Parshat Vayigash-The Significance of the Wagons-Dvar Torah at Seudah Shlisheet@Cong.Darchei Noam , Fair Lawn NJ- Nov 2011

There seems to be a slight ambiguity regarding the sending of wagons by Yosef to collect his father and siblings from Eretz Canaan. The most well known reference is found in Bereshit: ch.45. V.27.

בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז

וידברו אליו את כל דברי יוסף אשר דבר אלהם וירא את העגלות אשר שלח יוסף לשאת אתו ותחי רוח יעקב אביהם:

‘……..and he saw the wagons that Yosef had sent to carry him, and his spirit was uplifted.’

Rashi comments as follows:

רש"י בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז

כז) את כל דברי יוסף - סימן מסר להם במה היה עוסק כשפירש ממנו, בפרשת עגלה ערופה

‘He made a sign for his father to refer to the last subject that they had studied together, the law of ‘eglah arufah’ (the play on the word’agalah’ and ‘eglah’ which are spelt the same in Hebrew.)The details of this law are explained later in this essay.

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There are two issues to deal with here.

a)      Who actually sent the wagons?

b)      Why was this Mitzvah chosen as the one for conveying the message from Yosef to his father? What is special about ‘eglah arufah’?

a)      The problem of who sent the wagons is highlighted by looking at the other 3 references to the ‘agalot’ that we find in this perek and in the next chapter.

בראשית פרק מה

ויאמר פרעה אל יוסף אמר אל אחיך זאת עשו טענו את בעירכם ולכו באו ארצה כנען:(1

יח) וקחו את אביכם ואת בתיכם ובאו אלי ואתנה לכם את טוב ארץ מצרים ואכלו את חלב הארץ:

יט) ואתה צויתה זאת עשו קחו לכם מארץ מצרים עגלות לטפכם ולנשיכם ונשאתם את אביכם ובאתם

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בראשית פרק מה

(כא) ויעשו כן בני ישראל ויתן להם יוסף עגלות על פי פרעה ויתן להם צדה לדרך:(2

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בראשית פרק מו

(3

ויקם יעקב מבאר שבע וישאו בני ישראל את יעקב אביהם ואת טפם ואת נשיהם בעגלות אשר שלח פרעה לשאת אתו

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From these other references it is clear that Pharo sent the wagons to bring Yaakov to Egypt, so how does this whole action of Yosef make sense, when it was not his initiative in the first place.

My suggestion here is to say that Yosef  ‘jumped on the bandwagon’ so to speak. He saw that Pharo wanted to bring the family of the Viceroy to Egypt and I would suggest that he sent the royal coaches/wagons to bring them. These wagons would be drawn by horses and would be sent on the orders of Pharo as the monarch. Yosef saw however an opportunity to send a special message to his father, so he sent his own wagons to carry the luggage etc, and these may have very well been drawn by oxen, so that the message of the law of the ‘eglah (young ox) would be clearly understood by his father. This is what Rashi says in continuation of the comment above:

רש"י בראשית פרק מה פסוק כז

זהו שאמר וירא את העגלות אשר שלח יוסף ולא אמר אשר שלח פרעה

….’and this is what the verse means by saying that he saw the wagons that Yosef sent, and it does not say ‘that Pharo sent’…….

These wagons were sent specifically by Yosef to convey a special message, even though the general sending of wagons was commissioned by Pharo himself.

The second question, of why was this particular Mitzvah singled out here, is very challenging. Rav Meir Shapiro, the Lubliner Rav zal, in his commentary on Torah , suggests that this was a sign of the unity of the brothers after all the years of strife, which the father was aware of. The ‘remez’(hint) is in the law that an ‘eglah arufah’ was never brought from Yerushalayim as this was a place in which all the tribes had a share and no evil , such as reflected by the law of the eglah,  would ever come from Yerushalayim. So too Yosef is telling his father that the brothers are all together again, to allay any fears he may have to the contrary.

I would like to suggest a different message from Yosef to his father. When we examine the law of the eglah arufah in sefer Devarim, we see the following:

דברים פרק כ

Verse 10

(י) כי תקרב אל עיר להלחם עליה וקראת אליה לשלום

דברים פרק כ

Verse 19

 כי תצור אל עיר ימים רבים להלחם עליה לתפשה

דברים פרק כא

Verse 1

(א) כי ימצא חלל באדמה אשר יקוק אלהיך נתן לך לרשתה נפל בשדה לא נודע מי הכהו

דברים פרק כא

Verse 10

(י) כי תצא למלחמה על איביך ונתנו יקוק אלהיך בידך ושבית שביו

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The law of the ‘eglah arufah’ (ch.21 v. 1) is sandwiched between two sections of laws(Ch.20 v.10,v.19.ch.21. v. 10) about warfare. The eglah arufah ceremony was carried by the Sanhedrin of the nearest town to a corpse which was found in between two cities. The Sanhedrin have to declare their responsibility for this persons demise, which may have been due to their town’s negligence when he was passing through. This law is especially placed in the section of laws about war to establish a major principle in Jewish life, the importance of the individual in the world. At war time the army can become a mass and the individual is forgotten and this is not acceptable in our view of the world, as we saw recently in the exchange of Gilad Shalit for the Palestinian prisoners. We cherish every single life.

I believe that this is the message from Yosef to his father. “Abba, I am the Viceroy of a country with millions of people, but I want to tell you that I still remember this lesson we learned together, that the individual counts, and I am putting this into action by dealing directly with the populace to supply them with their needs and also caring for all of you to come and be with me in

Egypt. "

This is a lesson from the Avot and it carries through to us today and Yosef Hatzadik became another link in this important message, both to his father and to us.

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A final homiletic thought (in the name of Rabbi Isaac Bernstein zal who died in 1994 in London) on the sending of wagons.

Dayan  Golditch zal (of Manchester UK) told a story of a couple who were Holocaust survivors coming to Manchester after the war and having one son. He went to the local school and Talmud Torah and eventually went to college and became a doctor. He moved ‘down South’ to an area which had no Jewish community. Every Friday he called his parents to wish them’ Good Shabbos’ but never came to visit. At a later date, when the parents were beginning to age, the father decided that he wanted to see his son again and called him and offered to rent a driver to bring them to the son’s house.”No Dad. I have a better idea. Why don’t I come to visit you”. And so it was, leaving the parents  wondering if he had anything  to hide from them by not allowing them to visit him.

Here with Yosef, who was living in such an immoral and corrupt environment, it could very well have been that he also would not want his father to see his ‘Egyptian’ lifestyle. But the reverse took place and by sending wagons for his father, Yosef was saying that he has nothing to hide, but on the contrary, he is proud that he has maintained his connection to the traditions of his famous family, even in the galut of Egypt. This news animated his father and he did not delay in seeing his son as soon as possible.

So too may we be blessed with children who will always want to invite us into their lives because of their pride in showing their parents how they have maintained their Jewish way of life, in whatever circumstance they find themselves.

Rabbi Ian Shaffer        Jan 2012/Tevet 5772