Vayeshev: The Book of Generations

Yosef, who is in a sense the founder of the Jewish people. Until now, we were at the level of three great families, those of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, and we pointed out what made each of them distinctive, the battles they fought, the preliminaries of the Jewish people they founded and launched. And now it is Yosef who will bring about the transformation of the families into a great people. But just as in childbirth, you see, there are labor pains. Labor pains that always carry within them the seed of the three destructive elements, the three destructive ferments, which are debauchery, the corruption of morals, crime, bloodshed, idolatry. In short, that is how the first stretch of history was, let’s say, transformed since the first generations.

“Eleh toldot hashamayim veha’aretz behibaram.” Toldot is mentioned thirteen times in the Torah and once in the Ketuvim. Toldot, which means generations. History is the fruit of the generations. It is within families that history is built. And of course there comes a moment when history must correct the mistakes made along the way, because these generations are imperfect. So, the perfect generations are those of hashamayim veha’aretz, those of creation, of heaven and earth, of spirit and matter. Those ones, these toldot, in Hebrew, have a vav. That means they are perfect generations. It is a creation that meets its Creator’s expectation. Those are the first toldot. And the man who was created is shakul: he is in the balance of history. He is the equivalent of Adam, of man. And this man, in his final trajectory, the one that carries the messianic element as a seed — those are the toldot of Peretz, in Megillat Ruth: the messianic seed from Peretz, that is, the kingdom of David and the Mashiach who is to come forth from it, to emerge from it. Well, these toldot are written with a vav. That is to say, they are complete. This stabilizing element, the vav, is there. It is there at the starting point as at the point of arrival.

Now, all the stages of history we pass through from the toldot hashamayim veha’aretz to “Eleh toldot Peretz” lack stability. They suffer from incompleteness and, as a result, they will always be turbulent generations. Either the first vav is missing, or the final vav, which attests to the failure of the journey. So these are gallim, gallim, wave movements, which are rendered — which the Zohar renders — as gilgulim, that is, cycles that repeat at different levels, but which attest to an indispensable tikkun. A tikkun — and we said that tikkun is “tel kav”, that is, marking the link between the different generations.

So we have passed through the toldot of Noach, the toldot of Avraham, the toldot of Yishmael, the toldot of Esav, the toldot of Yitzchak, the toldot of Yaakov, and here we are. In the toldot of Yaakov, we move from the hierarchy of the particular to that of the general, to that of the general Adam, because, in the same way that there are four sins, four ferments of failure, which are gilui arayot, shefichut damim, avodah zarah, lashon hara, there are also — excuse me — four types of Adam. There is the particular Adam, as he is meant to be. And this particular Adam cannot be separated from humanity in general, from the general Adam. Now, there is also a third Adam, who is zachar u-nekevah, who is ruchani, who is spiritual, who is composed of the masculine and the feminine. And there is this Adam, “adameh le-Elyon”, who is no longer kneaded from earth, but who aspires to be in the image of his Creator. “Adameh le-Elyon”: I will be like the Most High. Well, that is the fourth dimension of Adam. As long as we have not reached this dimension, history makes only successive corrections. They repeat at different levels. They are not the same snapshots, but they are the same elements that carry a society which, as opposed to gilui arayot, shefichut damim, avodah zarah and lashon hara, must be driven by hesed, gevurah, love, rigor, tiferet, the harmony between hesed and gevurah, and then yesod, the foundation. So who is this yesod, which must indeed speak with a single voice, because the spiritual language demands it?

We must know that when we serve only Hashem, that is, an entity in the absolute that transcends the present world, the created world, we are in degradation. There is a chillul Hashem, there is a profanation of G-d’s name. This profanation of G-d’s name began in the era of Shet. There it is said: “Az huchal likro be-shem Hashem.” “Huchal”: G-d’s name was profaned, or people began to invoke the name of Hashem but no longer to stress that of Elokim, that of G-d the Creator. Now, we cannot separate Hashem from Elokim. We are monotheists, certainly, but by virtue of our creation, and just as this creation carries within it a multiplicity, an incalculable diversity of created elements, there is an incalculable diversity of personalities, of faces of men and women. They carry the same divine breath, but they differ from one another. Just like creation: the elements of creation are different, and Elokim is plural because He is the totality of all its forces. So that we ourselves, in serving HaKadosh Baruch Hu, each have our eloha, each have our idol. We serve an ideal that is particular to us, and we ought to be able to transcend this particular ideal that separates us from one another in order to reach Hashem. Indeed, in the weekly parasha, when the generation of Enosh was blamed, which began to separate Hashem from Elokim, or to refer to Elokim rather than to Hashem, this division was blamed. There is chillul Hashem in that, there is a profanation of G-d’s name. We must serve the unity of Hashem Elokim, Elokim representing the divinities, the different forces, the different powers, the different entities, so as to gather them into a single entity that transcends their particularities.

So, it is said “Zeh sefer toldot Adam” from Shet onward, who is Adam’s third child, from whom the world, humanity, was perpetuated, because Kayin and Hevel disappeared and nothing remained of them. We have Shet, “she-alav hushtat ha-olam”, upon whom rests the foundation of humankind, of humanity. Well, the book began — the history book began with Shet. “Zeh sefer toldot Adam”. And there, in the toldot of Adam, which embrace the four dimensions of Adam we mentioned earlier, we find the four meanings of the word sefer. Sefer, which means the narrative we know through history, through events. The second element of sefer: these are the references, the allusions, it is the numerical, the remez; the third is the derash, the exposition of the text, the understanding of the text, and for that one cuts it like a barber, a sapar. First, the text was counted, counted in such a way that it would not be, let’s say, corrupted by any addition, and every word, every passage was commented on. Gezerah shavah: sapar, the barber, just like the barber; sofer, sippur. Indeed, Rashi says: “sefirat dorot”, the counting of the generations, in order to discover what the text still hides.

We have already said this: each letter of the Torah is autonomous; it has of course its shape, its first, let’s say, dimension. The second is the nekudot, the vowels, the dots that show us how to pronounce, and the meaning will change. Then we have the ta’am, which means the musicality of each word, the transcendent sense of the word. But there is also the white space surrounding the letter, where there is a host of unspoken things for us to discover, which is what we do throughout the study of the text. Well, that is the sefer, the book of history that concerns us, because each person writes his own book of Bereshit, each has his story, each has his autobiography, each has his way of living his destiny, each has his way of influencing the future of his society, near and far, and each is to be discovered anew, because he is not cast in a repeating mold: each is different from the other, each carries a secret of creation, a fragment of creation not yet brought to light.

Well, that is the meaning of “sefer toldot Adam, be-yom bero Elokim Adam bi-demut Elokim”. It is this man who is in the image and likeness of G-d. Otherwise, the first children were rather the fruit of desire; they did not carry this tzelem and demut — the text does not stress it, as if it were only a draft of creation. True history begins with Shet. “Ki shat li Elokim zera acher tachat Hevel, ki haragu Kayin”: G-d has granted me another seed, another offspring, in place of Hevel, “ki haragu Kayin”, who was slain by Kayin. So here we will also find this “toldot Yaakov Yosef”.

Yosef will be the gene of Yaakov, who has within him the power of the unifying Word. Unfortunately, at first, that is not the case, because it is the mistake made every time someone takes in hand the political or intellectual or moral leadership of a people: there is always an abuse. Dibbah: it is slander, ill-speaking, a refusal to listen. Well, but Yosef was “anus al pi ha-dibbur”: he is bound by speech, and that is why Yosef spoke the 70 languages — spoke, knew, mastered the universal language from which spiritual teaching could indeed be spread, because this spiritual teaching, there is no point trying to put it in written form, which would be like a mold in which one can no longer try to bring forth something new that the text hides. And that is the whole problem of discord in society and between nations. Now, the Jewish people went into exile only in order to be able to align itself with the language of others too.

Now, what will prolong Yaakov’s exile? It is that Yaakov found no common language with Esav. There was always a problem of clothing there. Yes, and clothing hides nakedness, just as it sometimes hides the truth, the measure of man. It is precisely this negative aspect of clothing that we neutralize with the tzitzit we wear, isn’t it? Now, here there is always a problem of clothing. This garment that Yaakov wore to present himself before his father, which dated from Nimrod, which dated from Adam — the garment of Adam, who felt the need to cover his nakedness with a garment, and which was handed down from generation to generation so as to hide his shame, his betrayal. That is why beged also comes to express the word to betray, bagad; and levush, lo bosha: a way of hiding one’s shame, of not being ashamed.

Well, all these elements are now found in the fourth element of the Havayah, of the four dimensions we mentioned, and the fourth is Yosef. Now, what is the fourth letter of Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh? It is the heh. It is the heh that will be added to Yosef: “Edut bi-Yehosef samo”. The testimony, He placed it in Yosef, to whom He added this heh. Now, we have said that this feminine heh is the one that carries the interrogation, the question, that calls for a definition, the heh ha-yedi’ah, the heh of the question, the heh ha-yedi’ah, and that indicates the purpose, the trajectory: it is “Yerushalaymah”, toward Jerusalem, arriving in Jerusalem, at the Makom. Makom, yes. “Baruch HaMakom” — that is another aspect we will have to go into. But it is simply to indicate that this heh is the only letter repeated in the attribute of the Creator who transcends creation, who is all love. It is Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh. And it is the one that Yosef — that Yosef will use when addressing his brothers: “Heh lachem zera”. “Heh lachem zera”: here is seed for you — to respond, to respond to the needs of the other.

Responding to the needs of the other — that is the great question mark, because when our Sages asked themselves which verse could sum up the whole Torah, all of Jewish monotheism, all of faith, Rabbi Akiva says: “You shall love your fellow as yourself” — to love one’s fellow as oneself. The Arizal says: that is not possible. Indeed, that is why Hillel adjusted it somewhat, saying: what is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. So it is placed in the negative: simply not harming your fellow, just as you do not want to harm yourself. But where does it lie, then? According to the Arizal, solely in the relationship of masculine to feminine, of man to woman: taking care that the couple’s love can continue to animate the couple throughout a lifetime, and that one does not reach a point of aging, of banality, of a life of repetition. That is the true “ve-ahavta le-re’acha kamocha”. Ben Azzai disagrees with Rabbi Akiva. He says: no, the summary, the essence of the whole Torah, lies in “Zeh sefer toldot Adam”.

This is the book of the descendants of Adam, of the generations of Adam — that is, taking care to go out of the narrow framework of the home toward the outside world, and to radiate, to give this love a living dynamic outside, one that embraces all of humanity. That is the summary of the whole Torah. Moreover, chachamim such as Ben Nanas, Ben Azzai, Ben Zoma, Ben Nanas and Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi rendered it differently, namely that it is true: to unify everything, all the elements, all the elohut, all the divinities, all the beliefs, into a single entity that is Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh and that transcends all these beliefs. That is the essence of the whole Torah: to succeed in unifying the world under the banner of the Shema Yisrael, “Hashem Elokeinu, Hashem Echad”. For Ben Nanas, it would again be as with Rabbi Akiva: love of one’s fellow. Whereas Rabbi Shimon ben Pazi says: enough speeches! Enough of fixing things in midair, in the lofty spheres of thought! No!

Man is measured, or humanity is measured, by what each one offers spontaneously: self-sacrifice, morning and evening, in happy moments as in sad ones. Boker, erev. And what you truly accomplish, selflessly, for the sake of the other — it is this self-denial, this spirit of self-denial, of self-giving: that is what matters. Now, with Yosef, this will be borne out. Until now, we neutralized Yishmael, we neutralized Esav. But we are arriving, we are returning to the Promised Land. We passed through the Church, we sought to proselytize, we spread our ideas, our beliefs, our values, we shared them. It cost us very dearly. They held it against us. Just as Yosef was persecuted, we were persecuted, hunted… We were subjected to the ordeal of the camps. We came out of it, we came out of it, we came back.

That is how the parasha begins, the parasha: Yaakov returned to his father’s house, where the first gerim began, where he truly settled as a ger, a stranger. He had nothing, this land never belonged to him, but he goes there, he will settle there by divine command. And so he is a ger: he is at once a citizen, yet he is always a ger. It is not his property in the absolute. The promise is absolute, but if he conforms to the divine will that assigned this land to him, then it comes back to him. Otherwise, he should not leave it. And that is… Now, we have already pointed out that the first command given to Avraham was to settle in the land assigned to him, the land of vision, of vision, of a universal vision. And now, after the exile, Yaakov returns to these lands, and he intends to settle there for good. We are living through this situation, because today we have returned to the land of our ancestors.

But look how much dissent there is within the people, how many divisions there are in one single great family. And Yosef is contested once again. And that is the reason why the toldot, the toldot of Yosef — these toldot do not mark the end of a return to Israel: a vav is missing. These are the first steps of a people. But the last will be at the end of messianic times. That is when the people will fully realize itself, it will achieve its unity, it will make its voice heard among the nations, from where it stands, and not only through the world of the Church. It will release the word, the word of G-d, from Israel, a word that leaves no room for slander, for dibbah. Now, the two verses, I think, of the parasha of Yosef are clear, since the text says: “Vayeshev Yaakov”: Yaakov will seek to settle for good, to live in the land where his parents were driven by the fear of no longer enjoying its possession. Right? That is the land of Canaan. “Eleh toldot Yaakov”, and also…

We can’t hear anymore, we can’t hear anymore, Kevod HaRav. Your sound is cut off, your sound is cut off. Hello? Wait. Yes, yes.

“Eleh” pasal et ha-rishonim: “eleh” annulled everything that came before, because it is a new chapter, a new story, a new story. Not that it breaks away from the other, but each time, throughout history, there are transformations taking place. And here, one should not go back to the snapshot of the past. The past will be the permanent memory of the people of Israel. That is a fact. “Eleh toldot Yaakov Yosef.” So, Yosef.

So we come back again to the favorite child. And that was the case with Kayin. And Avraham did cherish Yishmael all the same: “Lu Yishmael yichyeh lefanecha”: may Yishmael live before You. Yitzchak rather gave his preference… How much we have suffered… And now again: “Eleh toldot Yaakov Yosef”. Yes. There is no escaping it. There is no escaping it. One has many children, but there is one who takes charge of the destiny of the end, and who proves it. And the others are the partners in this destiny. That is how it must be. And HaKadosh Baruch Hu likewise chose the people of Israel, and yet all the nations are His children, they are His creatures. But Israel is G-d’s cherished child. That is how it is.

So, “Eleh toldot Yaakov Yosef”, and it is from there that we will set out to see what Yosef’s first steps are — Yosef who, let us recall, will give Egypt three things: … then will give… and then belief in Elokim, in G-d, who is the Creator of the universe. These are the three things that Yosef… He knows how to interpret dreams, he of course knows how to resolve economic crises, he also knows that it is the Creator of the universe to whom we must give an account, because emunah in Hashem begins first with emunah in Elokim. We do not reach Hashem without having first believed in Elokim. There, I’ll stop the lecture here, I think. If you have any questions…