Rabbi's weekly Blog

Dear Friends,

In the Torah reading this Shabbat we will read about the most moving event in the entire Torah – Yosef’s revealing himself to his brothers, and, above all, the meeting, embracing and weeping of Yosef and Binyamin. “He (Yosef) fell upon his brother Binyamin’s neck and wept; and Binyamin wept upon his neck.” The orphaned brothers, who had been separated for no fault of their own, meet again after more than twenty years and they embrace each other and cry.

Rashi explains, based on the Gemara, that Yosef cried about the Temples that would be in Jerusalem, in Binyamin’s Nachalah (designated estate in the land), and would be destroyed; and Binyamin wept for the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in Shiloh that would be in the Yosef’s Nachalah and would, also, be destroyed.

But why – why did they each cry about the other’s misfortune? It would have been much more logical for Yosef to cry about Mishkan Shiloh, which was in his Nachalah, and for Binyamin to cry for the Temples, which were in his Nachalah. Why did they each cry for the other, and not for themselves?

The Rebbe brings a wonderful explanation, which carries with it a lesson for life as well:

It’s o.k. to cry, and it’s permissible to cry, but only for something that has already been lost to you. If there is something that is no longer in your control, and you are in pain, you cry. But something that you can still fix, you don’t cry about; rather, you try to fix and alter the situation for the better until the last minute. There’s simply no time to cry, since there is much to do.

Yosef wept for the Temples that were in Binyamin’s intended Nachalah, because that was for Binyamin to work on. Yosef couldn’t do much for Binyamin. He could help, advise, encourage and maybe even bless, but the work itself, the Tikkun, had to be done by Binyamin. So Yosef cried, because he could no longer do anything about what was going to happen. Mishkan Shiloh, on the other hand, was in Yosef’s Nachalah, and that Tikkun was in Yosef’s hands, and therefore he didn’t cry, for he would be fighting to the end to try and save it.

The same thing is true for Binyamin. He didn’t cry for the Temples that would be in his own Nachalah, because as long as they had not yet been destroyed, he would try to correct the situation and pray that the destruction wouldn’t happen. But as regards to Mishkan Shiloh, which was Yosef’s Tikkun, he did cry, because it pained him, and the Tikkun was in his brother’s hands, not his.

Dear friends, often we encounter difficult and painful experiences. The tears are already choking us, and despair is not far behind. But here we should stop for a moment and look at the situation truthfully. If there is still a chance to correct the problem, to change something, we won’t allow ourselves to cry; we will simply do whatever we can, until the end. If there is no longer anything to do, we will allow ourselves to feel the pain and express it in tears and weeping as well.

May we know only tears of joy and crying that stems from happiness!

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski

Dear Friends,

A bar mitzvah boy came to the Rebbe for a “Yechidut” – a personal meeting with the Rebbe – in order to receive a blessing in honor of his bar mitzvah. He knew that the Rebbe asks children what they learned in school and he had prepared himself with answers, but, to his surprise, the Rebbe talked to him about sports, which team he favors and such like.

And then the Rebbe said: “You surely know that when there is a game, there are the players themselves – just a handful – and then there are the fans, tens of thousands of them, cheering on ‘their’ team. Sometimes one team loses by such a difference that even during the game it is clear that it has no chance of winning. When that happens, the disappointed fans start to leave the stadium even before the end of the game. It is clear to them that in this instance they have no chance of getting the pleasure of seeing their team win.

“But who doesn’t leave until the last minute? The players themselves. They continue to play, full force, to the last minute. There is no chance of winning; their fans, so important to them, are leaving already, crestfallen, but they remain there, fighting to the end.”

At this point the Rebbe looked straight at the boy and said: “The vast majority of people behave like fans; a small percentage behave like players. In honor of your bar mitzvah, take upon yourself to be a player!”

There are many good people in our world. They do good deeds and mean well. But when things become difficult, if it seems to them that there is no longer any chance, then slowly they start to withdraw from the arena. They are the fans. The players, though, don’t give up even when it seems that there is no chance of succeeding. They fight for their beliefs to the end.

Dear friends, this powerful and impelling idea of the Lubavitcher Rebbe (how characteristic of him!) is exactly what happened on Chanukah. It is also the central message we should take with us from Chanukah into our own lives. Matityahu and his sons had no chance of winning. They were few and weak and they were facing the powerful army of the ruling culture. But Matityahu raised the flag of revolt and called out “Whoever is for Hashem, come to me!”

The Hashmona’im were not fans; they stayed until the very end. They were players, and players do not leave the arena before the game is really over.

Friends, take a minute and ask yourselves: Are you leading your lives as players or as fans?

Shabbat Shalom, Chodesh Tov and a happy and light-filled Chanukah!

Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski