Nehar Deah

Vayyiggash

Judah before Joseph: Trembling and Roaring

Our parasha (weekly Torah portion), the parasha beginning with “And Judah approached (vayyiggash) him”, starts at the climax of the epic biblical tale of Joseph and his brothers: the cup has just been found in Benjamin’s sack and Joseph is demanding that he be handed over to be his slave. At this stage Judah, who made himself guarantor for the boy (Bereishit 43:8-10), enters the stage and makes his lengthy speech which eventually leads to Joseph revealing himself to his brothers.

This tension filled saga, as with many biblical sagas, is retold in the language of the early peytanim (liturgical poets), who regularly composed a new piyut (liturgical poem) for each Sabbath and festival, according to the Torah reading in the synagogue on that occasion. It seems that from the earliest years of the Common Era, it became customary for a peytan to stand in the synagogue and retell, in poetical paraphrase, the contents of the Torah reading of that Sabbath (or festival). This poetical repetition of the biblical story displayed it from new angles, some of them based on themes from the Midrash and some of them due to the unique poetical style of each peytan.

With regard to Judah’s speech in our parasha, some peytanim turned his speech into a dramatic dialogue between himself and Joseph, with the statements made by them ranging widely from the original biblical account. Other peytanim did not try to paraphrase the speech but rather described the event with additions to cover gaps in the biblical account, mainly in an area that the Torah often is very brief about – the emotions of the main characters.

When we study this parasha closely, we see in fact that the Torah does not tell us anything of what Judah and the other brothers felt when suddenly accused by Joseph of stealing the goblet. Emotions are, it seems, meant to be learnt from actions, for example tearing of garments, and from what is said. The Torah does not reveal whether these things are done out of fear and apprehension, from bitter despair or maybe from anger, when they see that they are not being accused falsely (and they must have reached this understanding when they saw that their money was also returned to their sacks with the goblet). These things that the Torah abbreviates are elaborated by the peytan Yannai, in a piyut written for the Sabbath on which we read “And Judah approached (vayyiggash) him” and here are the first three verses of the piyut:

Trembling seized the tribes of the simple one
When the man replied to them,
Requested the goblet from them
They were concerned when they heard and saw him

He began and completed and found
And the boy was taken as a slave.
This made his guarantor, saddened -
He pleaded and was abased himself in the face of the officer.

The lion gather his wrath,
“May my mouth converse with you!” – he conversed with his wisdom,
Like a young lion he roared at him.
And the ox was not frightened by his growling.

The first verse deals with the responses of the brothers, sons of Jacob (who is referred to as “a simple man” [Bereishit 25:27]), to the actions of the “man”, a trustee of the house of Joseph, who is sent after them: the finding of the goblet and their return to Joseph’s house. The verse opens with the trembling that seized them (and the verse “trembling seized them: [Tehillim 48:7] is in fact interpreted by Midrash Rabbah [93:2] as being about the brothers standing before Joseph and their focus on Judah who is arguing for them) and ends with their growing concern.

In the first two lines of the second verse, the peytan describes very briefly what the man does with the brothers. The three verbs “began and completed and found” – summarize the story of the search for the goblet (according to: “And they searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest and the goblet was found in Benjamin’s sack” [Bereishit 44:12]), but in the piyut the goblet is not important, but rather its consequences, the taking of Benjamin as a slave, therefore the next sentence is: “And the boy (Benjamin) was taken as a slave”.

From here Yannai moves to the story found in our parasha, Judah’s response. The fact that it was specifically Judah who pleaded for Benjamin is explained by the reference to him as “his guarantor” – it was Judah that stood as guarantor for Benjamin when taking him from their father (Bereishit 43:9). Judah’s feelings are described explicitly here only in one word: “[he was] saddened” but the submissive nature of his words is apparent also from the verbs in the next line “pleaded and abased [himself]” whereas Joseph is described as an “officer” – a ruler who stands unmoving as though the pleas are not moving him at all.

In the third verse is different. Judah is suddenly known as a “lion” – a designation that is actually based on the blessing Jacob gave him (“a lion cub is Judah” [Bereishit 49:9]), and displays a strength radically different to the abasement and pleading seen up to now. Actually the lion roars as a young lion should and the emotional connotations change suddenly to ones of anger and wrath. Judah is revealed as someone who speaks with wisdom, but nonetheless with threatening tones and barely controlled anger. At the end of the verse the peytan returns to Joseph, described as an “ox” (a reference to Moses’ blessing to Joseph: “the firstling of his herd, majesty is his” [Devarim 33:17]) who stands steadfast in the face of threats and is not frightened of the lion growling at him.

From where does Yannai get the threatening, warlike overtones of Judah’s words? For this too we find Midrashic sources. Along with the Midrashim of pleading and abasement, there is Midrash Rabbah (93:7) which contains descriptions of an angry Yehuda. Who roars with a loud voice and threatens to destroy Egypt. It seems that the picture of the tribes of Israel standing shaking and submissive before the ruler of Egypt, was not acceptable to some of the Midrashim and they altered it to a warlike confrontation, allowing Judah and the brothers to express their great strength; not knowing that the Egyptian ruler who stood before them was none other than their brother and one kick from Manasseh son of Joseph was enough to tell them that the “enemy” stood before them was no less brave than them.

Yannai does not develop the warlike angle and only hints at it in the tone of the picture painted of Yehuda as the roaring lion. It is another peytan, Rabbi Shimon HaCohen Magas, who lived in Israel in the 6th – 7th century, who opens his piyut he wrote for this parasha specifically with a reference to Judah’s anger and threats, which affect the whole of Egypt:

The lion awoke his wrath,
The flocks feared his growling,
He prostrated himself – and his terror was tumultuous,
They were silent for two days from his berating …

Judah (“the lion”) awakes his wrath, calls out in a loud voice and succeeds in frightening Egypt (“the flocks [of sheep]”), to the extent that for two days it is rendered helpless by fear. The biblical story gets a sharp change of direction here and the atmosphere which reigns here is clearly different from that of the simple reading of the Bible.

From these two examples – and many more similar ones cane be brought – we learn of the authority of the peytanim who retell the well known Biblical stories, in order to illuminate them from different angles, some of which are unexpected and surprising, but always fascinating and engaging.

Professor Shulamit Elitzur
Hebrew Literature Department

Symbols – The Lion as a Symbol of the Zionist Movement

The image of a lion appears in many symbols, statues and flags designed by Jews in modern times, both in general and more specifically within the Zionist movement. The lion invokes an entire system of complex significance drawn from many sources. One of the sources is a Jewish tradition, which has its basis in the Bible, where the lion is the symbol of the tribe of Judah (“a lion cub is Judah” - Bereishit 49:9), the tribe of King David and therefore a symbol of domination and leadership. Another source of inspiration is modern Western culture, which drew on Babylonian and Greek sources, in which the lion appears as a symbol of bravery and royalty. The Zionist movement which built it’s ideology on Jewish-Biblical thought on one hand and modern nationalistic principles and ideals on the other hand, found in the symbolism of the lion a comprehensive blend of both of these. In fact, the lion appears already on the flag of the First Zionist Congress, where it is depicted as standing in the middle of a Magen David (Star of David).

The lion appears as a symbol of bravery, for example, in the traditions of Bar Kochba and the story of his struggle in captivity with a bloodthirsty lion, is well known. This tradition is first found in children’s stories of the Haskala (Jewish Enlightenment movement) in the 19th century, who saw the story of Bar Kochba and specifically his battle with the lion, as a story of national heroism, an attempt to achieve political independence. One of the phrases that is well known to the Hebrew reader in Israel, which gives secular nationalistic significance to the Bar Kochba story, is Levin Kipnis’ poem, in which he tells of the battle with the lion and also about riding on it as a way of showing national victory:

One day a happening happened, a sad happening
Bar Kochba fell into captivity and was placed in a cage
[…]
But know how brave and strong Bar Kochba,
Jumped on the lion and flew like an eagle,
Over mountain and valley he sailed, and the flag of freedom in his hand,
The whole national clapped hands for him Bar Kochba heidad (hooray)!

One of the most well known statues, where the lion is symbolic of bravery, stands at Tel Chai. The statue, “The Roaring Lion” – which was placed there at the end of the 1920’s by Aharon Melnikoff, over the graves of those who fell attempting to defend the place – had an important part in defining and bequeathing to the nation, the tradition of the heroism of Tel Chai. The lion’s roar symbolizes both the mourning over spilt blood, blood which symbolizes rebirth of the nation, and also the long awaited nationhood.

The lion was chosen as the official symbol of Jerusalem in 1950 by a committee established for this purpose. The emblem depicts olive branches, symbolizing a desire to achieve peace and a lion in an attacking pose. In contrast to many other coats of arms, in which the lion holds in his front paws objects which lessen the threatening nature of the image (such as a shield), the emblem of Jerusalem shows only war and bravery. The lion also symbolizes the connection with Jewish royalty, the house of David, which reigned in Jerusalem. Here again we see how the symbol of the lion combines past adventure and the spirit of modern Zionism.

Liturgical Poetry (Piyut) – The Peytan Yannai

The peytan (liturgical poet), Yannai, is mentioned only a few times in different contexts in Medieval Jewish literature, but initially no-one could identify exactly who Yannai was, when he lived and what piyutim where his. During the 19th century, the researcher Yom Tov Lipman Tzuntz found the first evidence of Yannai’s piyutim. He discovered an ancient manuscript from which he proved that the piyut that appears in the Passover Haggada (in the Ashkenazi tradition) “Back them you mostly worked miracles at night” – a piyut that is better known by its chorus, “And it came to pass at midnight” – was in fact one of the works of Yannai. Despite this discovery, Yannai and his piyutim remained a mystery.

In 1896 the Cairo Geniza was discovered – a collection of over 200,000 pages of various compositions, in Hebrew, Arabic and other languages, which where stored in one of the synagogues of ancient Cairo – and in it Yannai was discovered in all his glory. A wealth of piyutim were now available to researchers and from them Yannai’s greatness became apparent and his works spread widely, leading to many people giving him the honorary name “The Rabbi of All Peytanim”.

It is clear that Yannai wrote piyutim that were primarily meant to be read in the Sabbath and festival morning services. In the centre of the Morning Prayer there is the central Jewish prayer – the Amida (“Standing” prayer), also known as the “Shemoneh Esreh” (the “Eighteen” prayer). This prayer is said twice in the morning service, once in a whisper by each individual and then once out loud by the person leading the prayers, the Chazan (cantor). Today, the chazan’s repetition is almost identical to that of the individual, but in the times of Yannai it was customary to formulate the repetition each time anew, by reciting piyutim (i.e. sections of poetry) in place of the customary prose form prayers. In this way the congregation which attends the synagogue is exposed each time to new piyutim they have not yet heard and the recitation out loud is something dynamic, varied and arousing interest. Yannai composed separate and different piyutim for each of the Sabbaths and also for festivals and special occasions, using the Torah portion for that Sabbath or festival to construct his piyutim. As a result of this, we can also view Yannai as a commentator and homiletical interpreter of the text.

There is no doubt that Yannai lived in the land of Israel, the birthplace of the piyut, but his timescale has not been fully established. A careful study of his piyutim shows that he does not know of Islam and from this we can tell the he preceded the conquest of Israel by Moslems in the first third of the 7th century. On the other hand, Yannai’s works contain sharp statements against Rome and Christianity, which he refers to as “Edom”, one of the names of the biblical Esau who became, in our ancient literature, a symbol of Rome and Christianity. Yannai attacks the beliefs and ideas of the Christian religion and even mocks them and then from another viewpoint he painfully describes the “Wicked Kingdom” of the Jewish residents of the land. Taking all this into consideration, he is generally regarded as having lived in the 6th century.