Parshas Vayigash - A Father's Love

3:05 And if there's two cities, we measure in between the cities to see which city the murder happened closest to. And they come and they shecht an egel And the leaders of the city have to come out and declare. That we were not responsible for his murder. There's an obvious question. Of course, the leaders of the city, the elders of the city, did not murder this person. So what does it mean that they come out and they declare that? It's a good question. As Hashem will answer it. But what was the significance of the fact that this was the last sugya that Yaakov Avinu taught to Yosef HaTzaddik? Why dafk of this sugya? And if Yosef HaTzaddik isn't going to send the remez, a hint to his father, to say to his father After all these years, I'm still holding on to that last sugya you taught us.

4:06 Why does he send back agalot? Why does he send back wagons? He should have sent back an egg. After all, the sugya of Egla Arufa is that they shecht an egel. So why? Doesn't he send back an eagle? Why does he send back a galoot? What's that got to do with anything? One final question. Also, just a Pasha question. When Yehuda is speaking to Yosef HaTzaddik And he's explaining why it's so important for Binyamin to be released. So he says "If you don't release him, If you don't release my brother. Zach Lush on a pasuk here. He's going to die. It's important. He's going to die. Why? Why would Binyamin die? Why would Binyamin die just because he's not with his father? I want to share with you. Today, I went to a levaya. It was a terrible levaya. A real mensh. A man in his 80s Survived exceptional hardships in his life.

5:37 Three weeks ago, kumat He was hit by a car. He went into a coma. Just passed away. It's a very close friend of my wife. It's her father. It's one of the rebbeim in Mevaseret. It's his father-in-law. So I went I went to the levaya today. Sometimes by a levaya. You don't know why you're going to the levaya. You think you're going as a friend. But the emesis that sometimes you go and you hear something, you say, "Now I know why I came." There were two lines that were said today by the levaya that shattered everybody in the room. The first line was from the oldest daughter. Spoke so beautifully. She said Abba, you were the ground that we walked on. Sometimes there's an audible gasp in the room. It was one of those moments. It's like everybody just.

7:13 And his father had a name that he called his children. He called all of his children Shepsey. Shepzilla, like a little lamb. And his son-in-law Reading from a speech that his wife had written He said that her father used to say to her Shepsey, you are not alone. I remember this man. I didn't know him well, but he used to come daven in my shul. I was thinking about that. Sheps, you are not alone. We go through life And we have these voices that live inside of us. You don't even realize half the time that these voices are there. But they're the voices of the people that told us in life that we're okay and that we're not alone. These are the people that paved the way. They are the ground upon which we walk. And I think that very often in life We don't pay attention; we don't have enough gratitude to be able to conjure up in our minds all the loving things that were said to us.

8:47 Over the course of our lives, by these people—friends Family Parents, grandparents—I've shared this many times But I'll share it again here. My grandmother, alayshallah, my grandmother who passed away during COVID. She was the sweetest woman in the entire world. I'm sure everybody thinks that about their grandmother. I had two grandmothers. One was very not sweet. And one was sweet. I loved both of them in very different ways. My grandmother was Kaninahara, 90 years old. And I can't ever remember in my life. I can't ever remember her raising her voice. The nastiest thing that she ever said to us if we were going crazy and tearing her place apart. She would say, "Kids, now simmer down." That was as angry as she got. Whenever I would come to her apartment Even when I made Aliyah, I would try. When I was back in New Jersey, I would try to surprise her. I remember at some point my mother said, "You have to stop surprising her. It's dangerous." But I would try to surprise her anyway, to show up.

10:11 And she didn't have very much, my grandmother. She didn't own very many things. But every time I came, she tried to give me everything that she owned. You know the grandmother? You show up and she's like "I have donuts. Will you take all my donuts?" I'm like, "Grandma, I'm trying not to eat donuts." She's like, "Will you take an apple?" I'm like, "I don't like apples."] All the jewelry that she had. She said, "Take this. Your daughters will wear it." I said, "Grandma, my daughters are not going to. They're not going to wear this jewelry." She said, "It'll be costume jewelry for them." If she had it, she wanted to give it away. In the January before COVID hit For talmidim For a very, very special talmidim I asked them a favor. They were from Queens. And I was speaking in NCSY Yarchi Kallah, all the way out in Deal, New Jersey.

11:10 Some of you have been to Yarchi Kallah, maybe? Very, very far from where my grandmother lived. I didn't have a car. Four times we them traveled. At four o'clock in the morning, they came out to Deal, New Jersey, with Navin Vasikin. And then we went out to visit my grandmother. I didn't know that I was saying goodbye. Didn't know it was going to be my last time. That's the way life works, right? And we went and we sat with my grandmother. I remember so much of those conversations that day. And at the end, I asked the boys if they would take a picture of me and my grandmother. My grandmother was an elderly woman. I don't know why, but she had a hard time keeping her eyes open for pictures. Do you know this about the elderly? Like every time you take a picture, their eyes are closed. Maybe they blink slower.

12:04 I don't know. They took a picture, and my grandmother's eyes were wide open, and she looked beautiful. Really beautiful. I sent it to my mother, and my mother's first comment was, "Wow, her eyes are open." My grandmother passed away. So on my birthday, my wife gave me a present. And the present was that she had blown up that picture, and she gave it to me in a frame because she knew how close I was with my grandmother. And that picture sits on my desk. In my home office, not in yeshiva. And when I'm talking to people on Zoom, WhatsApp video, or whatever it is I have a picture that sits right here of my grandmother. And she's looking at me And I can hear her voice And I know it's not her voice It's not nevuah. I know she's not talking to me, but she's talking to me, if you know what I mean. She's inside.

13:19 And she always says the sweetest things. Sometimes people ask me questions and I say to myself I have no idea how to answer this question. What am I supposed to say to this? Now, sometimes people come, and the chaos of life is enormous. And my grandmother whispers in my ear, and she says to me It's okay. You don't need to know what to say. They just need someone to listen to them. And sometimes my grandmother will whisper to me and she'll say to me Say a nice thing to them. Remind them that they're great. And sometimes her voice will whisper to me Tell them that they're resilient. Don't allow them to just go through life thinking that they're not enough and that they're not okay. Tell them that they're capable. Tell them to stop behaving in that way Because it betrays who they really are.

14:12 It's an amazing thing. The people that journey with us in our lives are the voices in our head, they're the voices in our heart, they're the voices that let us know that we are okay in life. And I imagine that was the voice that Yaakov Avinu wanted to give to Yosef Hatzadik—that Yosef is about to leave the confines of his home to go to his brothers who hate him. To go to his brothers who want to kill him, to go to his brothers who throw him in a pit. To go to his brothers who sold him to a band of Yisroelim. I imagine that the voice that Yaakov Avinu wanted to give Yosef was something along the lines of You're okay. It's going to be hard, but you're okay. And you can stay loyal to who you are, and you can stay loyal to your values even when it's exceptionally dark outside.

15:08 And you're not defined by the people that you're with or the places that you're with. You're you no matter where you go. And so if we look at the sugya of Eglah Arufa, we hear that message. As we mentioned, if a person is murdered outside of a city So all the leaders of the city come out and say We didn't kill him. Why do they have to say that? Because this person left the city. And somebody attacked them And we don't know why they were murdered. But maybe they were murdered because their life didn't matter. Maybe they were murdered not because they weren't strong enough, but because they had nothing to fight for. Because there was nobody in the world who told them that they matter. There's a thing that people say today that's wrong. It's really wrong. They say Before you get married, you have to learn to love yourself so that you can learn to love another.

16:17 We don't learn how to love ourselves outside of relationships. We learn to love ourselves within the confines of relationships. We learn to love ourselves because people tell us that we are beloved and that we are worthy of love. You don't learn to love yourself in seminary on your own. You learn to love yourself when you have friends that you could belong to. When you have friends that are willing to listen to you and tell you that you matter. You learn to love yourself when your mother calls just to check in to see how you're doing. When you know that no matter what time it is, when you call them, there's someone who will pick up the phone. That's the love that you bring inside of yourself, and that's the love that you share with somebody else. But you can't meditate yourself into love. You can't therapize yourself into love.

17:07 Nobody can do that for you, in the sense of like I'm telling you, you're good enough. It has to be something that's part of a relationship. You can't go over to somebody and say you should know that you're loved. Nobody's going to buy that. It's the loyalty. It's the acts of service. It's the knowledge that no matter where you go in the world, this person is with you. That guy who left the city Did we give him provisions for the road? Did we tell him, "You're okay." You've got this. No matter what life throws at you, we'll be behind you. Did he know that his life was worth fighting for? There's a notion in the world today that's wrong and uninspiring. And Baruch Hashem, the youth of today are rebelling very strongly against this idea. Kids come to Eretz Yisrael and they say Teach me why I should do a mitzvah.

18:05 People should come in. I think there's a blockage here. Standing room only. Sorry to interrupt you. No. People come to Eretz Yisrael. They want to know why we should do mitzvot.

19:38 And for so many years, people gave such bad answers to that question. And they said you should do a mitzvah because this is the reason, this is the rationale behind the mitzvah. It didn't work. People weren't inspired, and rightfully so. And then The deeper teachings of Torah came out The inner wisdom of Torah came out And they gave an answer that inspired a generation, and it's inspiring our generation today. Sometimes, when you're trying to find the rationale behind the mitzvah You're limiting the mitzvah to that particular idea. It's like the mitzvah is only as big as you. It's only as big as your idea. Then Baruch Hashem, today we started telling people It's not about what you understand. It's about the fact that you are needed. That there's a mission in this world for which you were created. And only you can do this mitzvah, because it's not a question of how important it is to you, it's a question of how important it is to Him.

20:53 And people said, We can explain all the rationale for all the mitzvahs. You could go through sefer of mitzvahs. You could find the different reasons that are given by all the different mafarshim. What's the reason for this and what's the reason for that? But at the end of the day, that's not what inspired people. What inspired people is because this is what Hakadosh Baruch Hu wants. You're needed for something. People said, if I'm needed for something, then I'm inspired. It's like imagining if you asked your husband to do something. And his first response is why? It's not a very good husband. If you ask your husband to do something He's excited by the idea. Hopefully Hopefully, it's not always so obvious. He's excited by the idea that he has the opportunity to do something for the person he loves. That's a much more inspiring. That's a much deeper relationship.

21:52 Person fights for their life because they say my life is worth something larger than myself. And to the degree that we believe that we're not just limited to the confines of our own existence But there's something larger, something infinite that we're a part of. Then it's worth fighting for. It's what Viktor Frankl discovered in the Holocaust. I apologize. I'm just getting over something. Victor Frankel saw in the Holocaust that those people who were living for something larger than themselves were the ones that were able to survive. Yosef HaTzaddik is leaving his father. He's about to go on a journey. And his father says to him No matter what you confront You matter to me. You matter to me. You matter infinitely. And so, when Yosef HaTzaddik is in that pit It's his father's love that he feels as he's surrounded by those snakes and scorpions.

23:05 And when he's traveling down in that caravan of Yisraelim and Yadinim down to Mitsrayim, it's his father's love that he feels. And in the house of Ayesha Potifar, when he looks in the window And he's about to be disloyal to the values of his home, to the values of his family. To Hashem It's his father's face that he sees in the window. Because it was a father's love that said to him, "You got this. You're okay. You could do this." And when Yosef Hatzadik was in that jail It was his father's love that he felt. It was his father's love that said to him, "Just remember, hold on to Hashem." Hold on to Hashem. And when Paro calls him out of jail, he says, "It's not me. I don't interpret dreams." It's Hakadosh Baruch Hu. And when all the women are throwing themselves at this beautiful new viceroy It's his father's love that says, "Stay loyal to our values." And he marries Osnas.

24:10 And now he sees his brothers. And they keep talking about his father. And there's a question that Yosef HaTzaddik has But I want to share with you where I heard this answer. It's not my answer. It's the answer of a third grade boy. Rabbi Krohn, Rabbi Pesach Krohn, tells the story of a third grade rabbi. What a boy in his class whose parents were divorced And his father had abandoned the family. And the boy had nothing to do with his father. And the boy was very shy and very meek. Nobody was talking to him. He wasn't a talkative boy. He sat in the corner. And one day in Sheer, the Rebbe asked this question: "Yosef HaTzaddik knew." He knew. They were talking that Yaakov Avinu was alive the entire time. What's he asking? Ani Yosef Aodavichai. And the Rebbe saw from the corner that the boy kind of raised his hand. You know that move? When you have a little kid in class and they go like.

25:24 So a rebbe has to know. Sometimes you do call, sometimes you don't call. But this boy never spoke. So when you have the boy who never speaks, who kind of tentatively raises their hand, you jump on it. And so the rebbe jumped on it, and he said, "Yeah." And the boy said Maybe he's asking Does my father still think about me? All these years that my father hasn't been around, that we haven't spoken Do I still matter to my father? Am I still important to him? And the Rebbe told Rabbi Krohn that it was all he could do to stop crying. He was just holding himself because he knew that the boy was speaking from his own pain. He knew what the boy was saying. He was saying, "Does my father still think about me? My father that divorced my mother and abandoned the family. Am I still important to him?"

26:12 Yosef HaTzaddik was probably saying the entire time that he was down in Eretz Yisrael. He probably kept recalling his father's voice every day. He heard Yaakov Avinu's voice telling him about the Eglah Arufa. I love you. I care about you. No matter where you go, we're with you. But there was a question that Yosef HaTzaddik had. I know that I keep thinking about my father. But does my father keep thinking about me? Is my father still alive? Not as my father still living. Is he still alive? Do I consume his consciousness? Does he miss me? And of course, we know that the answer is yes. That Yaakov Avinu refused to be consoled. All of those years that Yosef HaTzaddik was in Mitzrayim, Yaakov Avinu refused to be consoled. He never got over him. And it was the father's love that he couldn't let go of his child that kept Yosef HaTzaddik alive.

27:10 And so perhaps we could say that that's what Rashi means. Rashi says. That you have to send Binyamin back. He has to be with his father. Because if he's not with his father, he'll die. A child can't live without a parent. We just can't. We're not designed like that. Not that we can't be alive, not that we can't fend for ourselves. But knowing that there's a person in the world that loves us more than anything, if we're separated from that, not just in distance If we're separated from that in our essence, then how are we supposed to make it in this world? One of my closest friends in the world lost at a very young age. First, he lost one parent. And then a couple years later, he lost the second parent. And he's a very, very, very funny person. One of the funniest people I've ever met in my entire life.

28:09 I walked into the shiva. I flew into America. I walked into the shiva. And when we were alone, privately He smiled at me and he goes, And this is so inappropriate, but you have to know it's him. Now I'm part of the two dead parents club. I was like, "Come on, man! Don't, don't! What am I supposed to say to that? Don't say that." But we were talking, and it got serious at some point. He said, "You know what's crazy?" After my mom passed I still had my dad. You still have somebody who's 'Don't wait for you.' Even though I'm an adult, married with my own children, there's still somebody in the world that nothing in the world matters to them more than me. And now that I lost my father. There's nobody in the world that will ever love me like that again. That's the pain of losing a parent.

29:02 That's what these children were saying today. Their father was the ground that they walked on. Shapsula, you are not alone. You're not alone. As long as I'm around, you're not alone. It's a message that children must take with them. Like Racheli Menu, who died on the way She was on a journey and she died. The loneliness of Racheli Menu. It becomes a salvation for Klal Yisrael because we passed by the kever of Racheli on our way out to exile, on our way to galus. And it's the love of a mother that reminds us that we're going to be okay in exile. And just like Rachel died on the way, Benjamin was in danger of dying along the way also. Because without a parent to love us into being, who could possibly live that way? And perhaps we can suggest that's why Yosef Hazadik sent agalot. He sent wagons.

30:08 It was a very beautiful message that Yosef Hazadik was sending to Yaakov Avinu and to every one of us. He was saying to his father many years ago, "You gave me a gift." The gift was that no matter what journey I take, no matter where I go, I'm important to you. And Abba, you too are about to go on a journey. You two are about to leave Eretz Yisrael. You're about to leave the land of your fathers. The land of Yitzchak, the land of Avram The land where Jews feel organic. When we come to this land, it is not a tourist attraction. Sadly, it's become a tourist attraction. I don't know exactly how that happened, but when a Jew returns home It's not a tourist attraction. It's an organic thing. It's like this is where we're meant to be. You can imagine that for Yaakov Avinu, it was quite scary to leave that behind and to enter into Galus Mitzrayim, which he knew was going to be hundreds of years of slavery.

31:10 Hundreds of years of slavery in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine. When you read the Medrash Echazal, when you read what the Jews went through in Mitzrayim The Holocaust is a blip on the radar screen compared to the atrocities of what the Mitzrayim did to Klal Yisrael. Yaakov Avinu was doing for his children Mankind. What's going to be with them? What's it going to look like? How are we going to survive? And Yaakov Vina wasn't just talking to those kids; he was talking to us. And I believe Bemuna Shleima that he was talking to us today. We have to pay attention. We often wonder what was going on in the 20s and 30s in Germany. Did they not know? Were they not paying attention? When CNN reports a 400% rise in anti-Semitism in a year When people who have no business being in a position of leadership but nevertheless are cultural icons—we don't even need to say their names—they're not worthy of being spoken out loud—when people like that get up and post things on social media and say things on television that are rabidly anti-Semitic And those posts in matters of Minutes get 30,000 retweets and 28,600 likes.

32:47 This gullus that we're in, this exile that we're in Right now, Baruch Hashem It's not such a gullus of Yidden being killed by the tens of thousands, Baruch Hashem, and hopefully it will remain that way. But today it's a very It's a strange gullus where we felt very comfortable, and they've let us know in a very clear way. That we continue to be different. Now more than ever, it's a time for family. Now more than ever, it's a time for us to say to each other, "Ani yotsef ha'oravichai" That there is a father who cares about us That there's a family that cares about us That a Jew, no matter where they go Will have a family to take care of them. There was that story a couple of years ago. It was a beautiful story of that El Al plane that had to make an emergency landing in Greece before Shabbos because they weren't going to be able to make it to Eretz Yisrael.

33:53 And only a couple of hours beforehand, they notified Chabad in Greece that there was going to be a plane of 200 some odd people that was going to land in Greece. And I had a chaver of mine that was on that plane. And he told me that it was the most beautiful Shabbos of his entire life. He said, with only a couple of hours' notice The Chabad rabbi and rabbinson over there in Greece They started cooking. Whatever they had Whatever they had. It was a collection of Jews from all over the place, and they made their way right before Shabbos. They got there. Jews from all over, all different shapes, all different sizes All different beliefs And they came together for a Shabbos of singing. Of davening Of divrei Torah Of sitting next to each other This one with a black hat, this one with a kippas rugad, this one with no yarmulke at all This one who covers her hair, this one who doesn't cover her hair—all Jews just sitting at a table together.

34:56 We hear these stories and they warm our heart. Do you know why they warm our heart? They warm our heart because we know that wherever a Jew goes You have somebody. You're not alone. It's an ani yosef ha'oda vichai moment. Baruch Hashem, I travel a lot. And if you travel, you know this move. You know the move where If you're walking in the airport and you see another Jew, you know the Jew nod. Do you know this move? Should I show it to you? It goes like this. This is what I do. If I see another Jew and it's clear and obvious that they're Jewish, and we walk by each other, we do this. Just a little. Now we don't know each other. And if we were walking in the streets of the five towns, I don't know if we would do the little Jew nod because Baruch Hashem we're surrounded by so many Jews.

35:51 But when you find yourself in an airport in Denver and you're just walking around You're one of the tribe, I'm one of the tribe, we're together. I remember many years ago I heard from Rabbi Mordechai Becher a phrase that became one of my favorite phrases. He said You get bageld. You know what it means to get baggled? When a Jew lets you know that they're Jewish It's like if you're sitting on the plane, and let's say it's not an L. A. Plane. Let's say you're traveling from Texas to Los Angeles, and you're sitting on the plane And somebody walks by and they go Shalom. It's getting baggled. Of course, you have to be careful because it's not always the case that they're members of the tribe. I once had a stewardess. I was traveling, Dafka from Texas. And I came out of the bathroom and I asked for a cup.

36:50 The stewardess gave me a cup and she asked me, "Can I ask you a question? I don't mean this with any disrespect. Can I ask you a question?" I said, "Sure." Why, when some Jews come out of the bathroom, do they ask for a cup and then mumble? So I wasn't exactly going to explain the halachos of Asher Yatsar to this stewardess. And she said sometimes they mumble before they eat bread. So I said, it's a blessing that they're making. And she said, my mother was Jewish. I was getting bagel'd. Why? Why do we do that? Why do we do that? It's because we know that at the end of the day, the only thing that we have is family. It's the only thing that's left. There's a journey that Yaakov Avinu is going to be on. Here are your agalot. Here are your wagons.

37:48 You can do this. That's what the son is telling the father. The same message that you sent to me, I'm sending it back to you. And it's those agalot that Yaakov Avinu took down to Eretz Yisrael that we're still traveling in today. It's the agalot of love, kindness, compassion, generosity and family. It's the agalot that tell us that as we journey through life, we are enough, we are capable. We are resilient, we have grit. It's the agalot that tells us no matter how much persecution we face At least we'll be in it together. And because Hashem If we do that, if we live like a family Because we know You don't know this, but when you get to be a mother. The thing you're going to find is that the thing you want most in the world is for your children to stop fighting. Remember when your parents said that to you?

38:50 Just stop fighting. It doesn't matter who's right and wrong. Your father never wants to hear. You come, you go, but she did this. Your father goes, I don't care. I cannot count the amount of times I've said to my children, I don't care. I just want you to stop fighting. That's what the Rebbeinu Shalom wants from us. He just wants us to stop fighting. Because he knows that we're best when we're together We're capable when we're together. As Hashem As we face the darkness of the winter, which now we're after Hanukkah And we had all those beautiful illuminations As we were sitting in Hanukkah and were sitting with the lights coming out into the streets. There's a certain irith that exists, right? It's if you're here in Yerushalayim. It's running around getting those sufganiyot. You have to go to Uri's Pizza to get the ones that weigh a lot.

39:43 The nougatine ones are a little pathetic. They don't weigh very much. They just fancy on top. But the Uri's Pizza ones, they have girth to them. It's the difference between the twelve shekel sufganiya and the nine shekel sufganiya. You're getting a lot more than three shekels. It's a very beautiful time of Hanukkah. But then, for many of us, this is the most difficult time of year. It's after Chanukah. It's the three months from Chanukah to Purim that defines so many of our years, right? How do we stay alive? How do we stay lit? How do we take the lights of Chanukah with us together? Bez Hashem, we should be zeichet to greet Mashiach together in these mamish final moments. Chazal said they're going to be painful moments, and they are already when we see it. These last eighty, ninety years have been very painful moments for Klal Yisrael. But so far, so good. It's getting better. We're giving Shir in Yerushalayim. We're here in Eretz Yisrael. One step backwards, two steps forwards. Ben Sasham soon.