Beth Lesch: Welcome to Into the Verse. I am Beth Lesch, and I'm so excited to be joined here in the studio with Rabbi David Fohrman.

Rabbi David Fohrman: Hey Beth, how are you? It's nice to see you.

Beth: Really good to see you, too. Thanks for joining me, Rabbi Fohrman. We are here to discuss Parshat Vayishlach. I want to clue you in, and clue our listeners in, to what today's episode is going to be like. I call this a “workshop.” It is research in progress. I am coming to you, Rabbi Fohrman, and to our listeners, with some interesting noticings,  some things that just popped out at me. There's something here, but I haven't put it all together yet. I'm leaving the fun of that for this episode.

Rabbi Fohrman: I'm all ears. Tell me what you noticed.

Beth: Let me start with the big picture of what I noticed. So Parshat Vayishlach tells the story of this epic, dramatic reunion between Yaakov and Esav, between two brothers. And if you just think about the story in broad strokes, the themes that are at play, I think you'll notice, as I did, that it is eerily reminiscent of another story that we're going to read just a little bit later in the Torah.

Two Brotherly Reunions

And when I talk about the broad themes, what I have in mind is a moment of reunion between brothers who have been apart for a long time. And there's also a…we'll call it a surprise ending. There's a sort of tone change in the middle where the reunion starts out with a sense of fear and intimidation. There's one party that sees itself as vulnerable and one party that seemed to be the, you know, the one that is capable of doing harm. And in the end, you get this sort of climax where, actually, it becomes a loving, intimate embrace that ends in a kind of fraternal harmony. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Yeah, I see what you're suggesting is this book of Genesis, in very broad strokes, has two stories of reunions and brothers; reunions where there's a lot of fear and then that fear gives way to a sense of reconciliation, tears, that sort of thing. And what you must be referring to is the reunion not just of Yaakov and Esav, but the reunion of Yosef and his brothers.

And I guess what you want to suggest is, does the Torah want us to connect them in some kind of way or to compare and contrast them? So tell me what you see in the text that makes you think that that might be the case.

Beth: Yeah, right. So if it were just themes as we've laid out, that wouldn't be enough for me to think that there was an intentional, you know, comparison being staged here for us. But there are a number…a long list of phrases, words, some more unusual, some less unusual, that occur in both of these stories that make me think, huh, yeah, this is not just my imagination. This is something that the text is suggesting to us.

All Alone

The one that caught my eye first, Rabbi Fohrman, is the language of: וַיִּוָּתֵר…לְבַדּוֹ — And he was left alone, him, all by himself (Genesis 32:35).

Rabbi Fohrman: In the Yaakov story, we've got that וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ. This is the prelude to Yaakov's struggle with the angel; he's left all alone, and then a man materializes out of nowhere, and they have this struggle until morning. Where do you see something that reminds you of that later on in the Joseph story?

Beth: Yeah, so in the Joseph story, who is it that's left alone? In the later story of Yosef and his brothers, you're going to find that very same phrase in the beginning of Vayigash. Yehudah is boldly stepping up to Yosef, who he doesn't yet know is Yosef, his long lost brother. And he's just recounting the whole drama of what has happened up until this point.

And here's the way that he characterizes his family. He says: יֶשׁ־לָנוּ אָב זָקֵן — We have a father who is old, וְיֶלֶד זְקֻנִים קָטָן — and he has a child, his youngest child, who was born when he was older, וְאָחִיו מֵת —  his brother, being Yosef, is presumed dead. וַיִּוָּתֵר הוּא לְבַדּוֹ — And he alone, Binyamin, has been left alone, לְאִמּוֹ — to his mother (Genesis 44:20). In other words, Binyamin is the only living, supposedly, child of Rachel.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, that is pretty striking. So it's not like Benjamin is all alone physically, in the way that Yaakov is all alone when this man shows up and struggles with him, but Benjamin is all alone in the sense that he's all that's left of Rachel. Okay.

Beth: Yeah, so you're right to point out that even though the language is the same in both cases, it seems like we're describing different dynamics.

So, similarities and differences; and when I first found this, it sort of confused me and I didn't know what to do with it. And I thought, well, maybe I'm reading too much into it. That was until I started to see some more.

Not Just Escaping

Beth: The second “more” that I found, or the first “more” is the word פְלֵיטָה.

פְלֵיטָה — An escapee, we might say; someone who manages to survive when others don't survive. This word, פְלֵיטָה, very, very unusual word; occurs less than a handful of times in the entire Chumash. And the one time in the Yaakov story, Yaakov says to himself: אִם־יָבוֹא עֵשָׂו אֶל־הַמַּחֲנֶה הָאַחַת — If Esav comes to the one camp, וְהִכָּהוּ — and he strikes it, וְהָיָה הַמַּחֲנֶה הַנִּשְׁאָר לִפְלֵיטָה — then the camp that remains is going to be the escapee, is going to survive (Genesis 32:9).

What is he talking about? He was…out of desperation and desperate fear that Esav was going to approach with the four hundred men and slaughter his entire family, he says, “You know what I'll do? I'm going to take my family, divide them into two camps. And that way, if Esav does come upon them and he does slaughter, does do harm to the first camp, at the very least, the second camp will be able to escape unscathed.”

Rabbi Fohrman: Mm-hmm.

Beth: Word, פְלֵיטָה, that very unusual word, we also find in Yosef's mouth.

Rabbi Fohrman: This is after Joseph reveals himself to his brothers, and there's this reconciliation between them. So in that moment when he first says, “Hi, I'm Yosef,” and he's explaining that they have nothing to fear, he's saying, “God put me here to take care of you,” and he's going to use that word לִפְלֵיטָה. God wanted to make sure that it would be a remnant of you, and you'd not be entirely wiped out by the famine. וַיִּשְׁלָחֵנִי אֱלֹקים לִפְנֵיכֶם לָשׂוּם לָכֶם שְׁאֵרִית בָּאָרֶץ וּלְהַחֲיוֹת לָכֶם — God sent me to be the agent to give you life, לִפְלֵיטָה גְּדֹלָה — so that there can be a lot left of you. There can be important remnant of you, you shouldn't all die in famine, וְעַתָּה לֹא־אַתֶּם שְׁלַחְתֶּם אֹתִי הֵנָּה כִּי הָאֱלֹקים — But it wasn't you that sent me here. It was God, and for that reason I've become the ruler over all of Egypt (Genesis 45:7-8).

Okay, so you've got this word לִפְלֵיטָה, and it's, by the way, worth noting that it's not just the word פְלֵיטָה; it's like the exact form of the word, לִפְלֵיטָה and לִפְלֵיטָה. And I hazard a guess, Beth, that these are the only two “לִפְלֵיטָה”s in the Five Books of Moses. 

Beth: These are the only two times in the Chumash, yes. So with וַיִּוָּתֵר…וַיִּוָּתֵר, you know, it's an unusual root, but that formulation of it, those are the only two cases where it occurs in the Chumash. And then to be paired later with לְבַדּוֹ is striking. So too, here with this word פְלֵיטָה, it's paired with language of nishar, “to remain,” right? Yaakov talks about the camp that remains, and Yosef says, “I am a remnant. I am a שְׁאֵרִית,” somehow.

Rabbi Fohrman: Okay, Beth, I'm all ears. What else? What else did you find?

Mincha Preparations

Beth: The next word that caught my eye is the word מִנְחָה, okay? The word מִנְחָה, nowadays we use it to mean the afternoon davening (prayers). That's not the context here. It appears over and over again in the Torah to refer to a kind of sacrifice, a grain offering that's brought before God. That is also not the meaning as it appears in these two stories. 

It seems to refer to a gift, an offering; a gift but similar to an offering that might be brought before God. A gift from a vulnerable party to a powerful party that is meant to appease and meant to bring favor. Where do I see the word מִנְחָה appearing in each story? 

Rabbi Fohrman: Well, in the Yaakov story, you have Yaakov's idea that he wants to send a מִנְחָה, a gift to Esav in hopes of appeasing him. He says: אֲכַפְּרָה פָנָיו בַּמִּנְחָה הַהֹלֶכֶת לְפָנָי וְאַחֲרֵי־כֵן אֶרְאֶה פָנָיו אוּלַי יִשָּׂא פָנָי וַתַּעֲבֹר הַמִּנְחָה עַל־פָּנָיו — I'm going to give him a מִּנְחָה, this gift that’s going to go before me (Genesis 32:21-22). And that is right before his fateful encounter with the angels. 

And as it happens, Yaakov also insists, the same Yaakov insists on sending a מִנְחָה in the Joseph story. There's also, as you point out, Beth, a powerful person in the Joseph story. That person is this disguised, unnamed, you know, high Egyptian official, and Yaakov is intimidated of him because he's holding onto Shimon at this point, right? And Yaakov feels the need to appease him. He says to the brothers, “Fine, if you're going to go back to him, go back to him, but make sure that you send a מִנְחָה to the person.”

Beth: Yeah. First it's: וַיִּקְחוּ הָאֲנָשִׁים אֶת־הַמִּנְחָה — they take it. That's in verse 15. Then, in 25, it's וַיָּכִינוּ אֶת־הַמִּנְחָה. And then they finally bring it to him in 26. וַיָּבֹא יוֹסֵף הַבַּיְתָה וַיָּבִיאּוּ לוֹ אֶת־הַמִּנְחָה אֲשֶׁר־בְּיָדָם הַבָּיְתָה וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ־לוֹ אָרְצָה, and they bow down to him.

Rabbi Fohrman: And while we're at it, I might just say that וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ־לוֹ אָרְצָה is going to be another connection, right? Because isn't it the case that it's not just the brothers who bow before Yosef when they give him the מִנְחָה, but after Yaakov gives Esav the מִנְחָה, when he finally goes to meet his brother, right, he also bows to the ground?

Beth: There's actually a whole chain of bowing. Yaakov bows first, וַיִּשְׁתַּחוּ אַרְצָה. He does it seven times as he approaches his brother, עַד־גִּשְׁתּוֹ עַד־אָחִיו, and then all of the women and all of the children follow suit.

Rabbi Fohrman: Mm-hmm. And similarly, the brothers giving this מִּנְחָה to Joseph are going to bow to Joseph as well. 

Beth: Mm-hmm. 

Rabbi Forhman: So just to take stock: You've got the delivery of the מִּנְחָה followed by bowing in two stories. You have the וַיִּוָּתֵר הוּא לְבַדּוֹ connection, and you've got the לִפְלֵיטָה connection. And in general, there are these two stories of these brothers that are coming to meet each other, and both seem like these fearful, very difficult reunions, and then things kind of work out. 

So it does sound like the language of one story is being borrowed by the other. You've convinced me that the language seems to be strong enough that, if I'm thinking about the Joseph story, I am thinking about the Yaakov story in the back of my mind as I listen to these echoes.

Biblical Archaeology

Beth: So, Rabbi Fohrman, I'll say that I remember very early on when I began learning with you, you talked about textual analysis being like a form of archeology where you find a single dinosaur bone. Say you're, you know, out there in the desert on a hot day doing your excavating and you say, “Huh, is this a dinosaur bone? I'm not sure. Maybe it's just a piece of pottery. It's a bit hard to tell. Maybe it's a rock.” Ah, if it really is a dinosaur bone, there's liable to be other pieces here as well. There should be a whole skeleton somewhere in the surroundings, and all I have to do is take care in unearthing it, and then that'll validate my findings, you know, after the fact.

That is…for me, the מִּנְחָה was that dinosaur bone, was that initial dinosaur bone. Is it a dinosaur bone or is it a rock? And once I went searching around that, there was a whole scroll of words that I started to find between the two stories all uniting around this theme of what happens when you have a vulnerable brother or brothers gearing up to have an intimidating encounter with another brother that they think might do them harm.

What does that chain of words look like? So, yira; vayiru, vayar. In both cases, the vulnerable party is described as experiencing fear in anticipation of the encounter. Vayigash; the ultimate encounter, is described in the language of vayigash or vayigshu. It is an encounter, literally. As we discussed, there's the וַיִּשְׁתַּחֲווּ אָרְצָה, there's bowing down to the ground. When they finally do reunite, you find language of וַיִּפֹּל — falling upon, עַל־צַוָּארָו — on one's neck. In other words, this kind of, this embrace, just overcome with emotion, falling upon one's neck and crying, וַיִּבְכּוּ.

Rabbi Fohrman: So the threefold theme: A) To fall on the neck, B) to kiss, and C) to cry, right? So that occurs in both stories. It occurs in the Yaakov story when he meets his brother, and occurs in the next generation when the brothers meet Joseph. 

So, what I would say is, one of the tricky things about this, right…you've uncovered what I might say is a grand pattern. In other words, the reason why it's grand is because you have a pattern spanning, you know, multiple chapters here in the Joseph story, and a little bit less text in the Jacob story, but also a lot of text. 

I suspect that each of these connections that you'll find, if you zero in on each of them, you'll find that there's aspects of it which you haven't fully explicated yet, and there's other aspects of the pattern in each of these little isolated places that they appear. And if you would go in and do that work, you might find yourself in a position where you could at least understand a little bit more carefully what the meaning of those isolated connections are. And by doing that, ultimately, you might be able to get to a theory about the grand meaning of how all those connections come together.

That would kind of be my game plan here. I don't know if we have enough time to do all of that. That feels like about five or six hours of work, but we can jump in and try it a little bit. There's a few things that I noticed with each of these. Why don't we begin with the first one that you found?

Exploring the Connections

So the first connection that you found was the וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ connection, right? That Yaakov is left all alone, and there's this man who struggles with him until morning. And that, you found, was connected to וַיִּוָּתֵר הוּא לְבַדּוֹ לְאִמּוֹ, that Binyamin was all that was left to his mother, and his father loved him. Okay, so what do you do with that connection?

So one way to think about it is, you can try to understand who matches up with who. And then, what you can try to do is, like, literally superimpose one story on the other, and as you do so, phantom elements of one story may emerge. In other words, if I have two things that go on top of each other…imagine these transparencies, and they're meant to layer on top of each other. The pictures are not exactly the same, but certain aspects of them are. Then, layering them on top of each other can reveal phantom elements of one story.

In other words, you say, well, there's all this stuff here in this story that doesn't seem to fit that story. Is it really the case that it doesn't fit, or are there phantom elements of the other story that actually do fit, at least implicitly, the thing that it's being overlaid with? Let me show you what I'm talking about here, right?

Beth: Yeah, yeah. I'm getting excited. 

Rabbi Fohrman: So, let's go to וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ, right. Yaakov here matches up with who?

Beth: So, Yaakov is alone. He's the one who's alone. And then his parallel is Binyamin. Binyamin is the one who's being described as being left alone.

Rabbi Fohrman: So, okay, so Benjamin is our Jacob character in the second story. Now, here's where my brain goes. My brain says, well, let's look at the first story and ask what happens. וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ, what happens when Yaakov is all alone? So: וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר — A mysterious man comes and starts struggling with him until morning.

So what I would ask you, Beth, does that remind you of anything in the second story, when Joseph was gone and now all that's left is Benjamin to his mother? Right? So, it doesn't say the words וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר in the Joseph story. There is no man who comes and struggles with them until morning. But I ask you, Beth, is it possible that there is a phantom? In the Yosef story, there's a phantom man that comes and struggles with Benjamin, so to speak, until the morning, and who would that phantom man be?

Beth: So if I'm thinking what you're thinking, if you're thinking what I'm thinking, I wonder if that person might be Joseph.

Who Is He Alone With?

Rabbi Fohrman: I think it is Joseph. Tell me, why do you think that Joseph might be the man who comes and struggles with Benjamin until the morning?

Beth: Yeah, so we have to trace it step by step. The first thing you have to realize is that Yaakov in his story is described as being alone, but he's not really alone. We find out in the very next verse that actually there's a man there with him, right? So too, in the description of Binyamin, Binyamin is described as being alone, which is immediately prefaced by a mention of his brother who is dead, but his brother is not really dead. His brother is actually alive and is actually right there in the room with him. 

Rabbi Fohrman: Right, so that's fascinating, right? Because…so you're picking up on a really interesting point that I hadn't even considered, but I think that you're exactly right. In other words, one of the strange aspects about the Jacob story is that there's a grammatical problem in that story. You can't say וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ; those words don't make sense. If Yaakov was really all alone, who is this man who's struggling with them? Obviously he wasn't alone. It must be, Yaakov's perception is that he's all alone, but he, in fact, isn't alone because there's this man that's actually there that's struggling with him.

Similarly, there is an issue of perception in this story, too, because the brothers’ perception is that Benjamin is all alone and that he's all that's left to his mother because אָחִיו מֵת, his brother, has died. But the very person that Judah is talking to when he says אָחִיו מֵת is, in fact, the brother that Judah has supposed is dead. It's Joseph, and Joseph hasn't died. So if Joseph is the man, right, he is right there beside him. 

So in both cases, there is a…it's the case that neither the Benjamin nor the Jacob character is really all alone. There, in fact, is an unperceived man by either of them. That makes them not alone.

Now, Beth, if we just unfurl the implications anymore…if, in the second story, the man was Joseph, his brother, right, who does that make you start thinking the man might be in the Jacob story?

Beth: It makes me wonder if that man might be Esav.

Rabbi Fohrman: Exactly. And hence, we have Chazal. The Sages are coming and tell us that the person that Yaakov struggled with was Sar shel Esav; was, in fact, some sort of angel that represented Esav. Where would they get such a ludicrous notion? It could be that the Sages were aware of this intertextual parallel and did the same algebra that you and I just did, right, and said, “Oh, wow, this is parallel to the Benjamin story.” Benjamin wasn't all alone. He had a man next to him. That man was his brother, right? It sure sounds like Jacob wasn't all alone either. He had a man next to him, and that man was some sort of heavenly representative of his brother, right?

It's interesting because before the revelation, as you pointed out, there's a marked ambivalence about what it would be like to meet them, and there's reason for that ambivalence. I mean, there was deception going back in both stories; there's anger, there's bad feelings, right? And so, what's really going to happen?

So I go back to the question I asked you before: וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב לְבַדּוֹ; we're talking about this phantom aspect of the story, that Yaakov is all alone when וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר, when a man struggled with him until the morning. Go back to my original question: If, in the Yaakov case, there was a man who struggled, a divine man who struggled with Yaakov until the morning hours, in the Yosef story, is there a divine man who struggles with Benjamin until the morning? And who would that be?

Now, you said that's Joseph, but I can challenge you and say, but Joseph's a nice guy. He's going to reveal himself. Does Joseph ever struggle with Benjamin until the morning?

Beth: He certainly struggles with him. I mean, right before he reveals himself, that's the whole drama. Joseph presents as a terrifying figure who had deceived Binyamin.

Rabbi Fohrman: A terrifying figure! He frames him. 

Beth: He sets him up. He puts the goblet into his [sack], he frames him, and then he says, “I'm going to keep you as a slave forever.” 

Rabbi Fohrman: That’s right, exactly. No greater struggle than that, right? So here is this divine messenger, but there's this struggle between them, right? Before there's this revelation that things are going to be okay, right? Notice: וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר — And he struggled with him until dawn. Take a look at chapter 44, verse 3. When exactly did Joseph start pursuing Benjamin to try to catch up to him?

Beth: Ah, wonderful! So, הַבֹּקֶר אוֹר. It was morning time. That’s when it all started.

Rabbi Fohrman: It was dawn. Dawn had just broken. So, in one story, the struggle goes until dawn, and in another story, the struggle starts at dawn, right? When Joseph goes and runs after him. So what you really seem to be seeing is two stories in which there is a Jacob character in one story; in the next generation, there's a Benjamin character, who seems to be the next generation of Jacob, and they both have a similar struggle. And it's sort of interesting because if you think about Joseph's feelings towards Benjamin, despite the fact that Joseph is capturing Benjamin, right, deep down, what's Joseph's real feelings about Benjamin?

Beth: He loves him. I mean, we know something about this story that Binyamin doesn't know at all, which is that what seems like aggression is actually an act of love and protection. Which makes you wonder what’s going on with the angel.

Rabbi Fohrman: And it makes you wonder whether the same thing is happening with Esav.

Beth: Yeah.

The Real Esau

Rabbi Fohrman: In other words, when Esav comes to greet him with 400 men, imagine how intimidated you would be if you were the brothers, and you realize that here's this brother that you deceived, and now he's in charge of the world, and he's got this whole coterie in Egypt with his 400 men. You're terrified of those 400 men, just like Jacob is terrified about Esav's 400 men.

But just as in the second story, we know something that the brothers don't know, which is that, in fact, deep down, Joseph really loves Benjamin and wants nothing more than to love him and hug him and kiss him.

Isn't it fascinating? Is it really the case that Jacob managed to appease him? I mean, the appeasement of the Joseph story didn't work any well. Was it the מִנְחָה that changed Joseph's mind and care about them? It wasn't the מִנְחָה, and it wasn't the מִנְחָה in the Jacob story either.

In both cases, you think it's the מִנְחָה, but it could be that what's really going on is that the second story is shedding light on the first, telling us how to read Esav. Which is that, at some deep level, Esav was a brother, right? And yes, you can deceive, and yes, you can hurt, but there is this sort of undying sense that if I could only hug you and kiss you, then somehow reconciliation could be possible. And therefore, it's kind of ambiguous what those 400 men are. It's possible that those 400 men are aggressive, but it's also possible that those 400 men are just his coterie. Like, he's a rich guy. He's established himself. He's the new prince of Seir. Esav has made something out of himself. He's got 400 men now. 

Sure, in both cases there's some hard feelings, but underneath those hard feelings there's somebody who is willing to hug you and willing to kiss you because there's kind of an undying brotherly love.

And maybe there's a note of hope in both of these stories, which is that, you know, you can go through really tough things in your family, and you can think that there's a painful, terrible feud, right, based upon things that brothers should not do to brothers, right? They threw Joseph in a pit and deceived Esav, and there's all these feelings; like, “I'd like to kill him,” and Esav is like, “Yeah, I'm going to kill him,” and those feelings are real. But sometimes human beings are creatures that have contradictory feelings, or layers of feelings, and the aggression is a superficial layer, right. And sometimes, underneath that, if you can get below that, there's still some sort of love and some sort of connection.

And what the hopeful parts of these stories is that, you know, reconciliation is possible. You can take that chance. And it could be that your fearfulness comes because you don't recognize who your brother has become during this time. But it's not necessarily the case that they have as aggressive a stance as you might suspect that they have.

And therefore, the possibility of connection, you know, with this new version of your brother could be real. So to me, that's what I mean by, as you begin to look at these micro connections…we've only looked at one, the וַיִּוָּתֵר הוּא לְבַדּוֹ, but you see how rich it is once you begin to really look at it and mine it for its implication.

So, Beth, I know we're trying to record a podcast here, so maybe we'll leave it at this for now and challenge your readers and say, you know, each one of these connections, there's a whole rich field of opportunity for you. As you look at the idea of לִפְלֵיטָה, what jumps out at you? How do you see that as enriching your view of one or both stories? Can you see the phantom side of each story emerge as you look at לִפְלֵיטָה? As you look at the final reconciliation, where they fall on each other's necks, and they cry, and they kiss, right, and you begin to compare this, what happens there? Again, do we begin to see a larger picture emerging?

I think we do. That's the really fascinating possible work that intertextual analysis allows for us. And I'd be really thrilled to hear if your audience comes up with any fascinating observations. But thank you, Beth, for introducing this stuff to me.

Beth: You can, as always, leave us a voice note. There's information about that in the description of the podcast. And let's keep it going. This is work that we can all share.

Credits

This episode was recorded by: Beth Lesch together with Rabbi David Fohrman.

This episode was produced by Evan Weiner.

Audio editing was done by Shifra Jacobs.

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.