פרשת ויגש
After the dramatic meeting of the Brothers with Yosef, the passuk records the words Yosef chooses to reveal himself to his brothers, ויאמר יוסף אל אחיו אני יוסף! – I am Yosef! The Torah proceeds to tell us that when the brothers heard this revelation, they felt so embarrassed in facing the man they had caused so much anguish to, that they lost their power of speech and could not answer. The Midrash compares this reaction to the sensation that we will all experience when God reveals himself to us in the future by saying “I am God”, and He will proceed to rebuke each and every Jew “לפי מה שהוא” – according to the “way he is”. The Midrash goes on to say “Woe is to us on this day of reckoning and woe onto us on this day of rebuke”.
What does this Midrash mean when it says that each and every Jew will be scolded “לפי מה שהוא” – according to the “way he is”? Additionally, what is the Midrash referring to when it employs the redundant language, “The day of rebuke and the day of reckoning”? Perhaps we could say that “according to the way he is” refers to the fact that we will be rebuked based on our personal potential. In other words, although we may have only sinned slightly, based on our potential, we could have prevented even that. Or conversely, we may have sinned excessively, but God knows that we could not have done any better. Based on this explanation, we may now illuminate the difference between “rebuke” and “reckoning”. Reckoning is a straight forward account of one’s good deeds and one’s bad deeds. However “rebuke” refers to God’s divine knowledge of how much we could have accomplished with our capabilities, yet didn’t.
It is well know that when the Netziv finished his Sefer “Emek Davar” on the Torah, he related a story that when he was young, his father wanted him to go out to study a profession. However he stubbornly refused reasoning that learning Torah was the best possible utilization of his time. At the feast he made upon completion of his Sefer he explained that had he gone out to work at that time, at the end of his days God would have showed him his “unwritten” Sefer and said to him, “This is what you could have accomplished had you stayed in learning”. This story illustrates beautifully what we explained in the Midrash – that each and every Jew has an obligation to make an honest evaluation of his personal capabilities and fulfill his potential.
The Beis Halevi understands these words of the Midrash “the way he is” slightly different. He explains that many of us live a double standard to a certain extent. On the one hand we don’t feel like we have the strength to perform various Mitzvos, yet when it comes to recreational activities, we have boundless energy. Similarly, when the brothers thought that Yosef was the viceroy of Egypt, and he requested of them to leave their youngest brother Benjamin with him, they replied that their father couldn’t handle the torment of loosing his youngest son. Yosef was subtly criticizing his brothers by asking where their concern for their father was when they threw him in the pit and left him for dead! The Beis Halevi learns that each and every Jew will be judged based on the way “he” acted when it came to things he enjoyed versus fulfilling his obligations.
There is perhaps another explanation in the Midrash that we quoted. When Yosef said to his brothers, “I am Yosef”, his siblings felt a tremendous amount of embarrassment that they were standing in front of the man they had caused so much sorrow. When God reveals himself to us in the future, we will have remarkable clarity of understanding about “who God is” and thusly will suffer terrific embarrassment that we could have gone against such a wonderful and awesome deity. With this, we can explain the words of the Midrash, a man will be rebuked “according to the way he is” – meaning the way God is. I.e. the very recognition of who God is will be our rebuke. It is brought down in the name of the Baal Shem Tov on the passuk אל נקמות – God is a God of vengeance and God will appear – All God will have to do in the future to exact judgment on the wicked is appear to them in all of His grandeur, and that will be terrible enough vis-à-vis the embarrassment that the wicked will suffer.
My father-in-law often says that in whatever capacity a person can “comprehend” the greatness of God, that will determine how much he will succeed in loving Him. He would demonstrate this with the Rambam at the end of Hilchos Teshuvah who says “In whatever capacity a person succeeds in understanding God, this is how much he will love Him – if slightly then he will only love Him slightly, if exceedingly, then he will love Him exceedingly.” The reason for this is that by definition, every aspect of God is perfect so all a person has to do is “know” more of God to love Him. Similarly, I once heard R’ Pincus say that the reason why a Jew is referred to as “אדם ” which means “man” is because this word is comprised of the two words א – דם . “Dam” – blood – refers to the physical aspect of our reality as Chazal say, “הדם, הוא הנפש” and the Alef stands for אלופו של עולם – Master of the world. A Jew is referred to as “אדם” because He is uniquely capable of comprehending the exaltedness and awesomeness of God and imbuing this understanding in his flesh, just as we explained.
The Chazon Ish once said in describing the colossal fear of God that the Brisker Rav possessed – “Fear of God is a natural thing for him. He lives his entire life with constant recognition of God and understanding of His glory, how could we expect anything less”?
May we be Zoche to grow in our עבודת ה’ through contemplating the magnitude and beauty of our creator!