{"id":61250,"date":"2018-12-19T11:11:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-19T16:11:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/?p=61250"},"modified":"2018-12-19T11:11:15","modified_gmt":"2018-12-19T16:11:15","slug":"cc-family-edition-the-future-of-the-past-vayechi-5779","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ou.org\/life\/parenting\/cc-family-edition-the-future-of-the-past-vayechi-5779\/","title":{"rendered":"C&C Family Edition: The Future of the Past (Vayechi 5779)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Covenant & Conversation: Family Edition<\/em>\u00a0is a new and exciting initiative from The Office of Rabbi Sacks for 5779.\u00a0 Written as an accompaniment to Rabbi Sacks\u2019 weekly\u00a0Covenant & Conversation<\/em>\u00a0essay, the\u00a0Family Edition<\/em>is aimed at connecting older children and teenagers with his ideas and thoughts on the\u00a0parsha<\/em>. Each element of the\u00a0Family Edition<\/em>\u00a0is progressively more advanced;\u00a0The Core Idea\u00a0<\/em>is appropriate for all ages and the final element,\u00a0From The Thought of Rabbi Sacks<\/em>, is the most advanced section. Each section includes\u00a0Questions to Ponder<\/em>, aimed at encouraging discussion between family members in a way most appropriate to them. We have also included a section called\u00a0Around the Shabbat Table<\/em>\u00a0with a few further questions on the\u00a0parsha<\/em>\u00a0to think about. The final section is an\u00a0Educational Companion<\/em>\u00a0which includes suggested talking points in response to the questions found throughout the\u00a0Family Edition<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Download as PDF<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Covenant and Conversation on OU Torah<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

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The Parsha in a Nutshell<\/strong><\/p>\n

With\u00a0Vayechi<\/em>, the book of Genesis, full of conflicts within the family, comes to a peaceful end. Jacob, reunited with his beloved Joseph, sees his grandsons, the only such scene in the Torah. He blesses them. Then, on his death-bed, he blesses his twelve sons. He dies and is buried in the cave of Machpelah with his parents and grandparents. Joseph forgives his brothers a second time, and he himself dies, having assured his brothers that God will eventually bring the family back to the Promised Land. The long patriarchal narrative is at an end and a new period \u2013 the birth of Israel as a nation \u2013 is about to begin.<\/p>\n

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The Core Idea<\/strong><\/p>\n

The brothers fear for their lives as Joseph reveals himself to them. What would stop him from taking his revenge? Joseph reassures them with these words: \u201cDon\u2019t be afraid,\u201d said Joseph. \u201cAm I in place of God? You intended to harm me but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.\u201d (Gen. 50:19-20) The conclusion to this story is the original source for understanding the concept of\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>\u00a0(repentance).<\/p>\n

Another important source for understanding\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>\u00a0is one of the most colourful characters of the Talmud \u2013 the third-century sage known as Reish Lakish. Reish Lakish was originally a highway robber and gladiator who later in life repented and became a great scholar. Perhaps speaking from his own experience, he is quoted as the author of several sayings about\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>, two of which are reported in the tractate of\u00a0Yoma\u00a0<\/em>(86b): Reish Lakish said: Great is repentance, because through it deliberate sins are accounted as unintentional. Reish Lakish also said: Great is repentance, because through it deliberate sins are accounted as though they were merits.<\/p>\n

Confused by the contradiction between the two statements (does\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>\u00a0make sins \u201cunintentional\u201d or \u201cmerits\u201d?) the Talmud solves the contradiction: the first applies to repentance from fear (of punishment), the second to repentance from love (of God and the good).<\/p>\n

Reish Lakish\u2019s statement about sins and merits is almost certainly inspired by the words Joseph speaks to his brothers in the closing chapter of Genesis: \u201cYou intended to harm me but God intended it for good.\u201d This is the paradigm that stands at the basis of Reish Lakish\u2019s argument. The brothers had committed a deliberate sin by selling Joseph into slavery; they (or at least Judah, the instigator of the decision to sell Joseph) had done\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>. The result is that \u2013 through divine providence (\u201cGod intended it\u201d) \u2013 their action is now reckoned \u201cfor good.\u201d Any act we perform has multiple consequences, some good, some bad. When we intend evil, the bad consequences are attributed to us because they are what we sought to achieve. The good consequences are not: they are mere by-products or unintended outcomes.<\/p>\n

So in the case of Joseph, many positive things happened once he had been brought to Egypt. None of these consequences could be credited to his brothers, even though they would not have happened had the brothers not done as they did. However, once the brothers had undergone complete repentance, their original intent was cancelled out. It was now possible to see the good, as well as the bad, consequences of their act \u2013 and to credit the good to them.<\/p>\n

QUESTIONS TO PONDER:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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  1. Do you think that the motivation behind an act is most important, or the outcome of the act?<\/li>\n
  2. Can you think of bad things that have happened to you that have ultimately also had good outcomes?<\/li>\n
  3. What heroic traits is Joseph modelling for us in this story?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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    It Once Happened…<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Reish Lakish was the leader of a gang of bandits. One day, he saw Rabbi Y<\/em>o<\/em>ch<\/em>anan bathing in the River Jordan. Reish Lakish jumped into the river to chase him. Rabbi Yochanan said to Reish Lakish: Your immense strength would be better used for Torah study. Reish Lakish said to him: Your immense beauty would be better used for women. Rabbi Yochanan said to him: If you return to Torah study, I will give you my sister in marriage, who is more beautiful than I am. Reish Lakish accepted upon himself to study Torah.\u00a0(Talmud Bavli,\u00a0Bava Metzia, 84a)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    When one sees Reish Lakish studying Torah in the study hall it is as though he is uprooting mountains and grinding them into each other.\u00a0(Talmud Bavli,\u00a0Sanhedrin 24a)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    When Rabbi Imi was kidnapped in Sifsufa, Rabbi Yochanan despaired and proclaimed him as good as dead. Reish Lakish replied to him before we abandon hope that he has been killed I am willing to run the risk that I may be killed in order to save him. He went and rescued him from the hands of the kidnappers, who all were eventually killed themselves. On another occasion Rabbi Yochanan was robbed in Ale-kaniah. When Reish Lakish noticed something was wrong he admitted that he had been robbed. Reish Lakish told him to show him where, and he went and found the robbers and took back all of Rabbi Yochanan\u2019s belongings.\u00a0(Talmud Yerushalmi, Teruma, 46b)<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

    QUESTIONS TO PONDER:<\/strong><\/p>\n

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    1. How does Reish Lakish show in his own life that\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>\u00a0can redeem previous actions, making them the source of future good?<\/li>\n
    2. What skills and resources do you have that could be used for bad or for good?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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      Thinking More Deeply<\/strong><\/p>\n

      The idea explored in\u00a0The Core Idea<\/em>, that through repentance, deliberate sins can be accounted as merits, is a hugely significant idea, for it means that by a change of heart we can redeem the past. However, this still sounds impossible, for we tend to take for granted the idea of the asymmetry of time: The future is open, but the past is closed. Before us lie a series of paths. Which we take depends upon our choice. Behind us lies the history of our previous decisions, none of which we can undo. We cannot go back in time. That is a logical impossibility. We can affect what is yet to be; but, in the words of the sages, \u201cWhat has been, has been,\u201d and we cannot alter it. With or without repentance, the past is surely immutable. All of this is true, but it is not the whole truth. The revolutionary idea behind Joseph\u2019s and Reish Lakish\u2019s words is that there are two concepts of the past. The first is what happened. The second is the significance, the meaning, of what happened.<\/p>\n

      In ancient Israel a new concept of time was born. This did more than change the history of the West; in a sense, it created it. Until Tanach, time was generally conceived as a series of eternal recurrences, endlessly repeating a pattern that belonged to the immutable structure of the universe. The seasons \u2013 spring, summer, autumn, winter \u2013 and the lifecycle \u2013 birth, growth, decline and death \u2013 were a reiterated sequence in which nothing fundamentally changed. This is variously called cyclical, or cosmological, or mythic time.<\/p>\n

      This conception of time produces a deeply conservative philosophy of life. It justifies the status quo. Inequalities are seen as written into the structure of the universe. All attempts to change society are destined to fail. People are what they are, and the world is what it has always been. At best this view leads to resignation, at worst to despair. There is no ultimate meaning in history.<\/p>\n

      The Jewish understanding of time that emerges from Tanach, in contrast, was utterly revolutionary. For the first time people began to conceive that God had created the universe in freedom, and that by making man in His image, He endowed him too with freedom. That being so, he might be different tomorrow from what he was today, and if he could change himself, he could begin to change the world. Time became an arena of change. With this, the concept of history (as opposed to myth) was born.<\/p>\n

      We live life forwards, but we understand it backwards. The simplest example of this is autobiography. Reading the story of a life, we understand how early experiences shape who we become. What we become depends on our choices, and we are (almost) always free to choose this way or that. But what we become shapes the story of our life, and only in hindsight, looking back, do we see the past in context, as part of a tale whose end we now know. In life considered as a narrative, later events change the significance of earlier ones. It was the gift of Judaism to the world to discover time as a narrative.<\/p>\n

      That was what Reish Lakish knew from his own experience. He had been a highway robber. He might have stayed one. Instead he became a\u00a0ba\u2019al teshuvahh<\/em>, and the very characteristics he had acquired in his earlier life \u2013 physical strength and courage \u2013 he later used to virtuous ends (see\u00a0It Once Happened\u2026<\/em>). He knew he could not have done so had he had a different past, a life of study and peace. His sins became merits because in retrospect they were an essential part of the good he eventually did. What had happened (the past as past) did not change, but its significance (the past as part of a narrative of transformation) did.<\/p>\n

      That too was the profound philosophical-spiritual truth Joseph conveyed to his brothers. By your repentance \u2013 he intimated to them \u2013 you have changed the story of which you are a part. The harm you intended to do ultimately brought about good. So long as you stayed the people prepared to sell a brother into slavery, none of that good could be attributed to you, but now you have transformed yourself through\u00a0teshuvah<\/em>, and so have transformed the story of your life as well. By your change of heart you have earned the right to be included in a narrative whose ultimate outcome was benign.<\/p>\n

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      From the Thought of Rabbi Sacks<\/strong><\/p>\n

      This was perhaps the greatest contribution of Judaism \u2013 via the Judaic roots of Christianity \u2013 to the West. The idea that time is an arena of change, and that freedom and creativity are God\u2019s gift to humanity, resulted in astonishing advances in science and our understanding of the world, technology and our ability to control the human environment, economics and our ability to lift people out of poverty and starvation, medicine and our ability to cure disease. It led to the abolition of slavery, the growth of a more egalitarian society, the enhanced position of women, and the emergence of democracy and liberalism\u2026<\/p>\n

      To be a Jew is to be an agent of hope. Every ritual, every command, every syllable of the Jewish story is a protest against escapism, resignation and the blind acceptance of fate. Judaism, the religion of the free God, is a religion of freedom. Jewish faith is written in the future tense. It is belief in a future that is not yet but could be, if we heed God\u2019s call, obey His will and act together as a covenantal community. The name of the Jewish future is hope\u2026<\/p>\n

      Jews were and are still called on to be the voice of hope in the conversation of humankind.<\/p>\n

      Future Tense, p.249-252<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

      QUESTIONS TO PONDER:<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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      1. Why is the idea that time is an arena of change a Jewish idea, and why is it such a radical idea?<\/li>\n
      2. How does this idea change the world we live in?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
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        Around the Shabbat Table<\/strong><\/p>\n