Vayigash: Greenhorns

 

This week's parsha deals with the decision not to live in the Promised Land. For the past two years, Jacob and his family have needed to come to Egypt, with its vast grain stores (thanks to Joseph) for life sustaining provisions. The Canaan earth was not supporting them, they had to move and trade to avoid starvation.  

The actual move to Egypt is based upon Joseph's insistence. Joseph informed Pharaoh that his family was in Canaan, a famished area dependent upon the silos of Egypt.  A caravan  was sent to help migrate the family to the Egyptian borderland: Goshen. Goshen derives from the same root as title word of the parsha, Vayigash, it means approach. The name of the place registers ambivalence. They are not really going to Egypt, they  are going to a place nearby, approaching Egypt. Perhaps they have qualms about living in Egypt proper. Perhaps Joseph does not want them in his new home, just nearby. 

The brothers, and what they reveal about Joseph's origins is not entirely comfortable. He feels that he must prep his brothers before the brothers are presented to Pharaoh. He tells them to bend the truth, present themselves as cowboys, not shepherds. The Egyptians have an aversion to shepherds. If they are cattlemen, they will blend into the society, they will assimilate and prosper.  

וְהָיָ֕ה כִּֽי־יִקְרָ֥א לָכֶ֖ם פַּרְעֹ֑ה וְאָמַ֖ר מַה־מַּעֲשֵׂיכֶֽם׃ 

So when Pharaoh summons you and asks, ‘What is your occupation?’

וַאֲמַרְתֶּ֗ם אַנְשֵׁ֨י מִקְנֶ֜ה הָי֤וּ עֲבָדֶ֙יךָ֙ מִנְּעוּרֵ֣ינוּ וְעַד־עַ֔תָּה גַּם־אֲנַ֖חְנוּ גַּם־אֲבֹתֵ֑ינוּ בַּעֲב֗וּר תֵּשְׁבוּ֙ בְּאֶ֣רֶץ גֹּ֔שֶׁן כִּֽי־תוֹעֲבַ֥ת מִצְרַ֖יִם כׇּל־רֹ֥עֵה צֹֽאן׃ 

you shall answer, ‘Your servants have been breeders of livestock from the start until now, both we and our fathers’—so that you may stay in the region of Goshen. For all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians.”

Joseph instructs his brothers to utter statements that will facilitate their integration into Egyptian society.  For some (possibly long) time, his family will be in Egypt. Bending the truth in this way, presenting themselves by their secondary occupation first, will help them integrate. Joseph's dream will again be fulfilled. 

The brothers announce that they are shepherds, like their ancestors. 

וַיֹּ֧אמֶר פַּרְעֹ֛ה אֶל־אֶחָ֖יו מַה־מַּעֲשֵׂיכֶ֑ם וַיֹּאמְר֣וּ אֶל־פַּרְעֹ֗ה רֹעֵ֥ה צֹאן֙ עֲבָדֶ֔יךָ גַּם־אֲנַ֖חְנוּ גַּם־אֲבוֹתֵֽינוּ׃ 

Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” They answered Pharaoh, “We your servants are shepherds, as were also our fathers.

They will not make this compromise with the truth. Perhaps they do not want to assimilate. Their view of Egypt is a temporary sojourn, until conditions allow return to Canaan. 

This conflict between the newcomers and the assimilated plays out over the generations. When my parents came to America, the more assimilated American cousins tried to teach them how to be American: the right phrases and gestures. My parents were lost. Europe would not support them anymore. The world of their childhood was a dreamlike legend to their American host-peers. Jokes in Yiddish recalled the filth and outhouses. Yiddish was now reserved for witticisms; otherwise, it was to be forgotten along with the traditions it recalled.

Settled immigrants and newer immigrants are in a  dance. Those who came earlier sacrificed their pasts and endured the hardships of pioneers. They were forced to adapt and found appealing aspects in the new ways. Those who prospered were  in a position to host their kin, sometimes rescuing their relatives from imprisonment and adversity. Along with the welcome came a mixture of advice and dominance. The acclimatized, now naturalized citizens, want to keep the wealth and power they have acquired at a price that might be magnified by memory. The newcomers dredge up the old jokes and resentments about the origins of this "other" people. They remind the assimilated of things they may have lost. 

My parents tried to become American, but there were limits to how much they could change .  . American non-kosher food was too foreign, they never lost their accents.  I could feel the embarrassment of the more Americanized relatives. It combined with the subtle messages from television ( from cartoons to the  Molly Goldberg show) to feed  my own embarrassment at the accented, unsophisticated language and ways of the greenhorns. They could never become cowboys, not even people who appreciated cowboys. It is only now that I see how intelligently they selected from the menu of possible Americanisms, along with the clever rejections. Those choices are most of what I am. 

I married an Americainer, a woman whose roots in the uppermost corner of the West coast, the most American place in America, stretch back to its colonization by Europeans, five generations. Her parents spoke perfect English, no Yiddish. But the spark of the memory of the abandoned traditions was re-awakened in her. She was sent to Jewish school, exposed to our history in a favorable light. She grew to love it.  Now our children have it, in their own, hybrid, ways.

The traditions are modified by the environment. The traditions color how we see the ambient culture and how we try to change it.