Ari Levisohn: Welcome to Into the Verse. This is Ari Levison, and I am joined today by my colleague Adina Blaustein.

Adina Blaustein: Ari, I'm really excited.

Ari: Well, it’s Parshat Vayigash. We are neck-deep in the Joseph story. We're two parshiyot in already to the Joseph story, we have another two to go. So, I want to use this as an opportunity to talk about something that is going to be focused very heavily on in our parsha, but it's really going to span the entire Joseph story.

I want to talk about, actually, something that happened at the very end of the Joseph story. Now, you're probably thinking I'm talking about Parshat Vayechi, right, when Yosef dies. Actually, not what I'm talking about.

Adina: Okay.

Ari: Because there's one more time, actually, after Yosef's death, that he does come up in the Torah. You know what I'm talking about?

Adina: I just want to make sure I understand the question. You're saying that there's one last time that Joseph appears?

Ari: Yeah.

Adina: Okay, I think I got this. In Exodus, I think, in Parshat Beshalach. Am I on the right track?

Ari: Yeah.

Joseph’s Last Stand

Adina: Okay, when Moshe is preparing to lead B’nei Yisrael out of Egypt, very exciting climactic time. Moshe suddenly has to go on an errand and that is to collect Joseph's bones to make good on the promise that had been unfulfilled for hundreds of years, which is to bury Joseph's bones in the land of Israel.

So while everybody's busy, you know, with their matzah and packing up, Moshe's on this errand.

Ari: Right, exactly, and there is a really interesting Midrash from the Tanchuma on this.

Adina: Are you talking about the Midrash of how Moshe got the Nile to kind of raise up the bones? Is that what you're talking about?

Ari: I am, right. It's like, good question, how did Moshe get the bones from the Nile? How did he even know they were in the Nile?

Adina: Yeah, so I remember learning this Midrash when I was in day school. Okay, so what I remember is Moshe had this problem, right? Joseph's bones were at the bottom of the Nile. I don't know why; I don't remember that part.

Ari: The Midrash actually starts off, here's another problem, which, he doesn't even know where they are. Because the Torah doesn’t actually tell us they're in the Nile. And that's the first half of the Midrash, is, you know, how he finds out where the bones are. But yeah, then he finds out they're in the Nile, and he's like, “How do I get them? I don't have a submarine…”

Adina: “...To get to the bottom of the Nile.” Okay, so he…I think he writes down God's name…?

Ari: So it's not God's name; he actually writes something else. He takes a bundle of something, it doesn't actually tell us what, and he writes on it the words עֲלֵה שׁוֹר, which literally seems to mean, “Rise up, O’ Ox.”

Adina: Oh, yeah. “Rise up…” Yeah, which is kind of the symbolic name for Joseph. And I think in the blessings that Jacob gives him, he refers to Joseph as a שׁוֹר (ox). Okay.

Ari: Right, and not just that he refers to him as שׁוֹר, but this is actually a quote from the blessing that Jacob gives Joseph. Part of it, he says, עֲלֵה שׁוֹר.

Adina: Oh, okay.

Ari: And now, so the Midrash says that Moshe wrote those words on this piece of whatever, threw it into the Nile, and what happens?

Adina: And the bones rise up.

Making the Golden Calf

Ari: So it's a fascinating Midrash, but it's actually not the end of the story. There's another Midrash, on Parshat Ki Tisa, that actually picks up the thread of this story and takes it one more chapter forwards.

Adina: So just to contextualize, because I love playing this guessing game, Ki Tisa is talking about the Egel HaZahav (Golden Calf), right?

Ari: You and all of our listeners.

Adina: Right?

Ari: Right, talking about the Egel HaZahav, right?

Adina: Okay, wait. So where in the Egel HaZahav would this come up? Okay, so my wild guess, because something that I wonder if I'm connecting a thread, but I don't know if this is crazy…something to do with how they made the Egel HaZahav? Is that at all where you’re going with this?

Ari: You're right on.

Adina: Okay, I think I get why I mixed up how Moshe got the bones to rise up, because there's another Midrash about how they even made the Egel HaZahav, something with writing God's name or something about throwing into a fire, yeah? And, like, somehow the Egel kind of emerged from that, I guess, you know, I don't know, magic.

Ari: Adina, you're right on. The back story is that after the Egel, after the Golden Calf happens, Moses confronts Aaron, who seems to be responsible for creating, for forming the calf and says like, “Hey, Aaron, what's up? Why'd you do this? What happened?” And Aaron actually says, “Well, I didn't really create it. I took all of this gold jewelry, I threw it into fire, and out came this Golden Calf. It was just magical.”

And so the Midrash here is filling in, well, how did that actually happen, right? And, you know, why did a calf come out of the fire if Aaron just threw a bunch of stuff in? Why did it not come out just like a lump of gold?

Adina: Yeah, that’s a pretty good question.

Ari: And so the Midrash says, along with all of this gold jewelry that was thrown in, it says: נָטַל הַלּוּחַ שֶׁכָּתַב עָלָיו מֹשֶׁה עֲלֵה שׁוֹר — The very board that Moses used to summon the bones of Joseph from the Nile, that got thrown in with all of the gold jewelry into the fire, and out came the Golden Calf (Midrash Tanchuma, Ki Tisa, 19:4).

Adina: Wow. So, two reactions. Firstly, it's probably a good idea not to just learn Midrashim by reading The Little Midrash Says. Probably a good idea to, just like with Torah, study it inside and look at the text, because I feel like this Midrash is just part of my memories of growing up and I never really studied it inside, and what a fascinating connection. And then, number two, I'm just struck by, why are these two episodes connected? Like, why would the Rabbis, in articulating these ideas, want to stress this direct connection between these two episodes? They just seem completely different.

Ari: Right, that's the real question we have to ask when we read a Midrash like this. It's like, what are the Rabbis getting at? What are they suggesting? And to me, it sounds like they're suggesting that the Golden Calf was somehow meant to resemble Joseph. Right? Like, this slip basically says, “Hey, come, Joseph. Come out,” was thrown into the fire, and out comes the Golden Calf. And it's as if the Rabbis were saying, “The Golden Calf, when you look at the Golden Calf, what you're really supposed to see is Joseph.” But, I don't know about you, Adina…

Adina: Like, Joseph resurrected. Like Joseph's bones coming to life.

Ari: Right, right.

Adina: It’s very creepy.

Ari: No, Adina, I don’t know about you, but when I look at a golden statue of a cow, I don't really think, “Oh, hey, that's Joseph.”

Adina: Yeah. It's funny.

A Metaphor: The Taco Bell Problem

Ari: So I want to give a metaphor that might explain how Chazal saw this, and that metaphor is actually Taco Bell. Now, I keep kosher, I've never eaten Taco Bell, but what I've heard is that everything at Taco Bell tastes the same. They have like dozens and dozens of items on their menu, and yet it all tastes the same. And the reason is because, essentially, they're just different arrangements of the exact same ingredients.

They're just, like, there's only so many ways you can arrange, like, you know, cheese and beef and some vegetables, and it's basically all the same thing. So like, you know, a Crunchwrap Supreme might look different than a Doritos Locos taco, but when you break it down, right, they're really just like tortilla and beef and cheese and some veggies. Yes, I had to look that up.

Adina: It sounds delicious, but I could see how Taco Bell's marketing team might then have a challenge of, how do you entice customers that the menu is varied and delicious?

Ari: Right, and the way they do that is they put it in different packaging, and it looks totally different, and it looks like they have this big menu. 

So, where I'm going with this is that maybe Chazal were really the astute customer who realized that these are just two different packaging of the same ingredients. Maybe if we break down the Golden Calf to its ingredients, we realize that it really is a manifestation of Joseph.

The Essential Ingredients of the Golden Calf

So let's just think for a minute. Like, what are the essential ingredients of the Golden Calf? So, I'd say probably the easiest one is, well, it's a calf. And then, you know, it's not just any calf — it's a Golden Calf. And then, what do the people do to it? They bow down to it, right? So, okay: Calf, golden, people bow down to it. Another important attribute is, it's man-made. And then, finally, probably, like, the most significant is that they conceived of this Golden Calf as a replacement for God.

They say (Exodus 32:8): אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם — This is your god, Israel, who brought you out of Egypt.

So, it's a calf, it's golden, they bow down to it, it's man-made, and it's conceived as a replacement for God. To me, those are five really essential ingredients to the Golden Calf. So, let's look at Joseph now and see if we can find those ingredients in Joseph, too.

Adina: Okay, alright.

Joseph’s Golden Calf Ingredients

Ari: So let’s start with the first one, a calf. And you already said this, you mentioned this before, right?

Adina: That's right. In Yaakov's blessings, he turns to Joseph and says עֲלֵה שׁוֹר, so perhaps the calf can be linked with the שׁוֹר, an ox. You know, a calf is basically a young ox.

Ari: Just a young ox….So the Joseph-calf-ox connection, I think, is pretty clear. But it also has to be gold. So, was there ever a time when Joseph was all decked out in gold?

Adina: Sure. I mean, his whole royal identity probably meant that he was wearing fine garments, gold all the time. And I don't know about you, but the image, and perhaps there's a textual proof of this as well, but whenever he encounters the brothers in Egypt, it almost seems like he's purposefully bedecked in royal finery. Like, he almost makes a show out of emphasizing his special status. So I definitely would associate gold and kind of a special appearance with Joseph.

Ari: We don't even have to imagine what Joseph looked like wearing this gold because the Torah actually does tell us. When Pharaoh kind of anointed him as second-in-command, he put on Joseph a רְבִד הַזָּהָב, a gold chain (Genesis 41:42). And this is, like, one of those details, like, I don't know about you, I never noticed, right? It's just like, okay, yeah, you put, like, the royal garment. If you would ask me, what did he dress Joseph up in? I would have been like, I don't know, royal stuff? What Egyptian royalty wears.

Adina: Yeah, I would have just said, “Fancy stuff.”

Ari: Right, because it's like one of those, like, subtle details that it seems to be kind of irrelevant. But now, we see, oh, wait a minute, Joseph was wearing this golden chain, and presumably he always wore this golden chain. This was part of his uniform in his position as second-in-command in Egypt, was this golden chain, and here he is, walking around all day dressed in gold.

Adina: Okay, cool. So, so far we have two ingredients. What's the next one?

Ari: So it's not enough just for him to be golden and a calf, right? It also matters how the Israelites relate to him, right? In the Golden Calf, one of the most critical things is that the Israelites bow down to it. Was there ever a time…?

Adina: I mean, that…yeah.

Ari: I don't even have to finish my sentence, right?

Adina: I know, and it's already…I mean, the image of Joseph is the dreams and how he imagines everyone bowing down to him, and then that in fact happens in reality, that they do end up bowing down to him.

Ari: Right, and actually, the brothers, the original Israelites, the children of Israel, bow down to him not once, not twice, but actually three separate times, the Torah records them bowing down to him. So this imagery of the brothers, the children of Israel bowing down to this “golden calf” figure, it's really starting to add up.

Joseph’s Alter Ego

Another key ingredient: The calf was man-made, right? And if you think about, right, who made the calf, it was Aaron. So, now, who decked Joseph out in gold and put him in this position where everyone would bow down to him, right? Like, who made Joseph into an “idol?”

Adina: Oh, I see your point. In a sense, Joseph wasn't born into royalty. Pharaoh kind of made him royal. He appointed him into this position of power. So I guess, in a sense, you could say that Joseph, too, was man-made.

Ari: Right? And listen to this verse in Genesis 41:45. This is the verse where it says that Pharaoh put him into this position: וַיִּקְרָא פַרְעֹה שֵׁם־יוֹסֵף צָפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ — So Pharoah gives him a name, a totally new name. He says, “I'm going to call you צָפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ (Tzafnat Paneach).”

And then: וַיִּתֶּן־לוֹ אֶת־אָסְנַת בַּת־פּוֹטִי פֶרַע — And he gives him Osnat, the daughter of Poti-Phera, כֹּהֵן אֹן — the priest of On, לְאִשָּׁה — as a wife. So he gives him a new name and a new wife. And then: וַיֵּצֵא יוֹסֵף עַל־אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם — Joseph went out on the land of Egypt.

It almost sounds like, okay, Joseph already existed; Pharaoh didn't make Joseph. But the Egyptian royalty, the second-in-command, the one that everyone's bowing down to, the one that's decked out in gold? Well, his name's not Joseph. His name is צָפְנַת פַּעְנֵחַ.

Adina: He has, like, an alter ego that Pharaoh just kind of willed into existence.

Ari: Pharaoh created this alter ego with a new name and a new wife, and then this language of וַיֵּצֵא יוֹסֵף, “Joseph went out…” It almost sounds like, you know, it's like this new character emerged and was born and went out in front of Egypt. And that language of וַיֵּצֵא? Listen to what Aaron says when he describes making the Golden Calf. He says: וָאַשְׁלִכֵהוּ בָאֵשׁ — I threw all of this into the fire, וַיֵּצֵא הָעֵגֶל הַזֶּה — this calf, it just emerged.

Joseph here, it's just “emerging.” Both Pharaoh and Aaron, they're creating this thing and then that thing emerges. And look how cool this is; this was Exodus 32:24, and this is when Aaron tells Moses that, basically, “This is how I created the Golden Calf.” And immediately after that, look how Moses responds: וַיַּרְא מֹשֶׁה אֶת־הָעָם כִּי פָרֻעַ הוּא — So Moses saw that the people were out of control; this word, פָרֻעַ.

כִּי־פְרָעֹה אַהֲרֹן לְשִׁמְצָה בְּקָמֵיהֶם — That Aaron let them get out of control so that they became a menace to anyone who opposed them. But look at that word, כִּי־פְרָעֹה אַהֲרֹן.

Adina: I'm gobsmacked.

Ari: Those letters, פ-ר-ע-ה. What does it spell?

Adina: Yeah. It spells פַרְעֹה (Pharaoh), and it's just incredible wordplay here, because it’s such a bizarre and weird verb to use in this context, but it does seem like it's almost the Torah's way of, you know, underlining with a thick yellow highlighter, “There's a Pharaoh here in this story. There's a connection back to Pharaoh's presence that you should be noticing.”

Ari: Right, exactly. And it's almost as if Moses saw what Aaron did and said, “Ah, כִּי־פְרָעֹה אַהֲרֹן,” right? Like, “Aharon, he’s Pharaoh.”

Adina: Yeah, you’re acting like Pharaoh in this moment.

Ari: Right. “You created an idol.” It's wordplay, but it's fascinating.

A Replacement for God

Okay, there was one more ingredient I think is really, like, the most essential ingredient in all with the Golden Calf, which is that it takes the place of God. They say: אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם — This is your god, Israel, who took you out of Egypt.

So is there any time where we see Joseph taking the place of God?

Adina: So when you were listing the ingredients and we got to that one, my heart almost kind of thudded because the end of Genesis, when Joseph and the brothers meet up and they're overcome and they're…I mean, they're really just thinking about the past few decades, and I think they're just in this state of just utter shock and not really sure how to move forward. And one of the ways I think that Joseph tries to calm them down is by saying, הֲתַחַת אֱלֹקים אָנִי (Genesis 50:19)?

Ari: Yeah, yeah, so let's look at the verses, right? So, in Genesis, we'll start in Genesis 45, verse 5. This is right after Joseph reveals himself to the brothers, and, as you said, they're in a state of shock. And he says: אַל־תֵּעָצְבוּ וְאַל־יִחַר בְּעֵינֵיכֶם — Don't be distressed, don't reproach yourselves, כִּי־מְכַרְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה — Because you have sold me here. כִּי לְמִחְיָה שְׁלָחַנִי אֱלֹקים לִפְנֵיכֶם — Because God has actually sent me ahead, in order to provide food for you and so that you can come down here, and I can take care of you.

Adina: So you can kind of read this as, like, Joseph saying, “It was all for the best. It's all okay. This was God's master plan.” You know, kind of assuaging the brothers of their guilt.

Ari: Right, and then a few verses later, in verse 8, he says: וְעַתָּה לֹא־אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה — You did not send me here. כִּי הָאֱלֹקים — God's the one who sent me here.

But you mentioned something else, because Joseph tries to make this point to the brothers. He tries to explain to them, “This is all part of God's plan.” Like, “It wasn't your fault. God is the master puppeteer pulling all the strings.” But this message seems not to fully get through to them, because way later, at the very end of Genesis, after Jacob dies…

Adina: That's right. They come back to Joseph, and I think they're so worried that, now that Dad has passed on, now the revenge is going to happen, and they almost seem beside themselves. And they either lie or they're sharing with Joseph a conversation that he wasn't party to, which is basically telling Joseph, “Oh, before Dad died, he wanted us to resolve things. He wanted us to forgive each other, to forgive and forget and move on.” And it's in that context, I think, that Joseph says that line that I was alluding to earlier,הֲתַחַת אֱלֹקים אָנִי.

Ari: Yeah, exactly. So let's look at Genesis, chapter 50, verse 17.

Adina: Ok.

Ari: They give this message in the name of their late father Jacob, and they say: אָנָּא שָׂא נָא פֶּשַׁע אַחֶיךָ וְחַטָּאתָם — Please now, forgive the sins of your brother and their iniquity. It almost, you know…this language, אָנָּא שָׂא נָא פֶּשַׁע אַחֶיךָ וְחַטָּאתָם. It almost sounds like they're doing Selichot. It's like they're on Yom Kippur. Like, you know, “Please, O Great Master, forgive us.” And they go even further: וַיֵּלְכוּ גַּם־אֶחָיו וַיִּפְּלוּ לְפָנָיו וַיֹּאמְרוּ הִנֶּנּוּ לְךָ לַעֲבָדִים — They come before Joseph; they throw themselves before him, they say, “We're going to be servants to you; just don't kill us. Let us be servants to you.”

Adina: I would take it step further and say, “We're your slaves.”

Ari: Yeah, not even servants, right? Slaves. Like, you know, “You're our master, we're your slaves.” And Joseph is, like, taken aback by this. In verse 19, as you said, Joseph responds, כִּי הֲתַחַת אֱלֹקים אָנִי — Am I in place of God?

By itself, this might not seem like such a big deal. But when you read it, first of all, in the context of everything that Joseph's already said to the brothers, of, “You didn't send me here. God did this. This is all part of God's master plan;” and then you add in the Golden Calf, which I think is what Chazal are trying to draw our attention to; you realize, like, wait a minute. This was a big deal, right? Treating someone like they're God? That's what the Golden Calf was. That was terrible. 

How Could Joseph’s Brothers Do That?

You know, I think all of this is really just leading us to ask, how could the brothers have done such a terrible thing in treating Joseph like a god, or, like, replacing God with Joseph? Basically treating him like a Golden Calf.

And, you know, what makes this question even more surprising and even greater is, think about where this story started. Think about their relationship with Joseph, way back in Parshat Vayeshev, when we started reading this story.

Adina: They wanted to kill him. This is an incredibly extreme difference.

Ari: It's like a 180° flip. Neither of them are good. They're both pretty bad. You don't want to kill them; you don't want to treat them like God. But, like, how did it go from one to another? And, you know, I know the steps; I know A led to B led to C. I know the story and how the progression went. But when you stop looking at the trees and you zoom out and look at the whole forest, that's a really remarkable 180° flip.

Adina: Yeah, we know so much about the plot twists, but what's going on emotionally, psychologically, is a mystery.

What Was Wrong with the Golden Calf?

Ari: Right, so if Joseph really was an earlier version of the Golden Calf, then maybe we can look at the Golden Calf and try to understand that story, and maybe understanding the story of the Golden Calf will help us understand the story of Joseph.

Adina: That's great. Like all good intertextual studies, both stories can help us understand each in a clearer way.

Ari: So, truth is, I think we can ask a really similar question about the Golden Calf. In fact, I would say it's probably the question that anyone has to ask when reading the story of the Golden Calf, which is, how could they do such a thing, especially after experiencing the Exodus?

They went so far as to say, in Exodus, chapter 32, verse 4: אֵלֶּה אֱלֹהֶיךָ יִשְׂרָאֵל — This is your god, Israel, אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלוּךָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם — who took you out of the land of Egypt. How could they say such a thing? How could they just replace God so easily, and how could they think that this man-made idol was their god? It sounds absurd.

Adina: Yeah, it really does.

Ari: So, to me, Rav Hirsch has, really, a great answer to this, which is that the actual sin wasn't making the Golden Calf.

Adina: Okay.

Ari: The actual sin was back in chapter 32, verse 1, when they said: כִּי־זֶה  מֹשֶׁה הָאִישׁ— This man Moses, אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלָנוּ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרַיִם — who took us out of Egypt, לֹא יָדַעְנוּ מֶה־הָיָה לוֹ — we don't know where he is.

“This man, Moses, who took us out of Egypt.” This here was the real root of their sin. They never fully appreciated God's role in bringing them out of Egypt, and they attributed that to Moses. And so then, naturally, right, now that Moses is gone, they need to replace him. And, you know, better to replace Moses with, you know, someone who's not going to wander off on you and, you know, disappear on top of a mountain. So a statue is a good replacement, but they weren't replacing God. They were replacing Moses. The real sin of the Golden Calf was that they never appreciated God's role in taking them out of Egypt.

Was Joseph the Golden Calf?

So how does this explain our question in the Joseph story about how the brothers acted? Remember, Chazal are suggesting that Joseph was the original Golden Calf. Then, there should be a parallel here.

So, Adina, if the problem of the Golden Calf was the Israelites failing to seek God's hand in bringing them out of Egypt, what may have been the problem in the Joseph story?

Adina: Yeah, I think the problem that emerges is their failure to see God's hand in bringing them to Egypt, and their, I think, resistance to seeing that grand master plan and to join Joseph and having this panoramic view of the steps leading up to this.

Ari: Exactly, right? And as we read before, right, Joseph tries to tell them: לֹא־אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי הָאֱלֹקים — You were not the ones who sent me here. You thought you were, but we were all just puppets and part of God's plan. And of course the brothers, they never really appreciate that. Till the very end, they have trouble appreciating that.

In last year's Vayeshev episode, Daniel and I actually talked about how this really seems to be the whole journey of Joseph's life, is actually about realizing that God is the master puppeteer orchestrating all these crazy events of his life. And he, I think, in the beginning, he really doesn't. And I think one thing you see at the end is that, really, he does learn this and he becomes the champion of this message. And I think that's really one of Joseph's crowning achievements, at least in terms of his personal growth, is learning to really see the hand of God in his life.

And, you know, there is no real end of the story here, right? It doesn't say that the brothers responded, “Oh, Joseph, I see you're right.” And I would at least hope that maybe some of this message of Joseph got through to the next generation, and maybe made that 210 years in Egypt a little bit more bearable.

Joseph’s Final Message

Adina: I think, certainly, Moshe's actions in bringing his bones out of Egypt is almost meant to be a reminder to the nation as they're trekking through the wilderness at every step of the way, “Hey, God's hand, God's hand.”

I'm almost imagining, you know, through that journey through the wilderness, there's this casket that they see, you know, very visibly on their caravan, and they're almost meant to look at it and realize, that man who saw God's hand in everything? We need to take him back to the land. We need to restore him back to the land. It's almost like a symbol of, “He stood for ‘I see God's hand in my life.’ We need to realize that we see God's hand in our lives as well.” 

Ari: Adina, I'm, like, literally getting chills as you're saying that. It's so powerful. Like, that's totally right. Like, they were carrying this casket of Joseph with them as they left Egypt, right? And it was important for them to take his casket with them as a reminder of this lesson that Joseph stood for, like this was his last message. His last thing he says to them is like, “Remember, this is part of God's plan. He is bringing you here.”

Adina: Yeah, and I just realized something else, which is, it's Joseph himself who has the foresight to insist that his bones are taken out. He makes them swear that, “When you leave, and I know you will, take my bones out with you.”

Ari: Adina, there was something I wasn't planning on bringing up here, but now that we're talking about this, I have to. We're talking about Joseph's final message to the Jewish people, to the Israelites, that, you know, that this message of God is, “God is the one behind all of this. God's the one who brought you here. God's the one who's going to take you out.”

And there's one phrase which really becomes…it almost becomes, like, Joseph's, like, catchphrase and the last phrase that he's, like, remembered for, which is: פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד אֶתְכֶם — God will surely redeem you, פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד. He says that multiple times. And not just does he say פָּקֹד יִפְקֹד אֶתְכֶם, but he says: וְהֶעֱלָה אֶתְכֶם מִן־הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת  — God is going to take you up from this land, אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּע לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב — to the land which He promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (Genesis 50:24).

That word פָּקֹד, a double word פָּקֹד, actually comes up in this Golden Calf episode at the end of the story. God says…He's actually talking about how He's going to punish people, and it has a totally different meaning. He says: וּבְיוֹם פׇּקְדִי וּפָקַדְתִּי עֲלֵהֶם חַטָּאתָם, which means, “On the day of my…”

Adina: Like, “My reckoning.”

Ari: “...My remembering, I will remember their sins.” But, the literal meaning aside, here we have that double language of פָּקֹד again, and that's recalling that final message of Joseph. 

And the very next chapter starts off, God tells Moses: עֲלֵה מִזֶּה — Get up from here, אַתָּה וְהָעָם אֲשֶׁר הֶעֱלִיתָ מֵאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר נִשְׁבַּעְתִּי לְאַבְרָהָם לְיִצְחָק וּלְיַעֲקֹב. That same exact phrase, together with this double language of פָּקֹד, which is recalling Joseph's message at the end of his life.

And that message for that generation, and I think really for all future generations, is, “God is behind it all.” God's the one who brought you here, God's the one who's going to take you out. Anytime in your life that you feel lost or you feel alone, or you feel like, you know, it just doesn't make any sense, right? Like, God's behind it all.

Credits

This episode was recorded by Ari Levisohn together with Adina Blaustein.

This episode was produced by Evan Weiner.

Our audio editor is Hillary Guttman.

Our production manager is Adina Blaustein.

Our senior editor is Ari Levisohn. 

Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll see you next week.