Yaakov Hibbert Presents… The 4 Fathers

As a teenager I used to play a computer game called ‘SimCity’. In the game you were the Managing Director of a City that you had to build from scratch. You had to set up the entire infrastructure of your city from plans for the city centre, to how you wanted the urban area to look; where to put parks and where to place shops. The better your city was the more people would come to live there. Similar games existed [and perhaps still do] where you had to build theme parks or hospitals.

Suppose you wanted to build a new nation, what would you need to get from the DIY store? How would you go about building it? There are really two parts of the process and they can be summed up as ‘The book of Genesis’ and ‘The Book of Exodus’. To build a nation you need building blocks; you need the raw materials from which will grow the nation. This week’s Parshah sees the completion of the building blocks; everything is in place for part two which is the actual building of the nation. For phase two you need a location, a building site for the raw materials to be developed, the location is Egypt. Let’s focus this week on phase one – the building blocks.

The Book of Genesis is sometimes called ‘The book of the Fathers’. Contained within is the lives of our forefathers, who laid down the foundations of what was to become the Jewish Nation. RaMBaN explains that, “Jewish History is Jewish Destiny!” Our forefathers traversed the path as individuals which we, the Nation were to travel throughout history. The forefathers are like the formation of the genetic DNA from which all else happens. The Book of Exodus is also called ‘The Book of the Sons’, and details the actual development of ‘The Children of Israel’.

So what is this DNA of our forefathers?

We sing on Seder night – Who knows Three? Three are the forefathers! It does sound a bit confusing calling the three, ‘fore’, but as we shall shortly demonstrate there are actually four forefathers!

Rav Hutner [1906-1980] outlines the building blocks on which we, the Jewish Nation are formed. Avraham was the first BT [Ba’al Teshuvah] – He was the first person to discover and preach about Hashem on his own accord – not as a result of his upbringing. He both taught and embodied the ability and strength of character to come from nothing and become part of a group of Godly people with a spiritual job in life. This included the concept of conversion; hence we find Avraham making many converts [See Braishis 12:5].

Next we have Yitzchak who was the first one to be born into this ideology – the first FFB (Frum From Birth); he embodied a Jew being holy from the very beginning of his lifetime, and thus he was the first ‘father’ to have a Bris at eight days old – the beginning of his life.

Something was still lacking – both Avraham and Yitzchak had children who did not manage to stay in the Jewish fold. Yishmael and Eisov both broke away to form their own nations, their descendants were not Jewish. What Yaakov merited to achieve was that all of his children stayed loyal to the fold – they all became ‘bnei Yisroel’ – children of Israel. The accolade attributed to Yaakov was that ‘his bed was complete’. Yaakov put into our genes that a Jewish child remains Jewish no matter what – the ‘Pintele Yid’ burns strong within everyone forever after. From Yaakov onwards if you were born Jewish you’re intrinsically Jewish and in no way can one ditch this status!

In summary Avraham showed that one can join the fold, Yitzchak was the first to be born into the fold and Yaakov added that all one’s children will remain Jewish. Sounds sound? There is a catch and here is where Yosef – the fourth father, comes in.

What was still to be put into the DNA of the Jewish Nation was the closing of a potential opening whereby the identity of a Jew could be undermined and removed. For if a Jew marries a non-Jewish woman then his children are not Jewish. Therefore, even though Yaakov had added to the DNA that Jews will always be Jews no matter what, the possibility of the next generation losing Jewish numbers due to intermarriage was not accounted for.

When Yosef was tempted by Potiphar and survived the ordeal by refusing this non-Jewish woman, he effectively fenced in Jewish genealogy. Even as we witness terrible intermarriage rates nowadays, and many fail where Yosef triumphed, it is remarkable that very often even the most irreligious Jew often insists on marrying Jewish; they have a spark of Yosef’s genes within them. This is what Yosef added to our national DNA – the strength to hold onto continued Jewish identity. Indeed during 210 years living in Egypt as slaves we find of only one incident of a Jewish/Egyptian marriage  – and even that was only because of force! This was the power of Yosef who concreted that which Yaakov laid down.

In the metaphor of the Rabbis, Yaakov is called ‘fire’ and Yosef ‘a flame’. Fire without a flame does not have any effect over a long distance. Over generations it was the flame of Yosef which fanned the initial spark of Yaakov that guaranteed our genetic survival.

Good Shabbos

Yaakov