Unbroken Chains

 

 

 

                              I am Yoseph. Is my father still alive? - Bresheet (Genesis) 45:3

It was over three decades ago when I was first introduced to the book “Popes from the Ghetto - A View of Medieval Christendom" by Rabbi Joachim Prinz. The book details the lives and influences of three medieval popes who emerged from Rome’s powerful, Jewish Pierleoni banking family, exploring their rise, conversion and impact on the Church amidst anti- Semitic tensions. 

 One of the Popes that Rabbi Prinz writes about is the legendary figure of the Jewish Pope from Mainz (often referred to as Andreas, Johannes or Elchanan in variants). The most prominent version of this legend features Pope Elchanan as the son of  Rabbi Simeon the Great of Mainz. As a child, Elchanan was kidnapped and brought to Rome by his nursemaid. He was baptized, raised as a Christian and due to his intellect, rose through the Church hierarchy to become pope. Years later, the Pope, either due to a sense of his forgotten origins or due to his father traveling to Rome to intercede against anti-Jewish decrees, summons his father, Rabbi Simeon, for a meeting. During a game of chess they play, the father recognizes a specific, unique move that he had taught only his son which disclosed to  him the identity of the pope and which Elchanan confirms. In most versions, the Pope either secretly returned to his Jewish faith or disappeared to return to Mainz or committed suicide as an act of Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d’s name).

This Jewish folklore story has always captivated me as it reminded me of the encounter between Yoseph and his brothers where he reveals to them his  true identity as recounted in this week’s Parashah, Vayigash.

Yoseph lives under a hidden identity in Egypt. He is an Egyptian viceroy with an Egyptian name (צפנת פענח Tzofnat Pa'aneach), dress, and language. His concealment is necessary for survival and ascent, not deception for its own sake. Like him, the Jewish Pope hides his Jewish origin to survive and rise within the Christian to the highest possible power.

Though  for  Elchanan, concealment is portrayed as divinely guided, in Parashat Vayigash Yoseph’s true identity is known only to G-d (45:8-9) - until the right moment. Their hidden identities is not falsehood and is not perceived as morally corrupt. It is latency. Truth waits for the moment when revelation can heal rather than destroy.  

In these two narratives, identity is disclosed within the family first, before the public or the world. The most sacred truth is shared privately. The revelation is motivated by filial devotion and not theological rebellion or political or personal gain.

What one might find most striking, though, is how influential and domenant the father figure, in the lives of Yoseph and Elchanan, is. Yoseph’s disclosure, “I am Yoseph, is my father still alive?” indicates that his entire concern surrounds his father’s health. The Pope, as the legend shares, reveals his Jewish identity only to his father, often secretly. 

However, what is most important is that the two stories teach us the same valuable lesson. They illustrate to us that the identity of one's essence is inherited and indestructible. It cannot be erased by exile, costume or role.

In the twin accounts, Yaakov and Rabbi Simeon are able to recognize their sons despite the radical transformation that they had undergone. Yoseph is unrecognizable outwardly. He is Egypt's ruler, dresses differently and speaks Egyptian. Yet, according to Jewish sages, Yaakov recognizes him, before he even gets to meet him face to face, or hear his voice. Their claim is that Yaakov did so by “continuity of spirit” which in Judaism is referred to as L’Dor V’Dor (from generation to generation). It means actively passing down Jewish identity, values, learning, and rituals from one generation to the next, ensuring the survival of Jewish Peoplehood.

These  scholars  mainly base their assertion on Bresheet 45:27, where it states, “When they [Yaakov’s sons] told him [Yaakov] all the words of Yoseph that he had spoken to them…..the spirit of Yaakov, their father, revived.”

Rash”i, citing Bresheet Rabbah (94:3) explains the words of Yoseph very specifically. There, the sages claim that Yoseph’s words sent Yaakov a sign, the last Torah topic they had studied together . In other words, the message Yoseph sends is pure Torah, not just any Torah but shared Torah, the one learned together by father and son. Yaakov recognizes Yoseph because the chain of Torah was unbroken.

Like Yoseph, Elchanan, “The Jewish Pope” crossed an unbridgeable cultural and religious divide. Similarly to Yaakov, Rabbi Simeon identifies his son by the move of the chess game, a shared experience that was unique to them. 

The bond between father and son in the two accounts transcends institutional and theological boundaries. 

Ultimately, these two narratives—one biblical and one legendary—converge on the same enduring truth: identity rooted in sacred relationship cannot be erased. Power, exile, and transformation may obscure origins, but they cannot sever the bond forged between father and son, teacher and student, generation and generation. Yoseph is revealed not by royal garments but by shared Torah. Elchanan is unmasked not by papal authority but by a remembered chess move. In both cases, recognition comes through continuity rather than confrontation, through memory rather than spectacle.

Three Dreams, One Destiny

 

“Joseph was the great dreamer of the Torah, and his dreams for the most part came true. But not in a way he or anyone else could have anticipated.” - Rabbi Lord  Jonathan Sacks

Dreams are one of the main themes in recent Parashot. Parashat Vayetze narrates Yaakov's dream at Bet-El. This week’s Parashat Vayeshev, recounts two dreams experienced by Yoseph, Yaakov’s favourite son. Before delving further into the significance of these dreams and the connection between them, it is important to understand them in the context of the time and place in which they occurred.

Dreams, in general, have held a consistent and powerful place in human civilization—from politics and prophecy to psychology and art. Across cultures and eras, they were rarely seen as random inner noise; rather, they were treated as messages, omens, or revelations that could redirect nations and reshape lives.

In the Ancient Near East, the cradle of Jewish civilization, dreams were commonly understood as royal legitimation. Mesopotamian rulers recorded nocturnal visions as proof of divine endorsement, elevating the king to semi-divine status and rendering political authority sacred. Egyptian dream manuals, discovered in the Chester Beatty Papyrus, treated dreams as coded celestial messages decipherable by specialists of the court. Their purpose was not moral formation but statecraft, empire stability, and royal self-preservation. 

Against this backdrop, the dreams of Yaakov and Yoseph invert the entire cultural logic. Unlike Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia where dreams enthroned power, in the Torah, dreams serve a purpose. While the ancient world used dreams to elevate man to the gods, the Torah uses dreams to anchor man to G-d. (John Walton, Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament, 2006).

Yaakov does not become king by dreaming, nor does Yoseph become divine by interpretation. Instead, their dreams deepen covenantal obligation. We encounter their dreams which, in the words of Sacks, “came true,” yet “not in a way, the dreamers themselves, or anyone else could have anticipated.” (Covenant and Conversation Studies in Spirituality, Mikketz).

The dream that greets Yaakov at Bet-El and the two dreams that shape Yoseph’s destiny, according to some Jewish scholars, are not isolated mystical events but stages of a single unfolding covenant.

Though scholars such as, Rash"i and Sforno do not explicitly connect the dream narratives of father and son (Yaakov’s ladder in Bresheet 28:12-15) and Yoseph’s dreams of the sheaves bowing, in Bresheet 37:7 and the celestial bodies submitting, in 37:9), in any explicit comment, they create a conceptual bridge, indirectly, through one key motif, movement from revelation of choseness to its realization. Yaakov’s vision of the ladder reveals a cosmos in which heaven descends to earth, affirming divine presence, protection, and promise. The sheaves and the celestial bodies, in Yoseph’s dreams, mark not only his personal ascent but the historical movement of Yisrael into exile and eventual redemption. Yaakov dreams of Divine protection “I am with you, I will protect you wherever you go, and I will bring you back to this land… (Bresheet 28:15).” Yoseph’s dreams set in motion the events that fulfill that protection, physical, economical and spiritual. Yaakov dreams the Covenant, Yoseph dreams its implementation in human history. 

The one place, however, where Rash”i comes close to implicitly linking Yoseph’s dreams to his father’s own ladder experience is found in chapter 37. There (37:11) Yoseph tells his dream to his father. Rash”i notes that Yaakov “guards the matter.” Rash”i  bases his assertion on Midrash Bresheet Rabbah 84:12 which interprets this verse as, “Yaakov waits expectancy to see its fulfillment. In other words, Yaakov who once dreamed of his destiny recognizes a true dream when one is narrated.

Some modern scholars such as Robert Alter (The Art of Biblical Narrative,1981) explicitly connect Yaakov’s dream to Yoseph’s two dreams in our Parashah. He refers to Yaakov’s dream as a vision of space and speaks of a  (spiritual → earthly). Yoseph’s dreams, on the other hand, are a “horizontal axis of human power and family structure” strewn with socio-political symbolism (Yisrael → Nations).

Alter’s terminology is reinforced albeit implicitly, in interpretive trajectory, by Rabbi Sacks. Sacks describes Yaakov’s encounter “vayifga ba’Makom”*(Bresheet 28:11) as a moment of transcendent revelation and covenant renewal, i.e. a “vertical” moment of Divine-human communication.

In his essay, “Three Approaches to Dreams (Miketz” Covenant & Conversation), Sacks notes that in addition to the gift of dreams, the gift of their interpretation, Yoseph was also endowed with the ability to implement them, as we is evident in the next Parashah. There, Sacks sees his dreams as the start of a trajectory of political, economic and social leadership, dreams that lead to action, administration and implementation on earth (Yisrael → nations, horizontal).

The ladder at Bet-El affirms not dominion but a moral and spiritual duty. G-d descends not to enthrone Yaakov but to bind him to mission. Yoseph’s twin dreams of sheaves and stars do not coronate him in the mythic fashion of the Ancient Near East. They conscript him into service—feeding nations, sustaining his family, and ushering Israel into its first experience of exile. 

The three dreams are forged into a single symphony where destiny is spoken, first to the father, and then enacted through the son.

Shabbat Shalom and Channukah Sameach, Am Yisrael and Fellow Jews.

*“He came upon a place,” in Hebrew vayifga ba-makom, also means an unexpected encounter. Later, in rabbinic Hebrew, the word ha-Makom, “the Place,” came to mean “G-d.” Hence in a poetic way the phrase vayifga ba-makom could be read as, “Jacob happened on (had an unexpected encounter with) G-d.”  “How the Light Gets In” (in Covenant & Conversation, Parashat Vayetze)

Angel, Man, or G-d, Who Was Yaakov’s Adversary at Yabbok?

 

"And Yaakov was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until the break of dawn" Bresheet 32: 25

The identity of the being Yaakov wrestles with, in Bresheet, 32:25-33 Parashat Vayishlach, is one of the most discussed passages in Torah literature. The account is haunted by ambiguity and has engaged the attention of many scholars.

According to Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks,"Yakkov, himself, had no doubt. It was G-d." Sacks bases his assertin on verse 32 where Yaakov says, "'I saw G-d face to face.'" Yaakov truly believes that he has seen G-d and names the place of the encounter Peniel (face of G-d).

A reader unacquainted with Jewish theology might erroneously conclude, from the verse above, that Yaakov has indeed wrestled with G-d. Yet, Judaism affirms that G-d possesses neither body nor form and rejects any notion of a physical struggle with G-d’s essence. Furthermore, Jewish belief poignatly states that no one can see G-d and live. The foundation of this belief can be found in Shemot (Exodus) 33:20 where G-d says to Moshe, "You cannot see My face, for no human can see Me and live." That also explains why Yaakov is grateful that, following what he believes he has just experienced, his "soul was preserved." (verse 32).  

How, then, have Jewish thinkers resolved the vagueness surrounding this episode?

Most classical commentators say Yaakov wrestled with an angelic being (Malach) which in the Jewish theology simply means “a messenger.” The “man,” many assert, is a Malach whose presence is an epiphany of G-d.

Rash”i (Mikraot Gedolot), Midrash Bresheet Rabbah (77:3) and Pirkei d’Rabbi Eliezer 37 say explicitly that it was the guardian angel of Esav (sar shel Esav). The struggle, as they see it, symbolizes Yaakov’s lifelong conflict with Esav and what the latter represents. They treat the fight as a manifestation of the metaphysical conflict between the descendants of Yaakov and Esav. 

Ramba”n (Ramba”n Al HaTorah- Mossad HaRav Kook Edition Volume 1 p. 409-412), like many other commentators, believes that the “man” was a Malach since angles can and do appear in physical, tangible forms. According to him, it was a real event, not a dream or vision. 

Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, unlike other interpreters, focuses on the exhanges between Yaakov and his adversary, outlined in verse 30, where Yaakov asked, "Now tell me your name," and he [the man] said, "Why is it that you ask for my name?" For Hirsch, the unnamed opponent symbolizes every struggle a human faces, their every fear, every uncertainty and every moral confrontation. If the adversary had a name, Hirsch believes, the story would be about that opponent. By withholding a name, the story becomes universal: every Jew is Yaakov and every challenge is a nameless wrestler (Samson Raphael Hirsch, The Pentateuch: Translation and Commentary Bereishit, pp. ~563–567).

Modern commentators such as Nechama Leibowitz and Martin Buber, see the “man” as Yaakov’s inner self struggling with his guilt about Esav, his strife to shift from the position of Yaakov, the supplanter, who ousts his rival, to Yisrael, the one who ”wrestles with G-d and prevails” and his fear of the upcoming encounter with Esav. (Nehama Leibowitz, Studies in Bereshit (Jerusalem: World Zionist Organization / E. Feldheim), Parashat Vayishlaḥ, pp. 345–347, Martin Buber, On the Bible: Eighteen Studies, “Jacob and Esau,” pp. 58–70). These interpretations may support the contention that the Torah deliberately witholds the name of the wrestler. If Yaakov were told the name, the struggle would become external rather than internal and existential.

Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offers an interesting angle to the identity of Yaakov’s adversary. He notes that the ambiguity is by design. Yaakov’s opponent, he believes, may be a “man,” “angel,” “G-d” or a symbolic figure. What matters more than the identity is the meaning of the struggle, asserts Sacks, is what Yaakov becomes through it. Yaakov transforms into Yisrael and emerges as stronger, more confident, triumphant and, above all, one who holds the promise of eternity.

Am Yisrael Chai and the Eternity of Yisrael Shall Never Lie.

Shabbat Shalom