Rabbi Roodyn

The climax of this week’s sedra is without a doubt the reconciliation of Yosef and his brothers.

The Torah tells us that things got to a point where Yosef could no longer hold back, he sends everyone else out of the room and reveals his identity to them. What happened? Why was he suddenly unable to keep up the pretence any longer? He had no compunction framing them, accusing them, imprisoning some of them and suddenly it’s all over and they are in total shock, the brothers didn’t see it coming. What changed?

The answer jumps out from the text itself.

בראשית מ”ד:כ”ב כִּי עַבְדְּךָ עָרַב אֶת הַנַּעַר מֵעִם אָבִי לֵאמֹר אִם לֹא אֲבִיאֶנּוּ אֵלֶיךָ וְחָטָאתִי לְאָבִי כָּל הַיָּמִים:

Because your servant took responsibility for the youth from my father saying, ‘If I do not bring him to you then I will have sinned to my father for all time.’

The operative term here is arav, he took responsibility as a guarantor. Yosef sees their brotherly love and sense of duty towards each other for the first time. It seems to him that they have finally turned around and learnt the lesson from the sale of Yosef all those years ago. If the sale of Yosef came from a sense of division, its tikkun, rectification comes from a devoted commitment to each other. Once he saw them behaving as brothers once ought to, he could no longer keep the mask on and had to reveal himself.

But it goes deeper:

The use of the term arav is highly significant as it has multiple connotations.

Firstly when one assumes responsibility for someone else they become an arev. This can be true financially, a guarantor on a loan is called an arev. But also religiously. The midrash says:

שכל ישראל נקראו נפש אחת… ואם חטא אחד מהם – כולם ערבים זה בזה. למה הדבר דומה? לבני אדם שהיו באין בספינה, נטל אחד מקדח והתחיל קודח תחתיו. אמרו לו: שוטה! אתה קודח תחתיך, והמים נכנסין וכולן אבודין!

Or as we would say ‘we’re all in the same boat’.

This concept has a halachik application as well, If I have made kiddush on Friday night and someone else comes in who hasn’t yet heard kiddush and doesn’t know how to make it, I can make it again, and again and again. How so? Surely it’s a bracha levatala? The answer is no it’s not, because of arvus, I am responsible to ensure that he or she hears kiddush, or in other words, my mitzvah of kiddush is incomplete until every Jew in the world has heard kiddush this shabbos!

Arvus is far more than being a guarantor, when you study for semicha you need to learn the laws of forbidden mixtures, called taaruvos. A ta’aroves is a mixture, so Kol Yisrael arevim Ze la zeh means we are all mixed up together, we are one body. Klal yisrael is essence is one.

This is the realisation that Yehuda comes to when he says, avdecha arav es hanaar. He realises that we are all parts of one whole and once Yosef hears that, he just can’t keep it together any longer and has to reunite with his brothers.

And Arev has another meaning, ‘sweet’, as it says in Shir Hashirim, כי קוליך ערב. There is nothing sweeter than being a part of a whole that has a common purpose.

This is what we mean by achdus, normally people who speak about achdus, are all happy to have unity as long as it’s under them, or as long as everyone is that same … as them!

But unity doesn’t really mean that we have to be the same, we don’t even say it the same way, is it achdut or achdus?!

In truth the times when we feel most together, are not when we put our differences aside, rather we unify around a common purpose and feel part of something bigger. You feel meu’rav, mixed in with a greater whole.

Let’s cast our minds back a month, without getting political there was a palpable sense of unity in the Anglo Jewish community, there was as real sense of tension, apprehension and concern regarding who would stand at the door of Number 10 and what the implications would be for us as Jews and as proud supporters of Medinat Yisrael.  We didn’t all become the same, the Orthodox didn’t become Reform and Reform didn’t become Orthodox, but how often is it that the Jewish Tribune and the Jewish Chronicle shared the same messages in their editorials? We united around a common cause, we were meurav zeh ba zeh.a

We still don’t know what the future will bring, but it would be such a shame for us to lose that sense of communal cohesion, of togetherness, of focussing on that which unites us rather than the issues that divide us.

This week we have an opportunity to hold on to that. Tuesday is Asarah Be Teves. Whether you are physically or mentally able to fast or not, it should still be a day of reflection. The Rambam write that this is the real goal of a fast day, to open our hearts, to feel the pain of the Jewish People. It’s a time to identify with the trauma and pain of a Chanuka party in Monsey, of a supermarket in Jersey City, of tzaros around the world.

And then on Tuesday night the celebrations of the siyum hashas which already started in the Metlife stadium with 90,000 people (and one where’s Wally) will continue in Wembley Arena. Whether or not you will be able to attend, have a lechayim for this momentous occasion because this is Klal Yisrael’s simcha.

Kol Yisrael Arevim: By feeling each other’s pain and celebrating each other’s successes, we show that we are part of something so much bigger. And yes, we are so much stronger together.