Parashat Vayigash

“And if the cloud bursts, thunder in your ear
You shout and no one seems to hear.
And if the band you’re in starts playing different tunes
I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon ”
R. Waters/Pink Floyd

When I was a young boy in elementary school in the late 60’s I lived for a while right outside of Washington, DC. The father of one of my childhood friends was a scientist for NASA, and supplied us with a lot of colorful memorabilia about the space program.
I was soon obsessed with the Apollo program, knowing the names and backgrounds of all the astronauts, and with much of the jargon and space-speak that accompanied these activities. We would follow each mission from start to finish, as the entire proceedings were usually broadcast on television. We saw each blast off, traced the trajectory of the rocket ship, and delighted in the broadcast of communications between heaven and earth.

One thing that sticks out is the occasional LOS (Loss of Signal) when the Apollo capsule would pass behind the dark side of the moon, temporarily losing radio contact with Mission Control in Houston, and the 45 minutes the astronauts were incommunicado seemed like an eternity, or maybe like…..210 years?

In Parashat Vayigash, after the joy of learning that his son Joseph (Yosef) is alive, well, and ruling an entire country, Jacob (Yaakov) has a revival of spirit, and sets out to go down (leaving the holy land is always going ‘down’) to Egypt. He makes an offering to “The G-d of his father”, referring to Isaac (Yitzchak)who was not allowed to leave the holy land during his lifetime. Yaakov is treated to his last prophetic experience, and this time the dream seems to be taking place during the day, as it is called a “Night Vision”.

Yaakov is frightened because he knows that this will be the exile that was revealed to his grandfather Avraham after the Brit Bein ha Bitarim, the “Covenant of the Pieces” (Gen. 15:7-16), and that he and his children would be subject to LOS- an exile without regular contact with Mission Control-the G-d of Israel.

Yaakov had already proved his mettle by living without “radio contact” for the 22 years he was separated from Yosef, and after passing that test he was to be reunited with his favored son, and given one more opportunity to reestablish the signal “….and the spirit of their father Yaakov was revived” (Gen. 45:27).

This pending exile would serve to condition Yaakov’s descendants, by having them experience a life predicated on faith- in the teachings of their foremothers and fathers, in a G-d just outside signal range, and most importantly, in the establishment of a national identity based on these beliefs.

Yaakov earned the name Israel during his struggle against secularism upon returning from his personal exile, after planting the seeds of his extended family. That entire family, now collectively known as Israel, would be together at the end of his life, as they enter the crucible of Egypt, with only the torch of divine destiny to illuminate their dark days in Egypt.

“All that is now
All that is gone
All that’s to come

And everything under the sun is in tune
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon”.
R. Waters/Pink Floyd

Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Greg