by Rabbi Avi Billet
In a touching moment, father and son reunite after 22 years. We will never really know if Yaakov knew what had happened to Yosef, and the theories abound as to what Yosef suspected had brought him to this place, where he is finally seeing his dreams fulfilled.
However we would like to view the story, Yosef has already indicated to his brothers his belief that God had orchestrated everything so that Yosef would be in a position to sustain his family during the remaining years of the famine. So the family is now in Egypt, and it is time for the Patriarch to meet his son’s boss, Pharaoh.
While we might expect a more stately encounter, Pharaoh’s first words to Yaakov are a question – כמה ימי שני חייך. How old are you? Or, literally, “how many are the days of the years of your life?”
It is an odd question. And there are many answers given to what was driving Pharaoh in asking the question. Some theories include he had never seen someone as old as Yaakov, Yaakov looked very very old, he thought Yaakov was Avraham (who had come down to Egypt 85 years before Yaakov was born) and he was curious how he was still alive!
As odd as the question seems to be, Yaakov’s answer is even more strange. Instead of just saying “I’m 130 years old,” Yaakov says, יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵ֣י מְגוּרַ֔י שְׁלֹשִׁ֥ים וּמְאַ֖ת שָׁנָ֑ה מְעַ֣ט וְרָעִ֗ים הָיוּ֙ יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵ֣י חַיַּ֔י וְלֹ֣א הִשִּׂ֗יגוּ אֶת־יְמֵי֙ שְׁנֵי֙ חַיֵּ֣י אֲבֹתַ֔י בִּימֵ֖י מְגוּרֵיהֶֽם: “The days of the years of my sojourning are 130. Few and bad have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not reached the [number of] days of the years of the lives of my fathers, in the days of their sojourning.”
Aside from referring to the years of his sojourning when he had been asked about “the years of your life” (Yaakov mentioned ימי שני מגורי when he had been asked about חייך), he gives an odd commentary in place of a straight answer! "Few and bad were ימי שני חיי, and they did not reach the ימי שני חיי of my fathers." Why would he do this?
It is certainly true that Yaakov’s life had been far from blissful. He ran from Eisav, he dealt with Lavan’s trickery and treachery for 20 years, he suffered through the kidnapping and rape of Dinah, Rachel died young, Yosef was missing for 22 years, and even the recent stress over Binyamin’s fate in Egypt were very difficult for him. And now it looks like he’s probably going to die far from home, in Egypt. Rabbi Chaim Paltiel even suggests that God looked at Yaakov’s complaining and took away years from his life for still complaining even though everything that could be resolved had more or less been resolved!:
I saved you from Lavan, from Eisav, from the pursuit of any Shechem allies, I got you Dinah back, and I even got you Yosef back. And Binyamin is fine.
Netziv ignores most of these issues and opines that the worst moments in Yaakov’s life were his experiences with Rachel and Dinah: Rachel experienced infertility and died young, Dinah was raped and had her life destroyed by Shechem.
Yaakov and Rachel were married 15 years maximum. We don’t know when Leah died because her death is not recorded, but we do know that Yaakov buried her in Me’arat HaMachpela, possible even before they all came down to Egypt. If that is the case, she and Yaakov were married at most 46 years. That’s a nice amount of time by our standards, but considering how much older than her Yaakov likely was, and how much he outlived her, her death is also a tragedy. She probably wasn’t even 60 when she died. And of course, she may have been much younger, dying shortly after Yosef was sold (otherwise, why would Yaakov have to tell his sons, Yosef included, where he had buried Leah?)
While it seems clear that Rachel died from complications from childbirth, it’s actually not clear. The Torah speaks of her death in 3 ways: a. וַיְהִ֞י בְּצֵ֤את נַפְשָׁהּ֙ (and it was as her soul was leaving) b. כִּ֣י מֵ֔תָה (because she was dying) c. וַתָּ֖מָת רָחֵ֑ל (and Rachel died), which indicates to some commentaries that her death was not immediate. Binyamin was born, she had a chance to name him. And shortly thereafter – how shortly though, minutes, hours, days? – she died.
Haksav V’hakabbalah looks at Yaakov’s words to Pharaoh and suggests says there’s an important lesson to be learned from Yaakov.
מעט ורעים – my days of JOY were limited in volume. And they were spread around. I never had an extended period of JOY in my life. Most single days of joy were cancelled out by the difficulties of my life.
While this approach is championed by other commentaries, Rabbi Mecklenburg says “it’s hard to fathom that Yaakov is complaining. Because a true Tzaddik is to be joyous, even with יסורין, suffering in this world, and he certainly doesn’t bring up his sufferings all the time.”
Therefore, he says, there’s something much deeper going on here.
Everyone who tries to achieve what he calls a “Shleimut Nafshi” has a simple goal of serving God. However there are two ways to go about doing that.
One is the Derech HaKovesh. The other is the Derech haYashar (both defined below).
The Derech HaKovesh is the one who achieves a relationship with God through conquering his base animal desires. He conquers them and channels those instincts into serving God. This person is in a Milchama Temidit, an eternal struggle with his soul. Yaakov referred to this kind of life as שני מגורי (the years of my sojourning). מגור doesn’t come from a word that means to “Live” – it comes from a word which means to “struggle.” There’s an example of this word in Devarim 2:24, as well as in Tehillim 39:11 - הָסֵ֣ר מֵעָלַ֣י נִגְעֶ֑ךָ מִתִּגְרַ֥ת יָ֝דְךָ֗ אֲנִ֣י כָלִֽיתִי: - from the “attack” of your hand I am destroyed.
The Derech haYashar refers to when there is no internal struggle. If the heart is filled with the love of Hashem, and there is no room for animalistic behavior – a person who achieves this kind of living is called one who is חי באמת.
Every ounce of his or her strength goes towards achieving החיים הנצחיים, an eternal legacy of life.
There is no doubt that the existence Yaakov aimed for was this Derech HaYashar and that every day he lived to achieve a true completeness, the שלמות האמתי. The opening verse of next week’s parsha will say ויהי ימי יעקב שני חייו, that Yaakov’s days were YEARS of LIFE.
In his response to Pharaoh’s odd questions, then, Yaakov was humbling himself to the king, as Tzaddikim do. So instead of saying שני חיי, he said שני מגורי, because he was indicating to Pharoah that his life had been a struggle, and that his Derech HaYashar life was really not so much. Too many tough times negatively impacted his relationship with God.
And as much as he belittled his own accomplishments, he put up his father and grandfather for all their great successes. When he talks about them he says ימי מגוריהם, because they only struggled a few DAYS. While their שני חיי, were YEARS of CHAIM.
Yaakov was teaching Pharaoh that when people use the word CHAIM – to talk about the number of years of their LIVES, that’s not REAL. REAL LIFE is not about how long you have on this earth. It’s about the MEANING PUT INTO THAT LIFE.
So he wasn’t complaining. He was being humble. And through his humility, he showed us that the days of ימי שני חיי which were רעים were actually מעט. The bad days, which took away from my שני חיי were actually very few. He was able to come to this conclusion, because Yaakov had a Simchas HaChaim (joy in life, and a joy one gets out of life), which came from his special relationship with God, despite the fact that there were very trying days – what happened to some of his children, the death(s) of his wife/wives, etc.
Yaakov was not miserable! He was humble! We can learn from our 3rd Patriarch that no matter what struggles God or life sends our way, how we deal with them becomes perhaps the defining moments of our lives. We ALL know people whose struggles destroyed them. We ALL know people who became INSPIRATIONS TO ALL through their strength.
Yaakov was responding to Pharaoh’s question in an unconventional way because he understood the question in an unconventional manner. In his mind, Pharaoh was asking, “How are the days of your life,” not “how many are the days of your life?” So Yaakov’s answer was to the question of what guides my life. If I’m looking for Shleimus Nafshi, then everything is part of the grander scheme of my rising above, as best and as much as possible, and my seeking out the Derech HaYashar - which is a constant, and never-ending struggle.
When our perspective is not “God, why me?” But rather, “God, we’re going to get through this together, to whatever conclusion is right in Your eyes,” we’re well on the way to the Chaim Nitzchiyim, and to living a life of bliss, with the closest relationship with God we could achieve.
May we only merit to carry such a perspective always.
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