Vayigash: economics

Vayigash:economics

 

 

 knowledge is power. The knowledge of the course of the plenty followed by the famine that Joseph divined and shared with Pharoah made him the most powerful man in the world.  

Power is power: were it not for the army of Pharoah, the starving people would have seized the food that they needed. Thus, the wealth that devolved from the knowledge went to the house of Pharoah.

 

Vayigash relates the foundational story of why the people serve the king, why they pay taxes, why they are subjects (subjugated). Our ancestors sold themselves so that they could live, so that we could be born.

This is the origin of gashmiuth and we know it.  In that context, it is interesting to to note that the priesthood ( representative of some kind of ruchiuth) was exempted from this system.

 

The first word of the parsha, Vayigash, converys the idea of approach, hence something other, foreign. The related word goshen implies that the relationship between the Children of Israel and the Egyptians was one of foreigness.  Perhaps Goshen should be translated as "refugee camp."  The imigrant ( to a more advanced culture) has an ambivalent  relationship with the culture that he finds himself next to: approach and avoidance. The new culture is the new gashmiuth.  Gush is the next step after ger.

 

 

Vayigash: Blame Yoseph

 

Vayigash: Akward Approach

Vayigash: enslavement

 

 

Vayigash: substitutiary sacri...