We have discovered that the Yosef and Y’hudah narratives we have been reading for the past two weeks [parshot Vayashev and Miketz] have a very different ‘feel’ and a center-of-gravity than the previous eight parshot we read. In prior parshot [from B’reshit all the way through Vayishlach] the narrative of Torah was chock full of both dramatic ‘God-encounter’ narratives and verbatim quotations of Divine speech. It was just delicious. From the initial ‘Light, BE!’ declaration of Genesis 1:3 through situation after situation described for us in the chronicle of Yehovah’s interactions with men and women over a couple of millennia we actually grew accustomed to looking forward to, and then joyfully doting on and pouring over, savouring and meditating on, each place in the narrative when Yehovah interrupted the affairs of the world and the events of our forefathers’ lives, injected his manifest presence, and actually spoke his all-powerful creative and prophetic words to men in a language men could understand. We got used to reading the actual words of the creator of heaven and earth. Amazing words. Transforming words. Words that leapt off the pages of Torah and veritably danced before our eyes. Words that confounded our minds. Words that pierced our hearts. Words that reshaped everything about us. For the first eight weeks of our study therefore we became accustomed to reading every narrative account of our ancestors’ life experiences with confidence and anticipation that at the point when our forefathers needed it most the text would be interrupted by the phrase “יֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה - vayomer yehovah . . . [i.e. and Yehovah said . . .]”. We were being trained by the master, you see, through those first 8 parshot, to learn to live by the voice of Yehovah instead of just by responding to circumstances. The words the Creator so graciously spoke to our ancestors on so many occasions were thus made, by divine design, to become life to us. As a shepherd trains his sheep to respond only to his voice and to lo she’ma [i.e. not listen for, discern, hear, receive, internalize, understand and walk out in rubber-meets-the-road real life situations] to the voice of another, so Yehovah has been training us to KNOW his voice, to HEAR his voice, and to FOLLOW his voice. And then, suddenly . . . Silence! Suddenly however in parshot Vayashev and Miketz the voice of Yehovah went strangely silent. Since Genesis 35:11-12 the narrative of the Torah has been totally devoid of ‘God-encounters’. The phrase יֹּאמֶר יְהוָֹה - vayomer yehovah . . . [i.e., and Yehovah said . . .] has not appeared even once in our readings the last two weeks. Indeed for the last 2 weeks of readings Yehovah’s manifest presence seems to have totally disappeared from the world. No matter how badly Yosef or Y’hudah or Sh’mon or even Ya’akov [Yisrael] seemed to our perspective to need a God-encounter, none was forthcoming. Hmmm!! Just when we thought we were beginning to figure out what relationship with Yehovah was all about . . . he seems to have pulled the rug out from under us. Hopefully we have realized over the past two weeks that we do not know Yehovah nearly as well as we thought we did. And hopefully we have come to the recognition, painful though it may be, that Yehovah does not, will not, inject himself into our life situations or speak his prophetic words over us based upon our perception of need [ours or anyone else’s]; but only according to a divine schedule incorporated in his eternal and unchanging plan for mankind. We have, I hope, begun to learn that Yehovah is not like a genie who [theoretically, at least] has to appear just because someone somewhere rubs the right lamp. He is God . . . and we are not!! And that is the way it should be, indeed, must be. The world revolves around him and his plan, not around us or our twisted, flesh driven perception of human need. Sometimes, we have now found, it serves his divine purposes better for him to hide from our view, and be silent, even in the face of what appears to us to be horrible suffering, than for him to dazzle us with his glory, rescue us by his power, or even comfort us with his words. The question is, now that this truth is out in the open, can you handle it? Can you handle a relationship with Yehovah like Yosef had? Can you still worship, indeed love with all your heart, soul, and strength, a God who may, when you think you most need him to appear and rescue you or vindicate you, actually hide his face from you – and who at times chooses to stand in complete silence while terrible things are said about, and horrible things are done to, his people? This is a fitting time to warn the reader that these Torah parshot lessons are not designed as, or intended to be, just a friendly little Bible study. To start of, be warned that the Torah of Yehovah assails us like a two-edged sword and is used by Yehovah with surgical precision to confront our complacency, to expose our hypocrisy, to challenge our world view, to judge our petty attempts at systematic theology, to debride our dead and diseased flesh, and to change us forever. The purpose of Yehovah in doing all these things is to transform us into a people who know his voice and who live only to she’ma [i.e. listen for, discern, hear, receive, internalize, understand and walk out in rubber-meets-the-road real life situations] his instructions for living. Secondly, the study of Torah tends to, because it is designed to, leave the student with many, many more questions than answers. We suggest that Yehovah intentionally jam-packed the Torah with mysteries we cannot, however much we study or pray, even come close to comprehending. We pose that Yehovah gave the Torah to us in the rather unorthodox and question-provoking form he did, because he did not want us to fancy ourselves as theologians who could through study figure him out, put him in a tidy little box, remake him in our own image, and treat him like a genie that grants our selfish wishes, but instead was calling forth a people who like little children would constantly gaze up at him with wide-eyed wonder and trust him with child-like confidence to always know, and tell us, what is best and what is right and what is just and what is expedient and what is, in the long-range plan of Yehovah for his creation, good. Parsha Vayigash brings this point home for us. Parsha Vayigash witnesses to the return of the God-encounter. In the approximate center of the parsha ha-shavua we will finally – and for the last time in the Book of Genesis – read the words “And Yehovah said . . .” What will Yehovah say? What will be Yehovah’s last direct spoken message to mankind prior to the burning bush encounter of Exodus 3? Let’s let Torah tell us, shall we? While the covenant family’s caravan was stopped in Beersheva Ya’akov experienced the final God-encounter of his life. In what Torah calls a ‘night vision’ Yehovah appeared to Ya’akov. The divine voice Ya’akov now knew well told him not to be afraid to go down to Egypt. The unseen shepherd of his soul promised once again that he would always be with Ya’akov. Remember, the covenants Yehovah made with the descendants of Avraham contained, as an essential element, an eternal ‘with-ness’ factor, even in times of the silent heaven and the hidden face. Furthermore, Yehovah promised that while Ya’akov and his family are in Egypt he would finally make good on his promise to Avraham to make of him a ‘great nation.’ There has however been a ‘prophetic disconnect’ between 67 of those 70 souls and the storehouses which Yehovah has established. The ‘prophetic disconnect’, of course, is the broken line of communication between Yosef [a/k/a Tzafanat Paneach] and his father Ya’akov [Yisrael]. Ya’akov has been deceived into believing that Yosef is dead; torn apart by wild beasts in his 17th year of life. An elaborate conspiracy between Yosef’s 10 elder half-brothers has succeeding in breaking the communication lines between Ya’akov and his ‘dreamer’ son. As a result of this conspiracy the well of divine communication has completely ‘dried up’ for the household of Yisrael. Innocent blood pollutes the ground in Kena’an and cries out to Yehovah for divine truth and for divine justice. Both will come . . . but only according to divine timing. In the meantime heaven has hidden his face from the bloodstained household of Ya’akov. Do not misunderstand what is being said. Yehovah has not left Ya’akov and his family, nor has he in any wise forsaken them. He has not condemned them nor has he in any way abandoned them. He has not divorced them, nor has he in any way discarded them. But what he has done, as phase I of a redemptive judgement starting with the covenant household, is to temporarily lift his hand of supernatural blessing off of them and blinded their eyes to his presence. They are surviving naturally, according to the wisdom and the ways of man. But they are spiritually blind. Deception and despair on the part of Ya’akov combined with un-atoned bloodguilt on the part of his ten eldest sons has thus far prevented the family from the back-to-Beit-El kind of t’shuvah, which is necessary to reconnect the covenant family with the prophetic word, with the prophetic blessing, and with the prophetic ‘with-ness’ of God. The famine for bread affecting the world is, you see, by no means the only famine going on. Preceding the famine of bread in the world by several years, and continuing unabated through its first year, was a famine for the word of Yehovah in the household of faith. The blind are leading the blind in the covenant household and . . . well you can all guess what the result is, can you not? But all that is about to change. And with the change that is about to come, the innocent blood which cries out ‘How long, O Yehovah?’ is finally going to receive an answer from heaven. Unbeknownst to Ya’akov or any of his kin, you see, Yehovah is about to repair the prophetic disconnect. He is about to rebuild the entire infrastructure of divine with-ness. A dramatic shift is about to occur, as Yehovah moves his chosen family to a very special place that he has prepared for them, the fascinating place of fruitfulness that is called Goshen. At that very special ‘place prepared for you’ Yehovah will preserve his covenant people. He will nurture them back to health. And he will, through great trials, prepare them to become his ‘kingdom of priests’ and ‘holy nation’ that will change the face of planet earth forever. I do not want you to be ignorant of this mystery - all Yisrael will be saved. From the famine of Yosef’s generation, I mean. And if the prophetic disconnect that I have been describing with the people of the covenant provides an opportunity for a prophetic connection by Yehovah with men who are strangers to the covenant, what will the repair of the prophetic disconnect be but life from the dead? Yosef’s life, that is. He who has an ear, let him hear!!
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 14:43:29 +0000
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