Divrei Azriel: Rachel's children will return
Divrei Azriel: Rachel's children will return

Every year as we read parshat Vayeshev,  I am wont to repeat a Dvar Torah I heard close to fifty years ago from my beloved rebbe at YU, Rabbi Avigdor Cyperstein zt"l.

Rabbi Cyperstein began with the following story: A Roman matron once said to Rav Yossi that she could believe the whole Torah as being true, except for one single episode which she felt could not have possibly taken place as reported in the Bible. She was unwilling to accept the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife.

"When a beautiful woman sets her eyes on a young man", the matron proceeded, "and attempts to seduce him, it is impossible for him to successfully withstand her womanly wiles".

How then is it that Yosef did not succumb? From whence did he draw the immense spiritual and moral resolve needed to emerge intact from his predicament? The Rabbis tell us that indeed Yosef had initially entered the house with the intention to do "his work" with Potiphar's wife, and yet at the penultimate moment he beheld his father's image, and this picture provided him with the strength to run away (Rashi Bereishit 39:11). This midrash seems to suggest that it was the moral, or ethical, credo which his father had successfully instilled within him, which ultimately saved the day.

Rabbi Cyperstein, of blessed memory, quoted a parallel suggestion found in the Talmud Yerushalmi (Horayot 2:5), wherein Yosef's actions are attributed not to his having envisioned his father's countenance, but rather that of his mother, Rachel. What saved the day was not the memory of a philosophical construct or legalistic code; in order to counterbalance the attraction of the physical beauty of Potiphar's wife, spiritual beauty was needed.

Potiphar's wife symbolized the sanctification of physical beauty, while Rachel Imeinu personified a competing ideal: Deep appreciation of the beauty inherent in holiness. The Egyptian world, like the Greeks later on, worshipped physical beauty. While Yosef, and later on the Maccabees, were enchanted by the beauty in the sublime, the allure of the lights of the Menorah. To counteract the fatal attraction of kedushat hayofi - the sanctification of physical beauty - Rachel's image reminded Joseph of the charm of yofi shel kedusha, the beauty of sanctity.

Yosef's battle, in which Rachel's image serves such an important role, is still being fought today. Can we succeed, as a minority culture within Western society, to overcome the attraction of the values and mores of the majority culture which are at times so averse and antithetical to our own? Yosef had his mother's and father's countenance to accompany him, but the alarmingly high rates of intermarriage all over the world, indicate that we are currently losing the battle...

Many visit Kever Rachel, Rachel's Tomb, in order to pray, to be inspired by her memory and draw strength from her spiritual image, knowing  as we do that Rachel refuses to be comforted for her children (plural), crying that we may yet return home, ki enenu,for he (singular) is not yet here (Jeremiah 31:14). Rachel does not cry for us as a collective, but rather, like every mother, she weeps over each and every one of her children. Seeing the unique characteristics of each and every one of her children she will not forsake them, hoping that even the most distant will ultimately return home.

The Almighty answers Rachel telling her to: "keep your voice from weeping and your eyes from shedding tears, for your children will come back from the land of the enemy. There is hope for the future, veshavu banim ligvulamyour children shall return to their own border."

Rachel is buried "by the wayside" to enable her to beseech the Almighty on behalf of her children in exile (Rashi Bereishit 48:7).

We have to strive to make Rachel's tears our own. Rachel, the symbol of the shechina, Divine Presence, is with us in exile, galut.

We can help bring her home by resolving to come home ourselves, returning to our borders,  veshavu banim ligvulam.