Vayigash – Genesis 44:18-47:27
Anecdotally, the most common way a synagogue will describe itself is as a “warm and welcoming” environment. Why? Because so much of our experience outside of synagogue life, and sadly inside of it, is vastly different. Too often as Dr. Ron Wolfson wrote nearly two decades ago in his groundbreaking work The Spirituality of Welcoming(2006), Jewish community can be a cold and indifferent place for strangers to enter. In that book he describes arriving at a synagogue early on a Shabbat morning to give the guest lecture and being asked to move from the seat he was sitting in because it was someone else’s regular seat. He has made his life’s work helping synagogue communities become more welcoming.
To see what is at stake, we need to look no further than the Joseph story, which culminates in this week’s Torah portion Vayigash. Joseph is driven away from his immediate family, sold into slavery by his brothers and presumed dead. The rift in the family reverberates and reverberates until Joseph finally reveals himself to his family and is reunited with them in one of the most dramatic moments in all of Torah. We feel Joseph and his family’s pain, because too often it is our own. Estrangement of a family member is an all too familiar phenomenon for many of us. Hearing these stories of a child, parent, sibling, cut off from the rest of their family, breaks my heart.
And, that is at the heart of why being a “warm and welcoming” congregation is so important. As Dr. Wolfson writes in his later book, Relational Judaism: “When we genuinely care about people, we will not only welcome them; we will listen to their stories, we will share ours, and we will join together to build a Jewish community that enriches our lives.” To all the Joseph’s of the world, people whose own family relationships are broken, may your Jewish community be a place of healing and hope, a place where relationships can be restored and reborn. Ken Yehi Ratzon, May it be so!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Alex