Parshas Mikeitz 5781
Yosef may be alive and well, but his father has no idea. The pain he endures is immense, and won’t subside until father and son reunite in next week’s parsha. What did Yaakov ever do to deserve the pain of his son being taken from and and presumed dead?
Chazal explain that Yosef’s absence from Yaakov’s life is a reflection of Yaakov’s absence from his own parents’ side. The number of years that Yaakov goes without seeing his son corresponds to the amount of time it took Yaakov to return to his parents’ home following his marriage to Rachel, the purpose for taking leave of his parents in the first place.
Famously, there is a fourteen year period that goes unaccounted for, the fourteen years that Chazal explain Yaakov spent in the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever en route to Lavan’s home. If Yaakov is punished for his lack of kibbud av v’eim toward his parents, why is this fourteen year period not included in that punishment? Learning Torah may be a fine enterprise, indeed, but how can it justify an abdication from being present for one’s parents and providing them with due kibbud av va’eim? A parent’s request that the garbage be taken out or that shoes be put away is not an invitation to sit down with a sefer, no matter how noble the latter activity may otherwise be.
Rav Yaakov Kaminetsky suggests that an alternate parable would actually be more accurate in this case. Consider not a request to take out the garbage, but a request from a father for his son to purchase a kosher esrog for him. In this case, a certain amount of study—enough so that the son is sufficiently proficient in the requisite halachos—is obviously presumed by the father. Every word studied is not only a fulfillment of Talmud Torah, but of honoring his father as well.
This, posits Rav Yaakov, is why Yaakov is not punished for his time in the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever. With the directive that he go to Lavan’s home to find a suitable spouse, Yitzchak and Rivkah presume that some measure of spiritual inoculation will be necessary for their son to be insulated from Lavan’s influences. Fulfilling his parents’ wishes by spending time in the company of Lavan, demands that he first prepare himself through intensive Torah study.
Consider how remarkable this is not only from the vantage point of Yaakov himself, but from his parents. There is no shaming of their son over the fact that he is not already capable of entering into a spiritually hostile environment, no shock or disappointment over the need for yet further pursuit of Torah before entering an ethical lion’s den. At a far younger age, Yaakov had already been branded as the Ish tam yosheiv ohalim—the wholesome one who sits in tents, which Chazal interpret as a reference to his penchant for Torah study. Yaakov’s parents do not maintain unreasonable expectations that this Yosheiv Ohalim should already be quite ready for the harsh realities of the outside world. If he needs more time, then let him have it.
A colleague recently shared with me the unfortunate case of a teenage girl who had fallen into some damaging and dangerous internet habits. Discussing her challenges with a trusted teacher, she was given the advice to ask her parents to install a filter on her phone to act as a curb against her habits. A reasonable and responsible request, without the need to embarrass herself by fully coming clean. Sadly, her parents balked at the idea. It’s an added expense and an unnecessary one, they reasoned. Their daughter has spent ample time in a frum environment and has absorbed well over a decade of Torah education. “You’ll be fine, honey. Just make the right choices.”
When it comes to physical safety, we understand the value of avoiding dangerous situations. Playing in heavy traffic and simply avoiding cars is not the sort of allowance we would ever grant our children. Being strong enough to get hit by a car and walking away unscathed is an even more ludicrous expectation. Yet too often, spiritual danger is viewed on a different scale altogether. We expect amazing feats of resilience in the spiritual realm that we never would in the physical one.
The most chiseled muscles will fall victim to an 18 wheeler barreling down the road at 60 miles per hour. Even well-developed moral fortitude can fall prey to immensely tempting stimuli. We must be humble enough to recognize that the chinuch we offer our children falls short of the atmosphere in which Yaakov became the Ish tam yosheiv ohalim. And we must be astute enough to realize that the challenges posed by Lavan are very much part of our world. Indeed, they’re available via hi-speed wifi. If resilience is lower and temptations are still present, it should be no wonder that the rate of failure is staggering.
If given the choice, we would opt for our kids to not socialize with the troublemakers and the bad influences. Indeed, we all take steps in our parenting to try and discourage those relationships and detach them from the wrong kinds of peers. But what of the influences that are ever-present in their pockets and on devices in their bedrooms? Are we taking the critical steps to create a bulwark against the Lavans that crop up in those areas?
Admitting that human beings—both adults and children—are endowed with limited spiritual bandwidth doesn’t make us failures as parents. It simply makes us Yitzchak and it makes us Rivkah. People who are astute enough to know the realities of human frailties and are bold enough to do something about it.