“And Ya’akov settled in the Land which his father had inhabited”( Breishit 37,1).
“When Ya’akov sought to settle in tranquility, Yosef’s anger (against his brothers) sprang up upon him” ( Rashi, in the name of the Midrash).
“And the chief butler did not remember Yosef, and he forgot him (va’yi’sh’cacheihu)” (Breishit, 40,23 ).
“ A Beria ( literally, creature) such as an ant, or a non-kosher bird, or the Gid Hanashe (sciatic nerve), or eiver min hachai( a limb detached from a live animal)…and the like cannot become batel( voided in a mixture, a Ta’arovet; Yoreh Deah, Hilchot Ta’aruvot, Siman 100, paragraph 1) .
This week’s Torah reading, which is truly an introduction to the Chanukah story, has all the elements of a typical television family drama. Father Jacob returns from Aram-Syria after 22 years of unending strife with the world’s greatest con-man( where he was “garti”, a temporary inhabitant; Brieshit 32,5), and now all he wants is to return to his peaceful fields in Canaan, and tackle the big issues in Jewish life: Torah, Covenants etc. However, what he gets is the rather unsettling petty bickering of the sibling rivalry of Yosef and his brothers. Worse, this not only unsettles Ya’akov’s tranquility in Canaan, but soon hurtles the whole family into the cauldron of the Galut Mitzrayim, the Egyptian exile (and its slavery).
Last year, in “Chanuka:Imagination”, we examined the differences between Yosef and his brothers in terms that Rav Matis Weinberg refers to as Meraglim/Kinaah , spies/jealousy, versus Achim/Kanaut,brothers/zealots. At the heart of the jealousy (Kin’ah) of Yosef’s brothers is an attitude that this world is loaded with troublesome challenges, and the only way to protect oneself (and maybe even profit from them, a “Mah betza”, as brother Judah says in Breishit 37,26 ) is to spy out (thus, Meraglim) every advantage one can find and top the competition . This, of course, is the very charge that Yosef levels against his brothers in next week’s Parsha: You are spies! (Genesis 42,9 ). This lesson is memorialized forever in the Halacha( Torah law) that “if one forgot (we’ll return later to this idea, “sha’chach”)…to light the Chanuka candles at sunset, he may light until the last passerby leaves the marketplace”( Ad shetichleh REGEL min haShuk; Sh.A.,Aruch Ch.772,2)- the word REGEL being the root-word for spy. Thus, Chanuka’s lights come to remedy the problem of Meraglim/jealousy, and will be lit by us Jews until our last jealous Jewish spy departs from history.
Of course, there is another REGEL, literally “leg”, that has been important in our story: the limping leg of Father Jacob, and his “Gid HaNashe”,sciatic nerve, which Jews do not eat (Genesis, 32,33).
There is a corresponding day in the solar year to each of the 365 negative commandments ( “Thou shalt not’s”;Lav); the day of the Lav of Gid HaNashe is Tisha B’Av, our national day of mourning for Temples and Exile, caused by jealousy/kinah. Yaakov was vulnerable to the attack of Esau, Eisav/Edom/Rome because of sinat chinam, hatred and jealousy among his offspring. This story of Yosef and his brothers is the prototype for Churban, Holocaust and Exile, and Regel / Spies feature prominently in both; so much so, that the first national Tisha B’Av mentioned in Jewish history was 2449, the year after the Exodus from Egypt, the year of the Spies/Meraglim of the desert..
The Regel of Jacob, with his Gid HaNashe, has other aspects that are important to this story. Rashi explains that the word HaNashe derives from a root that refers to “leaving one’s proper place”(an obvious reference to Exile) and “forgetting”. Forgetting is when a memory has, so to speak, left its proper place in one’s thoughts/nerve cells, so really both meanings are related.
Rabbi Weinberg explains that Yaakov was vulnerable to this attack in his Gid HaNashe because of his error in “remaining alone” (Genesis, 32,25 ). He wanted no part of his brother Esau. In fact the Midrash (Tanna Dvei Eliyahu Zuta,19) says that when Esau proposed a partnership, to split “this World and World to Come” (Olam Hazeh/Olam Haba) with Yaakov, Yaakov rebuffed him- with Regel, of a different sort: “You Esau want to live in the fast lane of easy money/instant gratification in Olam Hazeh this world; but I want to patiently take my time l’Regel ha’Melacha ul’Regel Ha’yladim ( to slowly walk this world, and develop my children/nation;Genesis 33,14). With this, Jacob gave away to Esauv/Rome/Western civilization the leadership role in history, preferring to wait thousands of years, until the days of Moshiach (Rashi, ibid.).
To this, Yosef is a stark contrast: Yosef “seeks out his brothers” (Breishit, 37,16). Unlike Yaakov, who seeks “to remain alone…tranquility”, Yosef is all relationship, Mr. Extrovert, Mr. Chein (charm, as in the word “Chanuka”). Thus Yosef is the key to repairing the damage of the Gid HaNashe; indeed, his son, Menashe, is named for this task, and performs it (see Breishit 43,16 ; and “Threes Redux”,this Judaism site, 12/17/06, which explains the connection of this to the Chanuka Dreidl).
It is Yosef who brings the family together again, after he brings his Meraglim/brothers from jealousy/kinah to kanaut: to recognizing that relationships are so key to human identity and life, that it’s worth wagering all for Yehuda to try to save Benjamin( Genesis 44,18-34). A spy would calculate the odds of eleven brothers overpowering the entire Egyptian army, and take the comfortable route of returning to Canaan without Benjamin; but a brother acts.
This is similar to the Chashmonaim/Maccabees of the Chanukah story; it mattered not that they were fighting against one of the mightiest armies on earth; when life became intolerable under the prevailing Hellenistic powers, they struck, no matter what the odds. That’s what some cynical people call “ a fanatic”, but what we call a kanai; one not jealous, but, like the first priest Aaron, brother to Moshe, and who was “happy”, not jealous, for the accomplishments of his brother( Exodus 4,14). The Chashmonaim, priestly descendants of Aaron, were the answer to the Hellenistic split, the Gid HaNashe problem, of their times.
Finally, we come to the episode of Yosef and the Pharoah’s chief butler. Yosef spends a lifetime of not being a manipulator, a Meragel/spy- except for this incident, in which he uses his “protektzia”, his inside information and the favor he did for the butler, to try to finagle his way out of the Egyptian jail. His punishment fits the crime the crime ( mida k’neged mida): it’s a sin of Rigul, spying , and Yosef is punished with Regel, the (Gid ha) Nasheh, with forgetting: va’yish’kacheihu. The butler forgets Yosef.
This is why the Gid HaNashe is not bateil, not void, in its admixture into another food: for G-d has no tolerance for spies and spying, for manipulation and “making things happen”, Meraglim/kinah. Rabbi Weinberg notes that Gid Hanashe is the seventh Chapter 7 of Talmud Chulin, which deals with laws of mixtures (ta’aruvot); Jacob, in his lone act of spying/manipulation, had proclaimed that he wanted no mixing with his brother, and had locked daughter Dina up to keep her from the prying eyes of Esau. Yaakov paid for this with Dina’s rape-for the Lord has no tolerance for the Gid HaNashe.
In Chanukah, 2010, we have many lessons from this unsettling story. It’s obvious that to “remain alone”, cut off from brotherhood and society, is counted as an error on Jacob’s part, not to a merit or goal for Father/Nation Israel.
Rabbi Chaim Amsalem of Shas can take heart that the Torah actually backs him, and not his Hareidi detractors. As far as the whole picture of the schism of Gid HaNashe, Am Yisrael still his far to go until it’s healed, when the prophet will “take one block of wood and write on it ‘Yehuda’, and one block of wood and write on it ‘to Yosef, the wood of Ephraim’; and bring them close one to another, and they shall be united in your hand”( Ezekiel 37,15-16;Haftorah Parshat Vayigash).
Chanuka sameach.