Welcome to our special Shovavim series on Anava.
We're going to go through pesukim that show how the Galut was accepted by the various beholders (for, as we said yesterday, Galut is in the eye of the beholder).
וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן: /Yaakov dwelled in the land that his father's sojourned in. Rashi famously says
ביקש יעקב לישב בשלוה קפץ עליו רוגזו של יוסף:
Yaakov Avinu wanted to sit in serenity, and the anger and disturbance and turmoil of Yosef jumped upon him.
The famous question is, What did Yaakov Avinu do wrong? He wanted to wanted sit in shalva/serenity. He wanted sit and learn. What's wrong with that? The answer is, We're in Galut. And in Galut, you have to feel like you're in Galut. Yaakov Avinu didn't do anything wrong. But the way he was setting himself up, he wasn't cognizant of Galut.
The pasuk uses two terms-Vayeshev Yaakov, whereas for his father it says,
Gureh Aviv. One is a dweller and one is a sojourner.
(Like Avraham Avinu says, Ger V'Toshav Anochi Imachem. Rashi says it's a contradiction. And he says, Really, I'm a ger. I'm a sojourner. I don't own the land, but if you don't give it to me, then I'll exercise my Toshav rights)
So that's the contrast of Ger and Toshav.
וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן:Yaakov Avinu felt like a dweller, a permanent citizen in the land where his father felt like a sojourner.
Yitzhak Avinu was a Ger, so he was okay.
The Chatam Sofer on Bereshit 37,1 says that Eretz Yisrael is called ארץ העברים Eretz HaIvrim/ the land of the Hebrews, but we see that Yaakov Avinu refers to it as Eretz Canaan, the land of Canaan. What doesn't he call it Eretz HaIvrim/The land of the Hebrews? The Chatam Sofer says that he called it Eretz Canaan because he wanted to remind them that We don't own this land. We are only guests. It's not ours yet. Yaakov Avinu was trying. He said, What am I supposed to do? I have a yeshiva, I'm learning, everything's fine, but וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב בְּאֶרֶץ מְגוּרֵי אָבִיו how am I going stop from feeling like we belong here? I'll call it Eretz Canaan to remember that it's not my land. I'm just a guest. Furthermore, the Rama MiPano, one of the great Kabbalists, in his essay called Meah Kesita chapter 30, says that the root of the word כנען isכנעה which is humility. So when we're in Eretz Yisrael, we have to be humble. We can be humble through Galut or can be humble by simply humbling ourselves to Hashem. The Rama MiPano adds something unbelievable- the numerical value of the wordכנען Canaan is 190, because the 190 years of Yitzhak Avinu and Yaakov before the point of ביקש יעקב לישב בשלוה werein Canaan, which means humble. And because they were humble, they were able to subtract the 190 years. In the Hagaddah shel Pesach, the pesukim of Bikurim describe what was going on:
וַיָּגָר שָׁם./They sojourned there
מְלַמֵּד שֶׁלֹא יָרַד יַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ לְהִשְׁתַּקֵּעַ בְּמִצְרַיִם אֶלָּא לָגוּר שָׁם
/This teaches us that Yaakov didn't go to get himself entrenched, but rather, to be a sojourner
/ וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֶל פַּרְעֹה, As the brothers tell Paroah לָגוּר בָּאָרֶץ בָּאנוּ, כִּי אֵין מִרְעֶה לַצֹּאן אֲשֶׁר לַעֲבָדֶיךָ, כִּי כָבֵד הָרָעָב בְּאֶרֶץ כְּנָעַן. /There's a famine, we have no grazing.
וְעַתָּה יֵשְׁבוּ נָא עֲבָדֶיךָ בְּאֶרֶץ גֹּשֶן
And therefore we want to dwell in Goshen. So yes, we're going to be dwellers, but in Goshen, in the ghetto.
The Meshech Chochma 26,44 says, Yaakov is teaching us a lesson for the generations, for how we are supposed to act: We're supposed to realize we don't belong here, and know that we're not going to become entrenched here. We're not citizens. He says, that's why Yosef and the brothers all said their bones should be taken out -to remind them that this is not where we belong.
Similarly, Rav Yaakov Kaminetzsky says, that's why Yaakov Avinu wanted his bones to be taken out. And that's why Yaakov spoke about where Rachel was buried when he spoke to Ephraim and Menashe. Why did he have to mention that? To let them know This is not where you belong. Grandma is buried back in Eretz Canaan; this is not our land.
Now look at this unbelievable Shem MiShemuel on Parashat Vayechi in the year 5472: He's bothered that when Yaakov Avinu dies, the brothers fall in front of Yosef and say, "We're slaves." Slaves? What's going on? And he says something unbelievable. They knew when ever Yaakov Avinu died, the shibut was supposed to start. They knew Middat HaDin as upon them. They knew there would be be all kinds of issues. But they knew that any time a person has a challenge, the whole goal is to humble yourself. Therefore they said, Why should we be subjugated by the Egyptians to cause us to be humbled? Let us bring about self- humiliation! Let us go Yosef and humble ourselves to him! Humbling ourselves to Yosef will make us fulfill the Galut!
As we said, Galut is in the eye of the beholder. He goes on to say something fascinating. Eliezer Eved Avraham, the Midrash says, in Bereshit chapter 60. Who's an Eved Maskil, a wise slave? What was so wise about it? He said, "I come from Canaan. I'm going to be cursed anyway. Let me at least be enslaved by Abraham Avinu!" That's brilliance. You have to have it, so you do it in the best possible way. That was their idea. By humbling ourselves to him, they wouldn't need to have come onto it. And it worked.
This final piece is a lesson for everybody:וזה לימוד גדול לכל איש להכנע תחת רצון השי"ת, ובזה יסיר מעליו כל הצרות וכל הפורעניות ולא יצטרך להכנעה אחרת
Humble yourself to all. And this will remove (from him) all the problems, and all the punishments. You won't need to have any other cause to humble yourself. You're not going to need the building department, the IRS, the lawyers, the doctors, whatever it may be. You won't need that anymore. Why? Because you fulfilled it on your own. Rav Gedalia Schor, in Parashat Shemot, points out that it says the tribe of Levi did not go into Galut. This was because the tribe of Levi committed themselves to Torah. They got their Galut through the Torah. What a fascinating concept- that it says that the Jewish people worked with chomer/mud, with Bilvenim /bricks, and avodat Hasadeh/all the work in the fields and says the Zohar, the chomer/mud to kal v 'chomer, one of the Talmudic eruditions that we use to learn out things in pesukim.
He also says Bilvenim/bricks refers to Binyan Av, when I apply one law to another. And finally, Avodat Sadeh/ the outside work refers to a Brita, which is not in the Mishna, it's outside. What was the Zohar talking about, connecting work in the fields with Gemara learning? He answers, Yes. They fulfilled their Galut through the learning, they fulfilled it by humbling themselves through their learning. And he quotes Rav Gedalia Schorr who says these exact words of this Midrash, "I'd rather be a slave in this house than a slave someplace else. I'm going to suffer anyway. Let me humble myself through Torah." That is this unbelievable concept. As we go through Galut and as we endure the challenges- it's all in the how we view it.
BeH We will continue on with these pesukim in the in the history of Yetziat Mitzrayim.