Parshat Vayigash - Some Questions Are Better Than Their Answers

As educators, we are taught to encourage our students to question, think deeply and not to take everything at face value. There are some questions that are better than their answers. In this week’s parsha, I believe we find one such example. The parsha describes the story of Yaakov and Yosef being reunited. After years of thinking that Yosef is dead, Yaakov is told that Yosef is alive and he travels to Egypt to meet him. Imagine the scene, the emotion, the excitement. When they finally see each other, the Torah says,

וירא אליו ויפל על צואריו ויבך על צואריו עוד (מו:כט)

According to most commentaries, this means that Yosef saw Yaakov, he fell on his neck and wept. Rashi points out the usage of the word ויבך, and he cried, is singular. This is meant to teach us that only Yosef cried. Really? Yaakov who had just found out that his son was alive and he doesn’t cry? What is even more difficult to understand is that Rashi says the reason Yaakov didn’t cry at that moment (I am sure he did cry later, even though the text doesn’t discuss it) is because he was busy reciting Kriat Shema. Of all the time in the day to say Shema, now Yaakov says it? Could he not have said it earlier in the day? Later in the day? And why didn’t Yosef have to say Shema at that moment?

Let’s explore a few solutions to these questions; but think we might come to the realization that the question is in fact better than the answer.

1. Since Yosef had attained a level of malchut in Egypt and there is a commandment for Jews to honour malchut, Yaakov was actually on a mitzvah mission to honour malchut. Additionally, there is a principle of עוסק במצוה פטור מן המצוה, that one who is involved in mitzvah is exempt from other mitzvot that come his way, for fear that he might not fulfill the first one properly. Therefore, until the scene of being reunited, Yaakov was exempt from the mitzvah of Shema. Only once he arrived and showed honour to the malchut completing that mitzvah, did his obligation of reciting Shema return. He thus had to fulfill it before losing the opportunity.
2. With a slightly different twist, the K’tav Sofer suggests that Yaakov came to show honour to the malchut, to Yosef as a king. But Yaakov wanted to show he was coming to honour Yosef due to the malchut that Hashem had bestowed upon him -- not because of some honour that Pharaoh bestowed. For this reason, he stopped to say Shema, which is the ultimate display of accepting the yolk of heaven upon oneself.
3. The Maharal says that the moment Yaakov saw Yosef, he understood that it was not just that Yosef was alive, but that he was a king. He now understood the chesed that Hashem had performed and thus he recited Shema at that moment to declare his acceptance of the yolk of heaven. This teaches us that when something good happens to us, the first thing we need to remember is that only through the chesed of Hashem do good things happen to us.
4. The sefer Kol Yehuda remarks that as part of Shema, we recite, ואהבת את ה׳ אלוקך בכל לבבך ולכל נפשך, this implies that loving Hashem supersedes the level of any other love that one has.  Therefore, since Yaakov had so much difficulty in his life, whenever he would say ואהבת את ה׳ it was not such a novelty because he didn’t have that much else to love aside from Hashem. However, at a momentous event like meeting up with Yosef, that Yaakov felt the love of Hashem בכל לבבו, and thus he recited Shema.
5. My friend, Jeff Kirshblum suggests an alternate idea in that Yaakov lived a very difficult life. He grew up with an evil twin brother, he struggled with his father-in-law, Lavan. He was led to believe that his beloved son Yosef had been brutally murdered. One might suggest that Yaakov lived a difficult life. Even the years he studied in the Yeshiva of Shem and Eber, he was constantly worried that Eisov might catch up with him. When he met Rachel, he foresaw her early death and he had to work additional years to marry her. It was Yaakov’s faith in Hashem that sustained him throughout the years. When he was finally reunited with Yosef, this could have been the first moment of unadulterated joy he had known in years, maybe even ever. Yaakov took that joy and used it to thank Hashem. How could he not take this wonderful moment to thank Hashem? The message here is that we often turn to Hashem when things are difficult and we need His help. Yaakov is teaching us that we need to thank Hashem at times of joy as well.

I leave it to you to decide;  are any of these answers as good as the question?