Weekly D'var

PARASHAT VAYIGASH
Sam Millunchick

Making it to 80 is no small feat. The psalmist, in fact, writes that it’s heroic.

That’s an odd choice of words, isn’t it? גבורה, heroism.

Why would it be heroic to reach 80? I would’ve thought that heroism would depend on big, flashy acts of courage or self-sacrifice. Maybe you’d wear a cape or some red underwear? (I’m not sure what colour my dad’s wearing at the moment! Maybe they are red?)

I think the answer is to be found in the actions of Judah in the beginning of this week’s reading.

We’re used to thinking of Judah as a “hero”, but his biblical personality is anything but. He sells his brother into slavery, sleeps with a harlot who later turns out to be his daughter-in-law, and then allows his brother Shimon to rot in jail for years. But despite all of that, Judah is the father of the Davidic line.

The opening episode is harrowing. Benjamin has been taken captive, framed for a crime he didn’t commit. The brothers know that their backs are against a wall, that they simply cannot return to their father without their youngest brother. And so Judah does something that would make any of us quake in our boots.

Remember that at this point, Joseph is not Joseph to the brothers. He’s simply the viceroy of Egypt, the second most powerful man in the world, and one who’s recently been acting erratically at that. What courage must it have taken for Judah to stand there, to approach the throne, and to beg for his brother’s life?

But actually, with Judah, that’s a pattern. When faced with the truth of his situation, he doesn’t shirk from responsibility; he rises to it. When faced with his own mistakes with his daughter-in-law, rather than having her executed and saving face, he admits his crime. “She is more righteous than I,” he proclaims. When the family faces starvation after their first trip to Egypt, it is Judah who steps in and guarantees the safety of Benjamin, a place where his other brothers failed.

And so Judah again shows courage in the face of adversity—ויגש אליו יהודה, and Judah approached him. Three little words for such a mighty action.

This, to me, is the true meaning of heroism. It’s not storming the capital with guns blazing, determined to release Benjamin or die. It’s the quiet acceptance and execution of the next right thing. It’s the courage to not let the weight of past mistakes weigh you down. It’s the choosing the right step NOW, regardless of all the wrong steps that came before it.

This is why it’s heroic to reach 80. Not because it takes a grand act of will, but because any life lived to eighty has necessarily included many, many acts of small, everyday heroism. Raising three children on one’s own. Working 80-90 weeks to support a family as a single parent. Trying again and again to find love, not settling until one has found one’s soulmate. It’s the choosing to live life, every day, anew.

It’s getting off the boat from a German DP camp in 1949, like Sonia [a woman in the synagogue who was commemorating her arrival in the USA that same weekend] did, and starting over, in a new country, with a new language.

A young man once wrote to Rabbi Hutner, the spiritual guidance counselor of a boys’ high school in New York. “Rabbi,” he wrote, “I’m never going to be great. I’m too sinful. I’m not like those great rabbis we learn about”. And Rabbi Hutner responded to him with what is, to my mind, some of the most inspirational words ever written:

Your letter reached my hand, and your words reached my heart. Know, my dear one, that your letter itself contradicts all the descriptions found within it.

There is a sick [misguided] opinion among us: when we deal with the perfection of our ‘Great Ones’ (Gedolim), we focus on the final tally of their greatness. We tell stories about their ways of perfection, while skipping over the inner struggle that raged within their souls. The impression is that they emerged from the hand of the Creator in their full stature and character.

…But who knows of all the wars, the struggles, the falls, and the backward steps that these righteous people found on the path of their battle with the Evil Inclination?

Certainly, you stumble and are going to continue to stumble, and in several campaigns, you will fall defeated. But I promise you that after losing all the campaigns, you will emerge from the war with the laurel of victory on your head, and the prey held between your teeth.

The wisest of all men [King Solomon] said, ‘Seven times a righteous man falls and gets up.’ The fools believe the intent is that despite the fact that he falls seven times, he gets up. But the wise know well that the meaning is that the very essence of the righteous man’s rising is through his ‘seven falls.’

Perhaps this is why the Sages tell us “who is a hero? one who controls his inclinations”. Not the inclination to sin, but the inclination to give up, to let the weight of years press us downward, bend our backs and our spirits. Who is a hero? One who doesn’t let himself break, who continues on, who makes the next right choice despite all the wrong ones.

I look at my dad, and I see a hero. I see a man who is still smiling after all life has thrown at him. Who sits in this room with his five children, and many more grandchildren and great grandchildren at home. A man who is generous and kind and a little bit quirky—well a lot bit quirky—who was not been pressed by the weight of all his years.

Congratulations to my Dad on reaching 80. Congratulations also, of course, to Sheldon and Sonia who just celebrated their birthdays as well, as well as the anniversary of Sonia’s arrival from a German DP camp in December ‘49. You are all heroes.

Shabbat shalom.