Vayeshev 1989

Today is Shabbos Chanukah.  The rabbis have arranged that always around Shabbos Chanukah we read the Torah portion Vayeshev.  Why is it that the rabbis have arranged that we should read the Torah portion Vayeshev around Chanukah?  Also, if we look carefully in the Torah portion Vayeshev we will see that it all revolves around a cloak, around an outer garment. The rabbis say that because Yaacov spent 4 shekels more for a coat for Joseph all the problems in his family arose all because of 4 shekels. Joseph was given a special coat, a Kosones Paseem, which really in Hebrew means a "striped coat“, and because he receive this Kosones Paseem, this coat in English of many colors, he was hated by his brothers and a whole series of events ensued which ended in them all going down to Egypt.  Joseph suffered, Yaacov suffered, and the brothers suffered.
If we will notice this whole imagery of a cloak or a garment is repeated throughout this sedra.  When Joseph goes to see the welfare of his brothers in Schem and he finds that they have moved to Doson, when they see him they begin to plot his death.  They, however, eventually do not kill him but sell him to a caravan of Yeeshmaleem who bring him down to Egypt, but the first they do when they see him is strip him of this cloak, of this coat.  What do they do with this coat?  They tear it and dip it in goat's blood.  Goat's blood is very similar to human blood, and then they present this coat to their father, Yaacov.  They do not say that they have harmed Joseph or that they had heard that Joseph has been enslaved or that they found Joseph's body.  Instead, they tricked their father into saying that Joseph is dead.  They said, "Recognize, please, the coat of you son.  Is it his or not?“  It is Jacob who pronounces that Joseph must be dead because he said, "This is the coat of my son.  A wild animal must have eaten him. Joseph is torn.  Joseph is devoured." The same trick is played on Yaacov

by his sons that he played on his own father.  He, too, dressed up in his brotherfs clothes, and he, too, employed goat's products, only in his case goat skin, to trick his father.
This whole image of the cloak is repeated later on, too, when we find how Yehuda is tricked.  Yehuda marries off one of his eldest sons to a girl named Tamar.  His eldest son dies, and then his second son marries her, as was the custom in those days when a woman dies without children, he also dies.  It is now time for the third son to marry her.  However, he is still a minor.  When he comes of age Yehuda is hesitant to have him marry Tamar, but she is determined to become pregnant by this family one way or another.  After Judah's own wife dies Judah goes to shear the sheep.
There he notices a prostitute on the road and he goes to her.  He does not recognize that this is his own daughter-in-law because she had removed the garments of her widowhood and she was covered with a garment.  She covered herself with a veil.  Again, a garment comes into play here.  Later on, of course, when Judah finds out that his daughter-in-law is pregnant he brings her to trial, but she, of course, proves that he is the father. She does it in a very indirect way.  Yehuda takes upon himself the responsibility for his own acts, and, therefore, because he did not try to make a cover-up he becomes the leader of the Jewish people because he knows how to accept responsibility.
We learn later on, too, Joseph is involved, too, with an incident with a garment.  Joseph is found very attractive by the wife of his master, Potifar, and she implores him to come to bed with her, but he refuses. One day, though, when he is alone with her he does come into the house, and it seems that he is going to give in but at the last minute he refuses to sleep with her, but she grabs hold of his garment.  He, though, runs and flees outside but she takes hold of the garment and then accuses him

of trying to rape her.  Joseph is sent to prison.  The same imagery of a coverup, etc., can be found in the dreams that Joseph interprets for the butcher and the baker.  This whole imagery of a cover, of a garment, of a cloak is the underpinning of this whole Torah portion.
How, though, does this fit in with Chanukah?  In fact, you know in Hebrew the word for fftraitor“ is also "Bogad".  A "Bogaid“ is a traitor.  When a person acts treacherously he Bogad.  The whole concept of Beged is to cover oneself up, to be something one is not, to cloak one's true intent, and also to blind the eyes.  A cloak prevents us from seeing something that is already there.  The problem with Yaacov and his family was that they were cloaking their true intentions.  Things are not always the way they seem.  People have to be able to plumb the depths to see exactly the way things are.  The brothers made a tragic mistake.  They thought that because Yaacov loved Joseph he also could not love them.  They were blinded by the cloak.  Joseph, too, made a tragic mistake.  He thought because his father gave him a cloak that, therefore, he was the heir apparent, and, therefore, everyone would want to do his will and everyone would be happy for him and everyone would be pleased to hear about his dreams. He could not see beyond his own ambition.  He was insensitive to the feelings of others.  We see, too, that the whole image of a cloak is to teach us that things are not always what they seem, and it is very important that we always plumb the depths of things so we see things the way they really are.
When it came to Chanukah we have this same lesson.  What is the lesson? The lesson is that the Maccabees were able to rebel and succeed not just because they were right but because they understood that the Selucid Empire was a very weak empire.  It was composed of many different groups who were

not at all compatible and that they were ruled at the top by a very small elite, and that it would be possible to jar Israel loose from such a kingdom. Later on when the zealots under Bar Kochba tried the same thing against Rome they met disaster because Rome was a country of millions of people who were united in purpose.  It was not an empire controlled by just a few little people.  It is very important that we understand, what we are doing in life.  That is, of course, why people like detective stories so much.  They like detective stories because the person to whom all the clues point is usually the person who never did it.  Usually it is somebody who we would never suspect in the beginning who did it, but his motives are hidden from us, are cloaked from us.
People today are astounded by what is going on in eastern Europe, but actually if people would have looked closer earlier perhaps they would have understood why it is that the whole communist empire in eastern Europe collapsed almost overnight.  The reason for it was that it was Russian troops that made communism viable in eastern Europe.  People only accepted communism at the point of a bayonet, at the point of a gun.  When Gorbachev announced the Russian army would no longer support these regimes then the regimes collapsed immediately like a house of cards.  They were not based at all on any popular support.  Romania is a different case.  In Romania there have not been any Russian troops since 1968, and Chauseku had support among the people, not a lot of people but he had some support and, therefore, a civil war broke out.  It is difficult many times to determine events because it is not guns, it is not intelligence services, it is not secret police which actually determine whether a government can be sustained. It requires the will of the people.  The people have to believe that they are getting a good deal under this particular type of government, and when

the people stop believing in the government then the government is ripe to fall.  In fact, the same thing happened in tzarist Russia.  In tzarist Russia the people stopped believing in a monarchy.  Nobody believed in it.  Even the secret police did not believe in it, so Russia, when there was a little bit of problems with the first World War and when there was an opportunity to seize power, power was seized by Lenin, a German agent, and Stalin, who actually worked for the tzarfs secret police.  That is why Stalin was so cruel many times because he wanted to make sure that the fact that he worked for the tzar's police was never revealed.  When the support of the people is not there and when there is not an outside force upholding the people the whole situation deteriorates rapidly.
The same thing “append with orthodoxes in America in the 1930fs and 194.0's.
Ninety percent of the people, and in big cities ninety-nine percent of
the people, were affiliated with orthodoxy.  We had big shuls and huge
crowds on Rosh Hashonna and Yom Kippur, but the people no longer really
believed in it.  They were no longer willing to sacrifice for it.  They
were no longer willing to do those things which were necessary in order
to sustain it, so after the second World War much of it collapsed, but
now a new group has come in who really believe in it, and, therefore, its
strength is reviving.  When it comes to anything that is based uopn the
belief of the people, then you need the widespread belief of the people
who are willing to sacrifice for it, who are willing to give up other things
for the sake of their religion or their beliefs.  In Latin America today
there are many people who do not believe at all in democracy.  They only
believe in wealth and maintaining their own position.  Therefore, it is
very hard to keep democracy in Latin America, and if you think of it, democracy
is really a hard thing to believe in, that a drunk on skid row has the
same vote as a college professor, but we know that it is a system that

works and we believe in it here, and we are willing to fight for it and to make sacrifices for it.  That is why it is able to endure.
Many times things are not the way they seem.  In China the Great Wall was a perfect defense mechanism.  The Wall of China was never breached, but China was conquered many times, because when the Monguls came all the did was bribe the guards, or the guards were dissatisfied with the Chinese system and let them in.  It is not guns alone that is going to assure that a regime exists, but it is the belief of the people in the regime.  It is a belief in a system, no matter how imperfect, which allows it to endure. It is very important that we know the way things really are and not the way they seem to be.
The problem with Joseph and his brothers was that things seemed to be what they were not.  Joseph thought he had the admiration of his brothers. He thought that they liked it that he was chosen to be the-heir apparent. He was not sensitive to them.  The brothers did not realize that just because Jacob gave him a coat it did not mean that he did not love them also. Things are not always what they seem.  Joseph later was sent to prison because things were not what they seemed.  True, his mistress had his coat but it was not the way she said it.  He did not come to rape.  Things are not always the way they seem.
I am reminded of the story they tell about a person in Russia who went and stood in line for 3 hours for meat, and when he finally got to the counter the butcher said, "I am sorry.  We have no more meat.  I just sold the last piece.“ Oh, did he get mad and screamed up and down.  He called everybody names, the government names, the communist party names, Gorbachev names, everybody names.  The fellow said, "Stop it, or I will call a policeman.

He would not stop, though, so the butcher called a policeman.  The policeman came up to him and said, "Listen, three months ago I would have shot you on the spot.  Go home and don’t say these things.” The man went home and he looked at his wife and said, "You know, things are really terrible in Russia.  Not only is there a meat shortage, there is also an ammunition shortage." Things are not always what they seem.  Let us always before we rush to judgment evaluate things carefully, and let us never be fooled by outward trappings.  They many times do not tell the true story.  The Maccabees were able to discern that the outward trappings of the Selucid Empire were false.  They did not represent real power, and, therefore, they were able to succeed. On those instances, though, where the outward trappings represent real power we have to tread very carefully.  Let us all hope that we will realize what is real and what is not real so that the Masiach will come.