Finding the Joy · Parashat Vayigash
Come Forward
Come Forward
Yesterday was December 25th. Not my holiday. But it was a workday in Israel, and, for us, we spent it at the Michael Levin Base in Jerusalem cooking a BBQ for lone soldiers.
Lone soldiers — chayyalim bodedim — are IDF service members without immediate family in Israel. Some are volunteers from the Diaspora. Many are immigrants. All of them serve without the support structure most soldiers rely on. They are, in a meaningful sense, people who left everything behind to show up.
We are in Israel this week with the Atlanta Israel Coalition. Our friend Cheryl Dorchinsky, who founded the AIC, has been organizing solidarity missions since the war began. We had been helping her plan this one from Atlanta for months. So we joined them and added our hands to theirs.
Earlier in the week we drove to an industrial area outside Tel Aviv to drop off sweatshirts to be printed with IDF unit insignia for paratroopers serving on the Golan. We visited a PTSD therapy farm in Efrat and planted an olive tree. We toured a children’s home in Kiryat Gat that runs a bakery as part of its educational program.
On Monday we met with a Haredi rabbi who recently enlisted in the IDF himself — a man who described himself as “a healthy Jew” and meant it as a complete sentence.
None of this is dramatic. That is the point.
In Parashat Vayigash, Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. Twenty-two years of separation — and then three words in Hebrew that carry the weight of an entire family’s grief and hope:
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יוֹסֵ֤ף אֶל־אֶחָיו֙ אֲנִ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף הַע֥וֹד אָבִ֖י חָ֑י וְלֹֽא־יָכְל֤וּ אֶחָיו֙ לַעֲנ֣וֹת אֹת֔וֹ כִּ֥י נִבְהֲל֖וּ מִפָּנָֽיו׃ Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumfounded were they on account of him.
Ani Yosef. I am Joseph. Three syllables. And his brothers could not speak. The room went silent. That is what truth does when it finally arrives: it takes your voice away.
Then Joseph sees them frozen and says something the Torah renders with a specific verb:
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יוֹסֵ֧ף אֶל־אֶחָ֛יו גְּשׁוּ־נָ֥א אֵלַ֖י וַיִּגָּ֑שׁוּ וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אֲנִי֙ יוֹסֵ֣ף אֲחִיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־מְכַרְתֶּ֥ם אֹתִ֖י מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃ Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt.
Gshu na elai. Come forward to me. The same root as the parsha’s name — vayigash, “and he approached.”
And then Joseph does something remarkable. He reframes the entire story:
וְעַתָּ֣ה ׀ אַל־תֵּעָ֣צְב֗וּ וְאַל־יִ֙חַר֙ בְּעֵ֣ינֵיכֶ֔ם כִּֽי־מְכַרְתֶּ֥ם אֹתִ֖י הֵ֑נָּה כִּ֣י לְמִֽחְיָ֔ה שְׁלָחַ֥נִי אֱלֹהִ֖ים לִפְנֵיכֶֽם׃ Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you.
L’michyah — to save life. God sent me ahead. That reframing takes an extraordinary kind of generosity. It does not erase what happened. It says: what you meant for harm, God meant for sustenance. And now come closer, because we have work to do.
A few chapters later, Jacob finally arrives in Egypt. Joseph hitches his chariot and rides out to meet him in Goshen:
וַיֶּאְסֹ֤ר יוֹסֵף֙ מֶרְכַּבְתּ֔וֹ וַיַּ֛עַל לִקְרַֽאת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֥ל אָבִ֖יו גֹּ֑שְׁנָה וַיֵּרָ֣א אֵלָ֗יו וַיִּפֹּל֙ עַל־צַוָּארָ֔יו וַיֵּ֥בְךְּ עַל־צַוָּארָ֖יו עֽוֹד׃ Joseph ordered his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel; he presented himself to him and, embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while.
Od. Still. A good while. Twenty-two years of absence collapsed into one embrace. Rashi, following the Midrash, says that while Joseph wept, Jacob was reciting the Shema. The deepest reunion he could imagine became a prayer.
Thursday, in the kitchen at the Michael Levin Base, we made schnitzel, we grilled burgers and hotdogs, and watched teens and twenty-somethings in uniform line up for a hot meal on an afternoon that many in the rest of the world was spending with their families. These are kids whose families are in Los Angeles or Paris or Johannesburg. They chose to be here. They showed up.
Gshu na elai. Come forward to me. The whole parsha runs on that verb. Everyone is crossing distance — physical, emotional, generational — to stand in the same room with someone they love.
This is what a solidarity mission is, stripped of its brochure language. You cross the distance. You show up. You cook the food. All of it says: we are here. Gshu na — come forward. We came. Many times, that is enough.
Shabbat shalom.
— Uriel ben Avraham