Parashat VaYigash, and Responsibility

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     This week’s Torah portion is  Parashat VaYigash, and Judah finally shows how to  draw near to danger, and take responsibility.  Also known as a bit of repair for what he (almost) did to  Tamar, in the previous week’s parashah, when she had to be daring and resourceful in drawing very near to him, to fight for her rights.   The Rabbis say that all of the Jewish people is responsible, one for the other, and why not all of humanity, one for another?   For, as Rabbi Hillel, in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Ancestors) 1:14 said,

“and if I am only for myself, what am I?”

“וּכְשֶׁאֲנִי לְעַצְמִי, מָה אֲנִי.”

   Last week, Joseph showed us how to solve long-term nation-wide problems while dealing with his own individual issues.  Unfortunately, this week, all of Egypt becomes serfs, or worse, having sold all of their possessions, land, and even themselves, to the government of Egypt under Joseph, the Vizier who thought to store enough food for the famine.  Yet, could any individual, or even city, have stored enough grain on its own to last out the famine?

   What do you think,   Thoughtful Readers?

 

Action Prompts:

1.)  Share your thoughts on how long term how taking of responsibility for one another might help keep all of us safer, please.

2.)  Write a book, story, post or tweet that uses these thoughts.

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l’Shalom, Peace

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

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About ShiraDestProjectDoBetter

D. Antonia ("Nia") Jones is founder of #ProjectDoBetter, a long term plan proposal for community building, and a published poet, academic author, and advocate for improving our #PublicDomainInfrastructure. Her other book, Stayed on Freedom's Call, on Black-Jewish Cooperation in DC, is freely available via the Internet Archive. She has organized community events such as film discussions, multi-ethnic song events, and cooperative presentations, and is a native of Washington, DC. She promotes peaceful planning, NVC and the Holocene Calendar, and is also a writer. More information at https://shiradest.wordpress.com/

26 thoughts on “Parashat VaYigash, and Responsibility”

  1. Mutuality is embedded in the Torah. My Western culture prefers rugged individualism, though. If more of us acted on the basis that we belong to one another and are responsible to and for each other, the world would be a much better place.

    As for Joseph, the composite story in Genesis does not portray him as a consistently heroic figure. Reducing the population of Egypt to serfs was not nice.

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            1. Quite so, and a point that many in the Reform and even the Conservative/Masorti movements (and Reconstructionist) of Judaism like to point out: the Bible does not mince words about the characters in the grand story. It would be too obvious if the redactors had cleaned them up, although some ancient Rabbis often went to great imaginative and creative! lengths to explain certain things away. That honesty is needed to build a society that will have any potential of correcting itself, as the Torah begins to do later, in the Mosaic laws around Jubilee and not returning runaway slaves. That opens the door to further improvements later, as modern Rabbis (some, anyway) work on, and is also an admirable feature of our federal Constitution. It provides a means of self-reflection and an ability to update for changing conditions.

              Proves that we human beings can and should Do Better!

              Shira

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  2. It helps to remember that responsibility is a gift, not a discipline, something that makes us feel that we can all be the best that we can be if that’s what we truly want, both for ourselves and for others in the world.

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      1. How you look at it is certainly important and powerful. Hence the realism that giving something a positive meaning, even if it’s learning from a mistake or a tragedy, can be a step in the right direction.

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          1. It’s not the act itself that I was necessarily referring to. It’s the realism that we are not defined by what happens to us, but by how we respond to it.

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            2. You are technically correct, Mike, as Victor Frankl showed us in his work “Man’s Search for Meaning” on the behavior in the camps, but it still needs remembering that adults are far more empowered to make choices around their responses, and even many adults do not have the training nor the self discipline to focus on using tools to ameliorate evil acts. This is why no person can stand alone. No one can invent writing, books, research, meditation, focus and change of perspective tools all in one lifetime, and thus we all stand upon the shoulders of those who came before us. This gives us the responsibility to keep giving forward on behalf of those who come after us, as we were given tools by those who came before us.

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          3. You are perfectly right: some crimes are inexcusable. However, from the victim’s point of view, there can be a silver lining. Suffering is the spur to growth. I have worked with many survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and they can end up far better people than they would have after an “ordinary” childhood.
            One 13 year old mother comes to mind. After the abusive stepfather was in jail, she and her mother became strong, proud social activists, and surmounted the trauma.

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        2. Kids, and often even adults, frequently lack the tools needed to be able to see an event/occurrence in other way apart from that which is framed for them, most often in unhealthy ways. This is why we need education in emotional self-defense, including re-framing events to create more healthy responses to them.

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