Torah Learning, a Galus Necessity ?
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5778
The United States government has officially recognized that Yerus
Joseph Telushkin wrote a book entitled Jewish humor: what the best Jewish jokes say about the Jews.
The first and last jokes in his chapter on assimilation capture the great challenge of the diaspora.
Joke #1: American banker Otto Kahn was born Jewish but chose to convert to Christianity. One day he was walking alongside a friend of his who was a hunchback. They are taking a walk together when they happened to pass a shul. Kahn turns to his friend and says, you know – I used to be a Jew.
His friend quickly retorted – and I used to be a hunchback.
Joke # 2 :What do you call the grandchildren of intermarried Jews?
Christians.
While it is true and once you are born Jewish there is no undoing your status as a Jew, that it no way ensures Jewish continuity. Tragically – that is the story of the vast majority of the Jews in the great American diaspora. The first generation and maybe the second or third were Jewish but over time even that got lost.
Jewish roots in no way ensure Jewish continuity.
What does? That question is addressed by a well know Midrash to this morning’s parsha.
Let’s start with the verse itself. After being told by Hashem that the family should go to Egypt, we read:
בראשית פרק מו
כח) וְאֶת־יְהוּדָ֞ה שָׁלַ֤ח לְפָנָיו֙ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֔ף לְהוֹרֹ֥ת לְפָנָ֖יו גֹּ֑שְׁנָה וַיָּבֹ֖אוּ אַ֥רְצָה גֹּֽשֶׁן
(Jacob) sends Yehuda before him to Joseph to show/teach to Goshen, and they came to Goshen. As I read it, as literally as I could, the verse makes little sense. What was the purpose of the journey? Why does Jacob send Judah?
Midrash Agadda, highlighting the fact that Judah is chosen for this mission, explains that a king is sent to meet a king. The purpose of the journey is to meet the powers that be before you arrive, make an introduction, show respect etc.
Radak writes that the purpose was much simpler. They had to know how to get there. There was no google maps or waze, or paper maps..
Yonatan Ben Uziel argues that it was to set up the houses/tents etc so that when they showed up they would have housing.
Those are three pretty logical and practical suggestions.
Rashi acknowledges that reading and then adds, quoting a Midrash in Berishit Rabba, that Jacob send Judah to set up a house of study so that they could offer psak…
Why does the Midrash make that suggestion? And why does Rashi feel the need to offer it in addition to the simpler one?
- It could be that the practical suggestions are not as simple as we thought.
- The Midrash might feel that while necessary in reality when moving a large camp, there is no need for the Torah to waste words teaching us that they move properly. There is no purpose for including those facts in the holy Torah and thus they must allude to something else.
- Or it could be that even in reality those arrangements were unnecessary as Joseph would be taking care of all of that.
- It could be that there are indications for such an approach in the text itself.
- The word l’horot is related to teach and Torah. Other words might have been more appropriate if we were talking about moving logistics.
- The beginning of the chapter presents us with two challenges related to moving. The first is the family, men women, children and wagons. The second is contained in Hashem’s promise to Jacob, “I will go down with you to Egypt”. Maybe the Midrash is relating to that challenge, how do we relate to Hashem in the exile? How do we keep Hashem there?
According to this latter read – Rashi brilliantly addresses both concerns. Of course when you are in a foreign land, you have to respect the authorities and figure out how to get there and build your physical communities. But that is not enough if you would like keep connected to Hashem. To do that you need more!
What is that “more”?
Here I think that this Rashi and Midrash are sometimes misunderstood. They do no write – you have to build a yeshiva. It is more specific – you need a house of study to produce psak, (Hora’ah) so that we will know how to follow the halacha. It is adherence to the halacha properly that keeps us connected to the shechina.
What makes Rashi’s quotation more fascinating is that the very same paragraph in Bereishit Rabbah (95) also records Rabbi Nechemia as explaining “l’horot” as to teach Torah.
Ideally we would have both…
The most interesting source that I found and why the title in the bulletin relates to the diaspora is a piece written by the Noam Elimelech.
- Elimelech b. R. Eliezer Lipman was born in 1717 in Poland, and was a disciple of the Maggid, R. Dov Baer of Mezritch, the great disciple of the Ba’al Shem Tov.
He writes that when the Gemara records that Avraham and Yitzchak instituted Shacharis and Mincha it really refers to Deep Torah insights. Yaakov instituting Maariv refers to keeping kosher. That a Chassidic master reads the Gemara non literally itself is fascinating.
But what caught my eye is the following line: דהיינו שהם תיקנו לנו שיהיה לנו קיום בגלות , the patriarchs did this in order to allow us to survive in the exile. And that is what Jacob was doing when he sent Judah to Goshen. He sent him there in order to build a yeshiva to allow us to survive in the exile.
In Israel there is the temple and people hood to keep us connected; there is the holiness of the land. Maybe outside of the land, without all of that and with forces pushing us to assimilate, Torah learning and Horaah are even more critical for Jewish continuity!
