Talking Torah - Parshat Vayigash

God’s love language.

The story of Joseph and his brothers reaches its climax this week in Parshat Vayigash (“and he approached”). The brothers have come down to Egypt to purchase grain in the famine and have to grovel before Joseph, who they do not recognize. After an extended cat and mouse game where Joseph makes his brothers fear for their lives, Judah bravely approaches Joseph (hence the name of the parsha) with a heartfelt plea for compassion. Joseph can no longer hold his secret. He dismisses the courtiers and bursts into tears as he reveals himself to his brothers. He tells them to hurry back and bring his father down to Egypt.

The brothers return to Jacob and give him the shocking news. The Torah says, “his heart failed because he did not believe them.” But he quickly regains his composure, packs up everything and at the age of 130 starts the arduous journey down to Egypt, knowing it will lead to the enslavement that was revealed to Abraham. Before leaving Canaan for good, he stops at a place of great meaning to his father and grandfather:

Yisrael traveled with all that was his and came to Be’er-Sheva,
and he sacrificed sacrifices to the God of his father Yitzhak.

And God said to Yisrael in visions of the night, he said:
Yaakov! Yaakov!
He said: Here I am.

Now he said: I am El/God, the God of your father.
Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt,
for a great nation will I make of you there.

Several things are of note. First, once again Jacob’s divine encounter occurs at night. For him, it’s always this way: his dream of the angels climbing the ladder the night he escaped to Haran after stealing the blessing; his wrestling match with the angel the night before he met Esau and his retinue of 400 men; and this time, where God appears to him directly in a dream. Jacob has known struggle and uncertainty and, like many of us, his fears can loom largest in the wee hours.

Second, the text starts by referring to Jacob as “Yisrael”, the name bestowed upon him by the wrestling angel, honoring his ability to prevail. A name of power. But now he’s descending to Egypt, to slavery. So in the same sentence the call to him turns to his birth name, “Jacob”, his vulnerable name.

Third, God repeats Jacob’s name. And the text has a vertical line in between:

The line is called a p’sik and it signals a pause to the reader. “Jacob….Jacob.”

Why the repetition? Why the pause?

Rashi comments with his usual brevity: “The language of affection.” God is calling to Jacob tenderly, meeting his vulnerability with compassion. Jacob, in turmoil ahead of this journey, did not hear the first call of his name. This is the first time he’s heard from God directly. And it’s been over 30 years since that wrestling match. So, after a pause, God gently calls again.

********************************

This repeated call from the Divine is pretty rare in scripture. It appears three times in the Torah and once in the Prophets. The first time was to Abraham on Mount Moriah, knife in hand, about to slaughter his son (Genesis 22). At that moment an angel of God calls to Abraham:

There is the name repeated, split by the p’sik. Rashi makes the same comment as with Jacob - the language of affection. The p’sik shows Abraham frozen, torn between his love for God and God’s absurd command to kill his son. God, knowing that only Abraham’s faith could have led him to this unthinkable brink, calls with love, “You can stop. The test is over. Look up.” And there is the ram in the thicket.

The repeated call appears a third time at the Burning Bush, in Exodus 3:4. Moses is tending a flock of sheep in the desert. His youth as Prince of Egypt seems a million miles away, his days now spent toiling in the hot sun. Lost in thought, he hears a voice.

He looks around and….he sees this strange flame in a lowly bush from which the voice seems to emanate. Notably, this time there is no p’sik, no pause. The Or Hachaim reads this to mean that Moses knew right away that it was God calling him from that bush. No one knew God more intimately than Moses "(“face to face”, in the famous passage) and this intimacy is present from their first encounter. Again, we imagine a tenderness in this call.

In all three of these instances, the hearer’s response is the same, the single Hebrew word: Hineni, “Here I am.” The righteous come ready to roll.¹

*****************************

There is one other time where God calls, repeating a name, that bears mention. But this time, the name God calls is God’s own name. It occurs in Exodus 34, where Moses comes down from his 40 nights on Mount Sinai. God has dismissed Moses; in his absence the people have faltered and have made a calf of gold to worship. As Moses descends, tablets in hand, the sight of people rejecting the God that had so recently saved them drives him into a rage and he smashes the tablets. But Moses realizes that God is angry too and he quickly pivots to pleading for mercy for the people. God passes before Moses’ face and answers with these words known as “The Thirteen Attributes”, a listing of God’s merciful qualities:

YHWH YHWH 
God compassionate and gracious, 
slow to anger, abounding in kindness and faithfulness, 
extending kindness to the thousandth generation, 
forgiving iniquity, transgression, and sin—
yet not remitting all punishment, 
but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children and children’s children, 
upon the third and fourth generations.

I won’t reproduce holy text but just know that the repeated words “YHWH YHWH” are again separated by a p’sik. As our rabbi at HBT, Rabbi Aliza Schwartz, taught recently, in this language we hear God engaging in self-talk to hold back anger and leave space for mercy and compassion. Moses takes note and later uses these words of love and compassion as a spell to summon God’s mercy to end the plague that broke out after the episode of the scouts. Here is Moses’ prayer, with the language borrowed from the Thirteen Attributes in bold type:

YHWH, 
slow to anger and abounding in kindness; 
forgiving iniquity and transgression; 
yet not remitting all punishment, 
but visiting the iniquity of parents upon children, 
upon the third and fourth generations.

The words have their intended effect:

YHWH said: 
I grant-pardon, according to your words.

The repeated call of the name signals God’s affection and compassion. Sometimes the hearer is lost in the moment and sometimes present with it. We even see God apply it to God’s-self. And then Moses audaciously turns the tables, using God’s own words to summon God’s mercy. Only one with the most intimate relationship with God would dare do so. But as Moses borrowed from God’s playbook, so do we; the Yom Kippur liturgy incorporates the language of affection, and The Thirteen Attributes, to summon God’s mercy as we beg forgiveness, when we are vulnerable.

All’s fair in love and repentance.

Shavuah tov,

Rich

PS All this talk of Moses, and his intimate dance with God, makes me think of this:

1. We’ve focused on the three appearances of the repeated name in the Torah. There is one instance in the Prophets, at I Samuel 3. There, the response is not “Hineni.” The young priest Samuel is too young to know it’s God calling him. It’s a slightly comic episode we’ve omitted here but worth the read for context.