Meaning Makers

Steven Carr Reuben, Ph.D.
Rabbi, Kehillat Israel Reconstructionist Congregation
Past President, The Board of Rabbis of Southern California

Torah Portion: Vayigash Genesis 44:18-47:27

Haftorah Portion: Ezekial 37:15-37:28
It's been a tough end of the year for everyone. The stores have mostly been empty, suffering from a universal fear of just how bad the economic depression might continue to be for everyone. In spite of the billions of dollars being thrown at car makers or any other sector of the economy, tens of thousands of people continue to be let go from their jobs month after month, and there is no end in sight.

In the past three years, over 5,000 missiles have been fired from Gaza at Israeli civilian neighborhoods and in the first four months of 2008 attacks were occurring on average, every three hours. Israeli civilians have 15 seconds of warning before a Qassam rocket strikes - 17 Israelis have been killed, hundreds more injured and maimed for life. Fear stalks not only the town of Sderot but the city of Ashdod as well. Before the cease fire ended on December 19th, Hamas rejected diplomacy and fired 200 more rockets and mortars into Israel and used the ceasefire itself to rearm with Iranian weapons and training.

So Israel has responded to the constant beat of missiles and rockets and terror with its own military might. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Sunday said after meetings in Cairo that Hamas could have avoided the current situation. "We talked to them and told them please, do not end the truce. Let the truce continue, but they refused." Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit said that Hamas must bear responsibility for not resuming the ceasefire and for not allowing wounded from Gaza to seek treatment in Egypt. "The wounded are barred from crossing," he said, blaming "those who control Gaza."

And so Israel is defending its citizens from this constant, ceaseless barrage of terror and rockets and missiles. Imagine if San Diego were being shelled daily from Mexico or Seattle were being fired upon daily with missiles from Vancouver. Would the United States stand by month after month and do nothing to end the terror? Of course not and neither will Israel. And yet we know that ultimately there is no military solution to this crisis. Military responses only create more victims, more sorrow, more suffering and more anger and hatred. There must be a ceasefire, and Hamas must be made to accept the reality of Israel's existence, which until now it refuses to do, carrying out its charter which calls for Israel's destruction. Sometimes it feels as if we are forever in the same battle for the survival of Judaism and the Jewish people that has stretched back into our deepest history. Whether it be modern day Hamas, Hezbollah or the Ayatollah's of Iran, the slavery of our ancient Egyptian past, or the Maccabees whose victory over the Syrian-Greek armies that had vowed to destroy us we just finished celebrating this week. The more things change the more they seem to stay the same.

But ultimately we are a people of hope who believe in the power of change and transformation both personal and communal. So here we approach another New Year in the midst of the pain and fear that so many are experiencing in our world, and still we feel the winds of profound change coming in our land. A new president, a renewed sense of purpose and pride in America, a longing for a new vision that will once again inspire not only our own nation but perhaps the entire world to remember the best that lies within us all.

In this week's Torah portion we encounter one of the most emotionally powerful stories in the entire Torah. In this portion after using his power to strike fear into his brothers who no longer recognize him, Joseph is suddenly overcome with emotion at hearing Judah, the very same brother who sold him as a slave now volunteering to become a slave himself in order to save the life of Benjamin.

Joseph breaks down in tears, sends his Egyptian servants out of the room and in speaks directly to his brothers for the first time in their own language (prior to this he had been using an interpreter as if he didn't speak Hebrew). "I am Joseph. Is my father still well?" he cries, and his brothers are dumbfounded with shock. As he continues to explain that he really is Joseph their long-lost brother, we learn from his speech one of the most important lessons in human behavior in all of the Torah.

For Joseph teaches us that human beings are above all else, meaning makers. We take the experiences of our lives, even the ones we wouldn't have chosen to have happened - the difficult experiences, the painful experiences, and we look back at them and find ways to create meaning and purpose. In this case he tells his brothers, "Don't be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me here; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you... God has sent me ahead of you to insure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance." 

Joseph has used what I would call, "20X20 hindsight" to look back at his life and believe that God had a divine plan both for him and his entire family. Because he is able to discover a sense of personal destiny in the twists and turns of his life, he no longer has to hold on to his anger and resentment toward his brothers who sold him into slavery in the first place. Perhaps we can learn from Joseph how to confront the pains and sorrows and fears of our lives and discover within them our own sense of meaning and purpose. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "Life has meaning if we choose to live it as if it does." It was true for the Biblical Joseph and it will be true for you and me if we step into this New Year with the hope and faith that we can make our world work for all if we do it together.