1.
The swearing in of the new government comes at the same time as the end of reading the saga of the sale of Joseph and the disintegration of the Jacob family.
And not by chance.
From the foundation number of our people we draw comfort and strength for our people today.
For 22 years the brothers kept the word of selling Yosef;
Every day they saw their old father grieving for his son inconsolably.
Now, when the cup of the Egyptian master was discovered in Benjamin's altar, the last remnant of the house of Rachel is about to remain a slave in Egypt.
Yehuda, who was a guarantor for Benjamin, suggests that all the brothers be slaves, but the Egyptian pushes him into a corner: "For God's sake... the man in whose hand the cup is found - he will be my slave!".
There are moments in private and national history that seem like all the summers are over, there is no way out.
In the law of historical choice, Isaac continued the house of Abraham and Ishmael was pushed out, Jacob continued and Esau was expelled.
It was tempting to think that the heavens directed the elimination of Rachel's house: Joseph is gone and now Benjamin too.
In such moments, leadership is needed that knows how to look beyond the here and now.
A good king - or prime minister - is not content with being a ruler, but rather works to discover the variety of hidden forces in the people, like a good conductor, he brings to work the mosaic of abilities and talents in society, and unites them under one banner.
Yehuda, Leah's son, who was responsible for the sale of Yosef, prepared for this moment for 22 years, the moment of correction of the sale that broke up the House of Jacob.
He took stock of himself and the family.
He knows that without Beit Rachel it is the end of the dream of Beit Avraham.
This is what stood at the root of his promise to his father, when he asked him to take Benjamin to Egypt: "I will intercede for you, from whom will you ask me, if I did not bring him... and I have sinned against you all the days".
Jacob heard this terrible guarantee of deep reconciliation with the crucial place of Beit Rachel for the existence of the family and, in fact, for the existence of the House of Israel.
The declaration "I am Arab to Benjamin" means "All Israel are Arabs to each other", the sons of Leah and the sons of Rachel, the House of Judah and the House of Joseph, Israel and Judah.
And so it happens.
In front of the Egyptian lord who wants to take Benjamin away from them, Yehuda approaches and delivers the speech of his life, just before the gate closes.
223 words.
A short but long speech in biblical terms.
There is cunning and sophistication in the speech, diplomacy and foresight, emotion and intellect and even musicality (see: Genesis Med, 18-4).
At the end of the speech, he offers himself to serve in Benjamin's place, "For how shall I go up to my father, and the boy is not with me - lest I see an evil one who will find my father!".
2.
This is a historic speech.
Judah speaks to the ruler in front of him, but sends the words to future generations.
to us too.
In my lifetime I was present at a historic speech, which for me was a defining moment: in March 2015 I sat in the American Congress, while Benjamin Netanyahu spoke against the nuclear agreement with Iran and mobilized American public opinion against the then US president. Barack Obama worked to bring about an agreement that, in Netanyahu's view, endangered the existence of Israel In the passage that resonated with me the most, he said: "The days when the Jewish people were passive in the face of enemies seeking to commit genocide against them, have passed.
We are no longer a nation scattered among the nations, incapable of defending itself.
We renewed our sovereignty in our ancient homeland, and the valor of the soldiers protecting our home knows no bounds... As Prime Minister of Israel I can guarantee...: even if Israel is forced to stand alone, Israel will stand."
In order to make Yosef drop the masks and to make Yehuda leave the sectorialism, the dedication of every part of the people is needed.
We as a society must not give up on each other, even if the differences are deep and difficult
Afterwards, when I tried to understand why I was shaken, I saw in my mind's eye the leader of the Jewish state arriving two thousand years late to the Rome of our time and announcing to the world: "The people of Israel live."
At that moment I did not know that a few years later I would land in the real Rome as a representative of that country.
3.
In his speech, Yehuda put in his father's mouth: "You knew that my wife bore me two years ago."
It is likely that Jacob did not say this, but after the terrible conflict and rift, Judah repents.
Until now, he and his brothers treated Rachel and her sons as a threat, and worked to get rid of them.
Now, at the point of the test, state before the brothers: Rachel is father's wife, and these two are the most dear to him.
Sometimes, in order to reconcile, we have to go beyond what we thought.
Repairing relationships with others begins with repairing our mental qualities.
In the depth of the story there is the greatest absentee of all: the dream!
Abraham in the covenant between the Bathers, Jacob and the ladder, and Joseph's dreams in which the brothers (or their representatives) bowed to Joseph.
Experiencing is self-abnegation, giving up the individual self in favor of a greater idea.
Sometimes the idea reduces and suppresses the self, and sometimes it strengthens and nurtures it.
Joseph's dreams strove to abolish family and tribal sectionalism, and to recognize the greater idea in whose name Abraham went to the good land: "And I will make you a great nation."
That is, the national idea.
Yosef's dreams continued Abraham's great dream in the covenant between the Batyrs: "Know, know, for your seed will dwell in a land not theirs, and they will serve and torture them... and after that they will go out... and a fourth generation will return here", a dream that started in the family of one person, he continued to the tribe, and from there it was swallowed up in the Egyptian womb to be born later as a new people on its way to the old homeland of its ancestors.
The sale of Yosef was a relinquishment of the national dream and a campy gathering into sullen sectoralism, in a competition over the question of who is the chosen group in the nation.
4.
From the distance of the generations, Judah also speaks to us, the citizens of the independent state of Israel, the descendants of the return of Zion, who dream of the sun.
Judah and Joseph - or: Judah and Israel - are two deep sides of our identity coin: the Jew and the Israeli.
In order to make Yosef drop the masks and get to know his brother, and to make Yehuda get out of the sectarianism, the dedication of each side of the nation to save the other is needed.
We as a society must not give up on each other, even if the differences are deep and difficult.
Yosef's dreams were the "inner guide" of Beit Israel, to use the term borrowed from Jung's theory: Beit Leah should subordinate itself to the national idea represented by Yosef.
The fact that the brothers bowed to Joseph as a ruler did not yet correct the rejection of this idea, which was expressed in the sale of Joseph, because they bowed to the mask of Joseph - an Egyptian ruler - and not to their brother who was hidden under the royal robes.
This is what stood at the root of Judah's speech: he gave himself up for Benjamin;
Leah's son Choir gave up his life for the last representative of Rachel's house.
He canceled himself, and essentially his private sector, in favor of a bigger idea.
From a mother's house - one of four - to a father's house, on the way to becoming a tribe, which hundreds of years later will be born in a great storm as a nation.
We don't have a bigger fix than that.
were we wrong
We will fix it!
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