Are You Prepared?
We must constantly be thinking of the goal, of preparing ourselves for the future Redemption. On the other hand, we must not let our yearning for the future impede our ability to do our job while we are still here in the last moments of exile. Every day must be filled with the study of Torah and fulfillment of the Mitzvos. While we are here in exile our mission is to make wherever we are an extension of the Holy Land of Israel and every moment a Shabbos moment.
Joseph’s Shabbos Table
Joseph is now the Viceroy of Egypt. His dream that one day his brothers will bow down to him has come true. Joseph is now in a position to torment them by accusing them of being spies and threatening that if they do not bring their/his brother Benjamin they will not be able to return and that Shimon, who had been detained by Joseph, would remain a prisoner.
When they finally do return with Benjamin, Joseph prepares a meal for them. In his instructions to the supervisor of his house he tells them to “slaughter an animal and to prepare.”
In this verse it does not really say what Joseph asked the supervisor to prepare. It is assumed that he meant that he should prepare a full meal, but the Torah does not explicitly state what he wanted his servant to prepare.
According to the Midrash the term “preparation” is a code word for the preparations that we make for the Shabbos.
Since we cannot prepare our foods on the Shabbos itself we are compelled to make all of the preparations before the onset of the holy day.
The Midrash suggests that Joseph observed the Shabbos and therefore made sure that his supervisor would have everything prepared for the festive Shabbos meal that he would share with his brothers.
The Day and Meal of Unity
One can derive from this interpretation an immediate lesson:
The meal that Joseph had with his brothers was a prelude to Joseph’s final reconciliation with his brothers. First it was this meal where he sets them up for the ensuing accusation that Benjamin stole his magic goblet. This eventually led to Judah’s bold defense for his brother at which point Joseph broke down and divulged his identity to them, a confession which led to all the brothers’ reunification as a family.
Second, and more importantly, as the commentator Sforno and others maintain, this meal, in which he gave Benjamin five times the amount he gave the other brothers, was the final test to see if his brothers might still harbor any feelings of jealousy to one of them. When the brothers exhibited no jealousy for his preferential treatment of Benjamin Joseph knew that they had erased all of their negative feelings towards him as well. They were now, therefore, ready for the unification process.
In effect, this Shabbos meal can be characterized as the meal of unification where previous jealousies and grudges dissolved.
This is a direct lesson to us about the power of the Shabbos to unify us. Shabbos is referred to in the Zohar as a day of unification in every sense of the word. It is the day, the Zohar says, in which “all realms of anger and severe forces flee from her and vanish.” The spiritual aura of the Shabbos is so powerful that on Shabbos, and specifically during the Shabbos meals, all of the external factors that divide us fall to the wayside and, in their place our inherent spiritual unity deriving from the common source of our souls is on display.
The Eternal Shabbos
The Shabbos meal that we enjoy today is also a metaphor for the ultimate Shabbos of existence, the Messianic Age, when the unity will become permanent. There will be a total rapprochement between all of the different factions of the Jewish community. Indeed, there will also be peace between Israel and all of the nations of the world who, in the words of the Prophet, will serve G-d with “one consent.” The catalyst for this is the preparations we are making now for the future Shabbos. This is alluded to in the words “and to prepare.” It does not say what they were to prepare for because in this undefined silence it is subtly alluding to the ultimate preparatory phase of history which is now.
Why did They Drink?
We can now answer the question commentators ask about the Torah’s description of that meal. “They drank and became drunk with him.” Rashi comments that from the day they sold Joseph neither Joseph nor his brothers drank any wine. This was the first time they had done so since then. Commentators ask why the brothers, who did not realize that they were sitting at the table with Joseph, would drink wine?
In light of the foregoing characterization of that meal as a Shabbos meal we can understand that it was the very aura of Shabbos that inspired them to elicit their deepest feelings of love and unity. Wine, our Sages tell us, reveals our secrets. Their physical drinking of wine was an expression of their spiritual feelings that were finally becoming aroused. These newly exposed feelings engendered a profound and unprecedented sense of unity among the brothers. Their spiritual drinking of the wine made them feel at peace with themselves and with each other to the point that they now felt comfortable enough to again drink wine.
Preparing for the Shabbos: Two Schools of Thought
The Talmud records a dispute between the Sages Shammai and Hillel with regard to the preparations for the Shabbos. Shammai would purchase food on Sunday and select the finest for Shabbos. On Monday he would find something of higher quality and designate that for Shabbos and eat what he had prepared on Sunday. He would repeat this every day, so that whatever he ate during the week was, in effect, a result of his preparation for the Shabbos. In the words of the Talmud, “All his life he ate for the honor of Shabbos.”
Hillel, by contrast, would do everything for the sake of Heaven. He would say, “Blessed is G-d day by day.” He would trust that he would find the best food right before Shabbos.”
The two Sages’ approach to Shabbos reflects two ways of understanding our role in preparing for both the weekly Shabbos and the ultimate Shabbos, the Era of Redemption.
Shammai’s approach is to focus on the goal all the time. Whatever we do any day of the week has to be connected to Shabbos. Shammai is obsessed with the spiritually intoxicating day of Shabbos that is a taste of the future. Hillel, by contrast, lives one day at a time. While Hillel also thought of the Shabbos everyday of the week his focus was on living each day to the fullest. When people are so preoccupied with preparing for a future event they can forget about the daily obligations they have as Jews. And it is precisely when we make the most of each day of the week that we are best prepared for the ultimate Shabbos.
Both approaches are correct.
On the one hand, we must constantly be thinking of the goal, of preparing ourselves for the future Redemption. Particularly now as we get closer to that time everything we do must be permeated with the sense that now is the precisely the time for the preparation of Shabbos.
On the other hand, we must not let our yearning for the future impede our ability to do our job while we are still here in the last moments of exile. Every day must be filled with the study of Torah and fulfillment of the Mitzvos. While we are here in exile our mission is to make wherever we are an extension of the Holy Land of Israel and every moment a Shabbos moment. This we do even as we prepare for the imminent arrival of Moshiach who will transport us into a new era, a Shabbos Era, and bring us back to the Land of Israel in both the literal and spiritual sense.
From the book Light from the Future: Parshas Miketz by Rabbi Heschel Greenberg, published by the Jewish Discovery Center.
