(The following is based on a sermon preached by Rabbi Yosef Tzvi Hertz z”l, former Chief Rabbi of the British Empire, in the East London Synagogue, on Parashat Yitro, 19th Shvat 5687/22nd January 1927)
Among the best-known and best-loved of our folk-songs are those sung during the Seder Night. That is, after all, arguably the most memorable night of the Jewish year, and the Seder service is the most striking of all ceremonies that a Jew ever carries out in his house.
Near the end of the Seder service is the familiar Echad mi yodea? (“Who knows One?”) The obvious answer is: “One is G-d”.
And we proceed to teach our children the Jewish way of counting: two are the Stone Tablets of the Covenant; three are the Fathers; four are the Mothers; five are the Books of the Torah; six are the Orders of the Mishnah; seven are the days of the week; eight are the days of the Brit Milah; nine are the months of child-birth; ten are the Commandments; eleven are the stars in Joseph’s dream; twelve are the Tribes of Israel; and thirteen are the Attributes of G-d.
Why did the author of the Haggadah choose the eleven stars of Joseph’s dream to represent eleven?
Ten are the Commandments; and the next link in the chain of Israel’s spiritual data in “Echad mi yodea” are the eleven stars in Joseph’s dream. Joseph and his life story are the paradigm for future Jewish history: the Midrash tells us that “everything that happened to Joseph which caused him to suffer, also happened to Zion…and everything that happened to Joseph beneficially also happened to Zion” (Tanhuma, Yayiggash 10; Yalkut Shimoni, Malachi 589).
Joseph would not suffer his children to barter away their “Jewishness” for the most exalted position, or the most enviable political career in the Egyptian State.
Like Joseph, the Jew has been the dreamer of the ages, dreaming Israel’s dream of universal justice and peace and brotherhood. Like Joseph, he has everywhere been the helpless victim of the hatred of his step-brethren, hatred that drove him from home and doomed him to exile.
And his brothers did not understand that by throwing their own brother into exile, they were actually beginning the long-dreaded exile of the entire Hebrew family: The Targum Yonatan paraphrases Genesis 37:14, “On that day when Joseph arose and came to Shechem was the beginning of the Egyptian exile”.
At the end of the exile, shortly after entering the Land of Israel, the Children of Israel came to Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim, the mountains which flank Shechem, the place to where Jacob had sent Joseph to enquire after his brothers’ welfare, there to hear the Levites declaim the blessings for keeping the Torah and the curses for disobeying it (Deuteronomy 11:29-31, 27:11-26, Joshua 8:30-35).
The Talmud (Sotah 36b) records that on that day, 272 years after Joseph had had his dreams, the six Tribes who were gathered on Mount Gerizim were far more numerous than the six who were gathered on Mount Ebal, because Joseph’s offspring (the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh) were there, and they had grown far larger than the other Tribes. Joshua realised that Joseph’s numerical superiority could well drive the other Tribes to envy – an echo of what had happened when Joseph himself was yet a young lad and his brothers were envious of him – and that envy could cast the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh under the influence of the ayin ha-ra, the evil eye, the consequence of other people’s envy which brings harm to those who would otherwise be favoured with good fortune.
So that the Tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh would not move the other Tribes to envy and not bring the ayin ha-ra on themselves, Joshua advised them to conceal themselves in the forests, out of sight of their brethren. Joseph’s offspring, however, responded: “The seed of Joseph never comes under the control of the ayin ha-ra, as it is written: ‘Joseph is a fruitful bough, a fruitful bough by a fountain’ (Genesis 49:22)… Do not read this ‘allei ayin’ (by a fountain), but ‘ollei ayin’ (overpowering the eye)”.
The Talmud continues by quoting Rabbi Yossi ben Hanina: that the ayin ha-ra has no control over Joseph’s offspring is derived from Jacob’s blessing to Joseph, “‘May they grow [ve-yid’gu] into a multitude in the midst of the earth’ (Genesis 48:16). Just as the fishes [dagim] in the sea are covered by water so that the ayin ha-ra has no control over them, so too the ayin ha-ra has no control over Joseph’s offspring”.
And throughout the exile, Israel has, like Joseph, times without number resisted the great temptation of disloyalty to the G-d of his fathers. In Joseph’s dream, the sun, moon, and eleven stars bowed down to him. It is the stars that bow to him, and not he to the stars. This is characteristic of both Joseph and Israel: “There is no luck for Israel”, says Rabbi Yohanan (Nedarim 52a, Shabbat 156a); the word mazal, meaning “luck”, also connotes “star, constellation of the zodiac”.
This famous aphorism does not suggest that Israel will always have misfortune, but rather that we are not controlled by the zodiac or by the bludgeoning of chance or the fell clutch of circumstance. An Israelite should be ashamed to blame his star, his environment, or any outward circumstance for his moral downfall or his religious apostasy.
Man is captain of his own soul; and wherever there is a will to Judaism, there is a way to lead the Jewish life. Joseph was viceroy of Egypt, yet he remained a loyal son of Israel.
When his aged father followed him to Egypt, his grandchildren, Ephraim and Manasseh, were adopted by Jacob as the co-equals of the other ten sons. Consider the significance of this action: it meant that Joseph would not suffer his children to barter away their “Jewishness” for the most exalted position, or the most enviable political career in the Egyptian State.
It meant, Ephraim and Manasseh voluntarily gave up their place in the higher Egyptian aristocracy; that they openly identified themselves with their “alien” kinsmen, the despised shepherd-immigrants.
It also suggests that Joseph had imbued his sons with the values he had learnt from his father and grandfather and great-grandfather: in spite of all temptations, they remained more loyal to their fellow-Hebrews than to the Egyptian society which had offered them wealth, power, stability, and prestige.
This is the paradigm for Israel. To be sure, abandoning and betraying fellow-Jews, and bowing to the stars, is almost guaranteed to bring temporal rewards: wealth, fame, even a Nobel Peace Prize. The adulation of the Guardian newspaper in Britain, the New York Times in America, and Haaretz in Israel is reserved exclusively for Jews who hand over Jewish land and Jewish heritage to the enemy.
But such is not the Jewish way. The true Jewish leader is the one who can spurn the temptations which our enemies have to offer, for whom leadership is not a job but a calling, and who has the necessary self-sacrifice to do everything and to risk everything – the wrath of the nations, the hatred of the enemies, even international legal threats – to embrace his Jewish brethren.
In Echad mi yodea, Joseph’s Eleven Stars are preceded by the Ten Commandments, and followed by the Twelve Tribes of Israel. In other words, if you desire to reproduce the moral miracle of Joseph’s Eleven Stars in any Jewish leader, there are two indispensable prerequisites: the Ten Commandments – the Law of G-d as the basis of your life and the life of your nation; and the Twelve Tribes of Israel – the realization of the Brotherhood of Israel.