v’hager v’hayatom v’ha’alamanah asher b’kirbekha… and the stranger and the widow and the fatherless who are among you… v’zakharta ki eved hayita b’mitzrayim… and remember that you were a slave in Egypt…” The Torah paints a picture of rejoicing with the stranger. It is saying that one should not merely refrain from the negative, but actively create the positive- “You shall rejoice!” because in true rejoicing, there is no longer any stranger.

But how does this happen? In order for someone to be a stranger, it means that you have some concept of what it means to be “one of us”, and that the stranger doesn’t fit into that idea. Furthermore, the idea which differentiates between “us” and “them” is based on the past. So the only way to transform estrangement into genuine connection is to free oneself from the past, and this is the underlying meaning of Jacob’s request to have his remains brought out of Egypt. The corpse symbolizes that which is old and dead- the past. To bring the corpse out of Egypt, then, means to free one’s past from the suffering, represented by Mitzrayim which means “narrow”, and into the “Promised Land”- meaning into new possibility.

Notice that it doesn’t say to forget the past. Some teachings confuse freedom from the past with forgetting the past. This is because ordinarily our memory of the past creates a negative, pessimistic belief which perpetuates the same dysfunction from the past into the future. But there is a powerful lesson here: If you try to free yourself from the past by forgetting the past, you may only be burying the past in your unconscious, where it will continue to live by coloring your reaction to the present. Forgetting the past does not lead to freedom, but simply to an unconscious rather than conscious repetition; rather than being free from the past, you are a slave to it without even knowing it! But to “bring the bones out” means that the past is actively remembered and used to create a new reality; the memory of being a stranger motivates us to rejoice with strangers, thus creating a new reality where the cycle of unhappiness and oppression is totally transformed.

The key to being able to use the past to envision a completely different kind of future is separation from the momentum of the past. There must be temporal space, or extended moments in time, within which you can feel freedom from the momentum of your life enough to realize that it does not rule you. You need to taste the sweetness of freedom so that a genuine positivity can grow within you, and that is the offering of Shabbos. May our Shabbat rest give us the taste of freedom in the present so that we can nourish the seeds of positivity within us to create a truly messianic future!

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Parsha: Mikeitz – Joseph’s Path – Bring Light from the Darkness

By Zelig Golden

In Mikeitz, our Torah parsha for the week, Pharaoh of Egypt has a dream: seven healthy, robust cows ascend from the Nile, followed by seven emaciated cows that devour the seven healthy cows but remain emaciated; seven full, healthy ears of grain grow from one stock, and then seven dry, thin ears of grain follow, swallowing up the seven good ears of grain. (Genesis 41:2-7.) Nobody in Pharaoh’s Egypt can interpret the dream. Only Joseph the dreamer can interpret it to foretell a blessing of seven years of abundance in the land, followed by a curse of seven years of famine. (Genesis 41: 25-28.)

And what a blessing for Joseph that he is able to interpret this dream for Pharaoh! By doing so he is freed from prison, comes to power over all the land of Egypt (Genesis 41:40-43), reconnects with his wayward brothers that sold him into slavery, and saves his entire family from the famine in Canaan by relocating his father Jacob and his entire lineage to the choicest land of Goshen in Egypt. (Genesis 47: 11, 27.)

But isn’t Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams his greatest curse? Joseph first dreamt of his brothers’ sheaves bowing to his (Genesis 37:5-7), and that his entire family, represented by sun, moon, and stars, bowed to him (Genesis 37:9-10), which led to his brothers coming to hate him and sell him into slavery to the Ishmaelites (Genesis 37:28). This eventually leads to Joseph’s imprisonment in Pharaoh’s prison (Geneis 39: 20), then to Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt that brings the Jews to Egypt in the first place, eventually landing our entire nation in the hands of slavery.

So how are we to understand Joseph’s power of dream interpretation? Is it a blessing or a curse? It is both, and it is neither. Like us all, Joseph must be who he is, share his gift of dream interpretation with the world, and follow his path through the darkest of times and through the brightest of times. Joseph’s power lands his father’s entire lineage in slavery, yet it is only by going into the Mitzraim (“narrow place”) that is Egypt, that the Jewish people can later be reborn through their Exodus from Egypt to receive revelation at Mt. Sinai of Torah and our spiritual path.

This is also the message of Hanukkah. From the darkness comes the greatest light. From the greatest curse comes the greatest blessing. All we can do is walk our path, through the seasons of our lives, accepting each trial and victory in our lives. Whether it feels like a blessing or a curse, like Joseph, we must simply walk our path of Hashem.

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