If ever there was drama in a Biblical tale, it can be found in the life of Joseph and his brothers; and if one wants to look for the high point, the point of climax and tension and grandeur and the quintessence of the drama of the human situation, in this absorbing story of Joseph and his brothers, it is to be found in this morning’s Scriptural reading. (1) BACKGROUND. Joseph, son of Rachel, Jacob’s favorite wife, dies young. BEN ZEKUNIM. Dreamer, naive, and uninhibited. Jealousy of brothers. Decide to sell into slavery Egypt... coat (Jacob’s gift) in goat blood, tell Father killed by wild beast... Fate: Joseph, after series of adventures, becomes second to Pharaoh alone, given absolute powers over this greatest of ancient Kingdoms... Hunger in Canaan, brothers come to Egypt, do not recognize him; he recognizes them. Taunts them.

At opening this Sidra, terrific tension. Judah addresses Joseph, tells him Father still alive and still grieving for lost son (Jos). One feels Judah’s anger welling up and showing through his words of deference and pleas to Joseph. Feel he will soon attack him. Just then, Joseph reveals self. They can hardly believe him. Soon, he hurries them off to Canaan, and the brothers, humble yet happy, penitent but somewhat frightened, go forth and fetch their father and tell him that Joseph lives and is the second most powerful person in the world. Jacob’s heart skips a beat. Can’t be true. Yet it is. With tears in his eyes he offers sacrifices to G-d, and in complete bewilderment and incredulity asks the Divine guidance. And G-d tells him go down to Egypt, for He will accompany him there, and meet his beloved son, son of his beloved Rachel, and find happiness again ere he dies.

1. THE MEETING. Jacob goes down to Egypt. Joseph comes to see his aged father, whom he had thought he would never see again. They espy each other. Joseph runs towards the aged patriarch, VAYIPOL AL TZAVARAV, VAYEVK AL TZAVARAV OD. Joseph embraces his father, kisses him, and cries and sobs uncontrollably.

A scene packed full of drama, most certainly. But, our Rabbis noticed something was missing in this scene. Joseph embraced, kissed his father, and shed tears of joy. Well, what about Jacob? Wasn’t he glad to see his son? No kissing Joseph? No embracing? Not even a tear? No, our Rabbis say, not even that. What then? Listen closely: YAAKOV LO NAFAL AL TZAVAREI YOSEF VE’LO NESHKO, VE’AMRU RABOTEINU SHE’HAYAH KORE ET HA’SHEMA. Jacob neither embraced nor kissed Joseph, for he was preoccupied with the reciting of the Shema Yisroel.

What an eerie thing! How terribly strange! Here is Jacob who had so adored and fondled and loved Joseph from the moment he was born to his beautiful and tender mother... this Joseph whom he so loved that he committed his every word to memory, he memorized every childish dream the boy had, he personally with his own hands weaved and dyed and sewed a coat for the young child, the delight of his old age. Here is the boy whom he would not allow to wander off watching sheep because he longed for him and wanted his presence in the house, the boy whose very face and voice sang a song of eternal youth and loveliness. Here was the boy who so resembled his mother that every time he saw the boy he thought he saw Rachel again, the Rachel who had died a young woman. Here is the child, the favorite child of Jacob, who disappeared suddenly and whose coat of many colors that Jacob made for him with his own hands was brought back torn to shreds and soaked in blood.

Joseph, he was told, was devoured and torn to pieces by a wild beast. And here he was in front of him! Here was this Joseph for whom he had torn KRIAH and sat SHIVAH, the son for whom he had fasted and cried, the boy he had never forgotten, whose voice he had heard every night in his troubled sleep, whose face he had seen every night in his tortured dreams. Here was the son he had mourned, had buried in his mind. Gone. Dead. Torn apart. Plucked off in his prime. The image, the aim of youthful innocence about whom he—

STORM OF JOY. And Jacob raises his arms... and begins krias shma. One is almost tempted to say, what a disappointment! A man is not allowed to express joy? Indecorous? But the Rabbis do not mean the opposite. What they want to point out is just a really tenable way not of verbalizing joy, but expressing it. There comes a time when just kissing or shouting or singing is futile. If it's a breathless thrill, how do you articulate this inexpressible happiness?

Some faint. If your conscience cannot contain your happiness it passes out. Others take drinks, others to more unspeakable kinds of revelry and orgy. But that is not the way a Jew expresses his simcha. The Jew does not express this inexpressible sensation of joy through Torah study by accident. It is precisely because Jacob is so overcome with emotion, because he reaches such untold heights of ecstasy, because he is even more charged with this limitless joy than is Joseph, that he cannot express himself in the usual way. The embrace and kiss, the tears and sobs are certainly acceptable. But a Jacob is deeper. His soul is a deeper mine, and he must seek a more enduring expression. Joseph "resurrected," before him. The face, the voice, the mannerisms, the love, the joy. When great love threatens to burst the heart that holds it, it can be expressed only in silence—or in the love of G-d, the most enduring love known to man: the love of G-d, VE’AHAVTA ES HASHEM ELOKECHA.

Jacob returned that love to Him by beginning krias shma, a responsive chord which would vibrate in harmony with his own experience. True, the greatest, most expressive, and most Jewish way of expressing simcha is through Torah.

Vayigash

I remember what happened once in my last years in high school in the Mesifta in Brooklyn. A great and beloved teacher was critically ill. All students in the school, even those not in his class, kept the vigil. We all said Tehillim. We all wept. But we gave up. We knew all was gone. And then the impossible happened. He recovered. He was going to be well again. The news travelled like electricity through the Beis Hamidrash. We were excited and elated. And then it started. One voice rang out: LE’KAVOD, in honor of his recovery, I promise to stay up two nights this week in study of Torah. Another gave one night; the highest was four nights that week and four the next. Here were Jews expressing simcha through Torah. And it is a worthwhile way. I remember deriving as much simcha from the Torah as from the news.

I wonder if those Jews who last night frequented various kinds of clubs, and there were not many such, I believe no more than one. I wonder if they really experienced and expressed true simcha. Humans are humans, and there are times when, for no special reason, you just feel like being happy and expressing it fully. But I wonder this morning if those who celebrated last night really derived satisfaction from their mode of expression. I refer to the alcohol and the trumpeting and the nonsense and the aspects which one cannot discuss from the pulpit. They never give themselves the opportunity to express simcha through Torah. They don’t know what a genuinely good time they’re missing.

The Rebbe of Kotzk once said that he didn’t understand Simchas Torah. The Bible mentions nothing about a Torah celebration at that time. And he answered, it just seems that at that time, after heavy and solemn holidays, people just want to be happy. And when a Jew wants to be happy he opens a Gemarrah or dances with the Torah.

Let us take that to heart. When we have great simchos, let us express them, as Jacob did, through limud misroel. Let us not turn to the goyishe ways and biddur only to express grief and mourning. Let us use it for happiness and joy and thrills of all kinds. Let us sublimate our happiness in and through Torah.

May G-d Almighty give each and every one of us many causes for great simcha. May He give us the wisdom to celebrate and express them in Jewish, not un-Jewish, ways: by the study of the Torah. And may the study of the Torah in which we indulge as a result give us the uncounted blessings that all generations of our people have found.