Two Years Forgotten: Delay That Builds Redemption

1“And it came to pass at the end of two years of days …”¹

2Notice the wording: the verse opens with vayehi, “and it came to pass,” and the Gemara teaches that vayehi is an expression of distress.² Yet here there was joy: Yosef went out of prison and became ruler over all the land of Egypt. Why, then, does the verse say vayehi?

3The Midrash comments: “‘He set an end to darkness.’ He gave the world a set time, how many years it would spend in darkness … For as long as the yetzer hara is in the world, there is gloom and the shadow of death in the world; once the yetzer hara is uprooted from the world, there is no gloom or shadow of death in the world. Another interpretation: ‘He set an end to darkness.’ He gave Yosef a set time, how many years he would spend in darkness in prison. Once the end came, Pharaoh dreamed a dream.”³ But what does the first part of the Midrash, about the world's darkness and the yetzer hara, have to do with the release of Yosef HaTzaddik from prison, which it mentions afterward?

4The Midrash also comments on the verse “Yet the chief butler did not remember”: “The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: The chief butler has forgotten you, but I will not forget you.”⁴ But what does the Midrash mean by “but I will not forget you”? If Hashem did not forget Yosef, why did Yosef not come out of the pit, the prison, at once? Instead, as the Midrash says further on, two years were added to his stay because he had said to the chief butler, “Remember me … and mention me.”⁵

5We can explain all this with a teaching of the Midrash: “The Holy One, blessed be He, took the words of the Avos and made them a key to the redemption of the children.”⁶ What happened to Yosef in his own, personal redemption is a sign for the children, for Israel. It shows how Israel's redemption will come, the redemption we have awaited and hoped for, generation after generation. The point is this. Suppose the chief butler had pleaded with Pharaoh to free Yosef from the pit right after Yosef spoke to him. Even if Yosef had then gone free as he asked, he would not have risen to the greatness that came to him afterward, when he was raised from his place in prison all the way to the rank of royalty. But Hashem, Who arranges all causes, arranged that at the end of two full years Pharaoh would dream a dream. Then, when they brought Yosef out, he was raised to the very heights.

6This explains the Midrash: “‘Yet the chief butler did not remember.’ The Holy One, blessed be He, said to him: The chief butler has forgotten you, but I will not forget you.” It was precisely because the chief butler forgot Yosef that great good came to Yosef in the end: he became the ruler of the land of Egypt. That is the meaning of Hashem's words to Yosef, “The chief butler has forgotten you, but I will not forget you”: the very fact that the butler forgot you is for your good, and I will not forget you, so that when the time comes they will place the kingship in your hands. Then, “once the end came, Pharaoh dreamed a dream,” and as the passage goes on to say, “they rushed him from the pit.”⁷ Once the proper time was complete, the salvation did not wait even a moment; it came quickly, in haste.

7The verse says vayehi because, whatever came of them, those two full years were a time of distress for Yosef. Yet, as we have seen, it was all for his good, for through them he was privileged to rise to greatness and become ruler over all the land of Egypt.

8Hashem took this very pattern and made it a key to the redemption of the children: this is how He will bring about our redemption, with the coming of Moshiach, for which we wait. A question arises about the words we say in Ani Maamin, the twelfth of the Thirteen Principles of Faith: “I believe with complete faith in the coming of Moshiach, and even though he may tarry …” We do not know the appointed end at all. So what sense does it make to say that even if he seems to tarry we will still wait for him, when the time of his coming is unknown to us? We may explain this by first citing the Gemara, where one Sage holds that “Israel has no Moshiach, for it already consumed him in the days of Chizkiyahu.”⁸ [Rashi explains that Chizkiyahu was the Moshiach, and so on, but that the Holy One, blessed be He, will reign and redeem Israel by Himself alone.] But what does it mean that Israel “consumed” him?

9aThe explanation of all this, it seems, is as follows. We have passed through so many troubles, so much grief and sighing in the days of exile, that Moshiach should already have come to redeem us. He has not yet come because the time has not yet arrived for Hashem's kingship to become known and revealed throughout the world. As the verses say, “For the kingship is Hashem's, and He rules over the nations,” and “And the kingship shall be Hashem's.”⁹ Throughout this long exile, the Holy One, blessed be He, is arranging the causes that will bring about this repair: the revelation of His kingship in the world. So it was with Yosef HaTzaddik: as long as the time of his kingship had not come, he remained in exile. How the whole length of the exile arranges the causes for our good at the time of the redemption is beyond our understanding.

9bThis is the meaning of Chazal's words, “Israel has no Moshiach, for it already consumed him.” Chazal do not mean, Heaven forbid, that there is no Moshiach at all. Rather, it seems to Israel that it has no Moshiach: the exile is so long and so hard that it looks to the nation as though no more relief and rescue will come. “Israel already consumed him” describes how things look to the nation, and this answers our question about the word “consumed.” In reality it is not so. Moshiach tarries only to increase our good all the more at the time of the redemption. When the proper time comes he will not be delayed even a moment, and Hashem will at once bring us out from darkness to light, as we saw with Yosef, when “they rushed him from the pit.” We find the same at the Exodus from Egypt, of which the verse says, “for they were driven out of Egypt and could not tarry,” as the Mechilta, the early Midrash on Shemos, and Rashi also teach.¹⁰

9cThis also gives the meaning of the words we say in Ani Maamin, “and even though he may tarry.” Although the length of the exile makes it look to us as though he is late in coming, “nevertheless I will wait for him.” For we believe that the delay is truly only for our good, so that we will be able to crown Him King and proclaim His Oneness, blessed be He, over the whole world.

10aWe may say that this is the meaning of the first part of the Midrash: “‘He set an end to darkness,’ how many years it would spend in darkness.” Hashem fixed an end and a time for the redemption, and until then we still dwell in the darkness of exile. But this is for our good at the time of the redemption, as the Midrash goes on: “For as long as the yetzer hara is in the world, there is gloom and the shadow of death in the world; once the yetzer hara is uprooted from the world, there is no gloom or shadow of death in the world.” All the gloom, the shadow of death and the suffering of exile last only for a time, and in the end it will be all the better for us because of them. At the time of the redemption the yetzer hara will be nullified and uprooted from the world, as Chazal said,¹¹ and there will be no gloom or shadow of death in the world at all. Then the verse will be fulfilled: “The end of the matter, when all has been heard: fear God.” At the end of days, at the time of the redemption, nothing will be heard but “fear God.”¹²

10bThe redemption of Yosef HaTzaddik from the pit teaches us the same lesson, as we have seen, and this is the connection to the next part of the Midrash: “Another interpretation: ‘He set an end to darkness.’ He gave Yosef a set time, how many years he would spend in darkness in prison. Once the end came, Pharaoh dreamed a dream.”

11May Hashem help us to further the redemption and bring it near in this way: by seeking Him with the words “He is our King, He is our Savior,”¹³ so that His kingship, blessed be He, will be revealed before the eyes of all flesh. And may we soon be privileged to see the coming of the righteous redeemer. Amen, may it be His will.