Torah reading for this Shabbat: Genesis 44:16 to 47:27
Haftarah: Ezekiel 37: 15-28
Last week's Torah reading ended when Joseph announces that he will keep Benjamin in Egypt as his slave, the remaining brothers were free to return to their father in Canaan. As this Shabbat's reading begins, Judah steps forward to plead with Joseph. Benjamin, he tells Joseph, is the only son remaining from his father's most beloved wife, as his brother had been killed by beasts. If the remaining brothers return home to tell their father Benjamin is not with them, "he will die, and your servants will send the white head of your servant our father down to Sheol in grief." Judah begs the ruler to let him stay in Egypt as a slave, and let Benjamin return home, "for how can I go back to my father unless the boy is with me? Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father!"
At that point - easily the most dramatic in the Torah and one of the more dramatic moments of ancient literature - Joseph reveals himself to his brother. "I am Joseph, is my father still alive?" He urges his incredulous brothers to hurry home and bring their father down to Egypt. The family prepares to move to Egypt. But then comes this enigmatic sentence, Genesis 46:28: "He [Jacob] had sent Judah ahead of him to Joseph, to point the way before him to Goshen." What does this sentence mean? The brothers had already made two trips to Egypt, and there is not a word in Genesis that would hint that they had gotten lost en route. And how would Judah going ahead have helped Jacob and his sons, following behind, find Goshen? (No GPS's in those days!)
The rabbinic ideology was that, as the Torah is the word of God, dictated to Moses in the Sinai, there is not a single extraneous sentence, not a single extraneous word, not even a single extraneous letter. The Talmud is full of rabbinical debates, arguing the significance of a seemingly extraneous word or even letter - there are numerous debates over the meaning of a seemingly extraneous ve - Hebrew for "and". So, what does this sentence mean?
According to Rashi, Jacob sent his son Judah ahead to Goshen to establish a school, in the words of Rashi (in his Medieval French) "that there should be teaching: to establish for him a house of study, from which teaching would emanate." In Genesis 46: 7, we read that "Jacob and all his offspring with him came to Egypt: he brought with him to Egypt his sons and grandsons, his daughters and granddaughters, all his offspring." And these grandchildren, hopefully they included the girls as well as the boys, needed a school. So we can view this enigmatic sentence, Genesis 46:28, as a commandment that our society, any society, must have schools to educate our young.
Unfortunately, for the too many Republicans, in far too many states, school budgets are just another part of their hated government that needs to be cut, and after you have cut, cut more, and then cut even more. Never mind our children, because if we don't starve our public schools, we will be passing down our national and state debts to our children! Their attitude is very un-Jewish, and, I would hazard to say, un-Christian and un-Islamic too.
Shabbat Shalom, and Happy New Year!