Yaakov's Shema: At the Sight of Yosef

1“Yosef harnessed his chariot and went up to Goshen to meet Yisrael his father. He appeared to him, fell on his neck, and wept on his neck a long while.”¹ The Ramban asks what the words “He appeared to him” add. Of course they saw each other when Yosef fell on his father's neck.

2Chazal said, in a Midrash Aggadah that Rashi cites, that Yaakov Avinu did not fall on Yosef's neck or kiss him, because he was reciting the Shema.² But why, then, did Yosef not recite the Shema as his father did?

3The essence of the Shema, as we know, is accepting the yoke of the kingship of Heaven and the yoke of Torah and mitzvos.³ We know, too, that if, Heaven forbid, a Jew blemishes the trait of Yesod,⁴ the external forces, the forces of impurity, draw nourishment from the holiness. It follows that one cannot do mitzvos in completeness until he has rectified Yesod. And a tzaddik who has sanctified himself in Yesod can rectify all who are attached to him, and raise and elevate them.

4aOn this basis we may say the following. Yosef HaTzaddik was perfect in the trait of Yesod, “the tzaddik is the foundation of the world.”⁵ Once Yosef left Yaakov's house, there was no one else who could bring the holy tribes to completeness in this trait as he could. So Yaakov Avinu thought that Yesod had been lacking in completeness. As a result, he thought, the external forces had drawn nourishment, Heaven forbid, from every Shema the family had recited during that time, and from all their acceptance of the yoke of the kingship of Heaven and the yoke of Torah and mitzvos. All this, he thought, was because Yosef HaTzaddik was not with them. But now Yaakov came to Egypt and saw Yosef HaTzaddik. As those versed in the hidden wisdom of Kabbalah know, one can sense from a person's face whether or not he has blemished himself, Heaven forbid. This is what the verse means by “He appeared to him”: Yaakov looked carefully at Yosef's face and saw that even though Yosef had been in the land of Egypt, he had remained in his holiness. That meant that from now on it was possible to recite the Shema in completeness. So Yaakov recited the Shema at once, in order to raise up all the recitations of the Shema he had said during the whole time he had not seen Yosef. Yosef had not been with him all that time, and no one else could raise those recitations up in completeness as Yosef could.

4bYosef HaTzaddik, however, knew within himself that he had stood firm in his holiness all along. So all the Torah study, Shema and prayer that had come from his mouth in Egypt had been complete, since he had stood firm in his righteousness and had not, Heaven forbid, blemished Yesod. He therefore thought that he did not need to recite the Shema at that moment, and that it was better to fulfill the mitzvah of honoring his father, as the commentators, such as the Gur Aryeh, explain.

5This lets us understand a saying of Chazal: “When one passes his hands over his eyes, he accepts upon himself the yoke of the kingship of Heaven.”⁶ At first glance, what is the point of passing one's hands over one's eyes while reciting the Shema? But as we saw, the completeness of the Shema comes from the holiness of Yesod. It is through this holiness that a person accepts the yoke of the kingship of Heaven and the yoke of Torah and mitzvos completely, so that the external forces cannot draw nourishment from them. So by passing his hand over his eyes, a person shows that he first rectifies the holiness of the eyes, and only then recites the Shema. In this way his acceptance of the yoke of Heaven and the yoke of Torah and mitzvos will be complete.

6May Hashem grant that we not only “expound well” but also “fulfill well,”⁷ and that we repair what we have blemished. Amen, may it be His will.