The Delusion of the Permanent Diaspora
Parshat Vayigash
Rabbi Asher Lopatin
"Meanwhile, [the fledgling nation of] Israel lived in Egypt in the
Goshen district. [They liked it so much that] they acquired property
there, and had raised their families there, with their population
increasing very rapidly." (Genesis 47:27, Aryeh Kaplan translation)
Wish me Mazel Tov! I just returned from the marriage of our former
rabbinic intern, Marc Gitler, to the wonderful Sara Leah Geiger, in a
beautiful country club in New Jersey. It was a spectacular wedding: New
Jersey is the Goshen for Orthodoxy - even more than Brooklyn. In
Brooklyn and the Lower East Side, in their heyday, people rented; in
Teaneck, Englewood and West Orange, people "acquire property" as our
ancestors did in Egypt. There simply is nothing like a New Jersey
wedding: hundreds of people dancing - men and women separately - with
gusto and rhythm, everyone dressed in tuxedos and fancy dresses,
single-malt Scotch in abundance, sliced roast beef and turkey and a
hot-dog bar, all led by revered leaders of modern Orthodoxy, Centrist
Orthodoxy and old-world Orthodoxy. This wedding was filled with warmth
and friendliness and inclusion - everyone got to dance with the bride
and groom - and was emblematic of the beautiful world created by the
modern-day heirs to Joseph and his brothers.
Outside the wedding hall, just a few miles away, as you hit cities such
as Passaic and counties such as Bergen, you can find all the kosher
restaurants you could desire, with free parking, all the shiurim you
could ask for, all the most advanced day schools and Yeshivas for your
kids. Just like our brothers and sisters in Egypt so many years ago,
these kids grow up knowing that you own your home, that you buy as close
as possible to the many, many shuls in the neighborhood, and that you
mow the lawn on Sunday, not Saturday, while wearing your kippa and
tzitzit. And Joseph has generously allowed all people in New Jersey to
purchase gas as cheap as $2.03 a gallon - full service!
As I was dancing and looking around, I realized that the end of Vayigash
is one of the scariest endings of any portion in the Torah: the
fledgling nation of Israel was lulled into settling down in a foreign
land, completely forgetting about the Holy Land which they left, which
had been promised to them. Canaan was the land of famine and strife;
you had to fight with Lot's shepherds, or with the Philistines who stop
up your wells, or with the people of Shechem who kidnap your sister. In
New Jersey the food is cheap, the Torah is sweet, and for the most part
you don't even see cars in the streets on Shabbat if you live in the
right neighborhood. Who needs all the mishugas of the Holy Land?
Goshen is far better, and the covenant of the land that God promised to
us is conveniently put on indefinite hold. Egypt will do just fine.
In the Haggada we read, based on our parsha: "We are taught that Ya'akov
Avinu did not go down to settle in Egypt, but only to sojourn -
temporarily, "Lagur" - as it is said, "[The brothers] said to Pharaoh,
we have come to sojourn in the land ."(Genesis 47:4). Jacob wanted the
brothers, his fledgling people, to live in the land, to contribute to
the land - to do the shepherding that no one else in Egypt was doing,
but which was probably necessary - and to be good citizens. But as our
Haggada emphasizes, he never wanted them to settle in the land, to take
hold of the land as if it was theirs, and to feel that they had built a
home outside of Israel. Unfortunately, by the end of the Parsha, when
Joseph is giving his brothers and their families all the bread they
need, it seems that they are forgetting their spiritual need for the
Promised Land. The term in verse 12 is "lechem l'fi hataf" - "bread
according to the children". When our children are happy, we are happy.
When our children dance at weddings, and can scarf down kishke and
hot-dogs and Glenlivit at the wedding tish, we are happy. But we also
need to be aware that, as good as things are in New Jersey or even in
Chicago, Goshen is not Israel. We can be the best, most loyal citizens,
but we need to remain here as Jacob directed us: as temporary dwellers -
as "gerim", strangers, not as permanent land owners.
This Tuesday we commemorate with a short, dawn-to-dusk fast, the
Babylonian surrounding of Jerusalem in the days the First Temple, 2500
years ago. The Babylonians surrounded our holy capital city three years
before they actually destroyed it and the Temple, and took our people
into exile to this very day. The people of Jerusalem had three years to
think about what they were doing, three years to snap out of their
complacency. But they had it easy: they had the great prophet Jeremiah
and the oppression of the Babylonians that should have awakend them, but
it still didn't work. We who live in the luxury of Goshen, with the
generosity of the United States enabling our children to get all the
chocolate gelt, Disney toys and video games they want, have a much
bigger challenge. Whereas the Jews of the First Temple period lived at
a low point of religious piety and civility, we in America live in
communities filled with Torah and chesed - kindness and concern for Jews
and gentiles, and animals and the environment. How can we think of
Israel when the Josephs of American have created such a wonderful home,
such a wonderful place to set down roots and raise our kids?
As much as I personally love America and love my community of Lakeview,
I do not want to repeat the mistake of our ancestors at the end of this
week's portion, of thinking that our accomplishments allow us to forget
about our true goal of returning to Israel. Everything we build here is
just a model and inspiration for what we will repeat in a much greater
and permanent way in Israel: our synagogues, mikvahs, day schools,
restaurants, and our desire to reach every Jew and show them the beauty
of our tradition, all that starts in America, it starts in Goshen, but
in order for it to be a blessing it must culminate - through our own
initiative - in Israel. God willing, all of us will write a new ending
to the Parsha. From New Jersey to Chicago to LA, we will repair the
complacency that the fast of Tevet commemorates. In the merit of all
the joy and Torah that we have been blessed with here in America, God
will allow us to be the generation of Jews that re-enters the Holy Land,
not the generation in Egypt that forgot the Promised Land.
Rabbi Asher Lopatin
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