Then Judah went up to him [Joseph] and said, “Please my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not be impatient with your servant, you who are the equal of Pharaoh.”
Genesis 44:18
Joseph’s oldest brother thus approaches him, still unaware of his identity, and pleads for the life of their youngest brother Benjamin, who Joseph has just framed in the matter of the goblet. The two stand in uncertain relation to each other. Are they long lost brothers? Are they victim and oppressor? Are they savior and saved? (For it was Judah who convinced his brothers to save Joseph’s life instead of killing him.) Or are they a representative of Israel (the Jewish people) on the one hand and of God (Pharaoh being a God-king) on the other? It is in this last way that the Berditchever (Rabbi Levi Yitzoch of Berditchev) sees the two of them.
The Berditchever was known (among other names) as Sneiguron Shel Yisroel — “the defense attorney of Israel”, since he frequently interceded directly with God on behalf of poor and downtrodden Jews. He was far from alone in this — both Abraham and Moses called God to account (Abraham in Genesis 18 on behalf of Sodom, and Moses on behalf of all of Israel in Exodus 32.) And many have since, particularly in the wake of the Holocaust — see for instance Elie Wiesel’s play The Trial of God which concerns — indirectly — his time as a teengater in Auschwitz and the necessity of holding God to account.
To Levi Yitzoch, when a tzadik (righteous one) intercedes with God, the petition will only succeed in softening or cancelling the judgement if two things are true. First the conduct and attitude of the tzadik must be beyond reproach. The tzadik cannot, for instance, petition God for his own benefit or glorification. (For this reason it is said that the Berditchever frequently pleaded with God alone, late at night, outside of the presence of others.) And second, the tzadik must approach God from the vantage point of אין.
אין (which translates to something like “nothingness”) is a kabbalistic notion associated with the state of things before the universe came into being, when all was undifferentiated. It is also associated in the Hasidic mind with a kind of cosmic cleaving to God’s nature and will, often achieved through meditative prayer. During this prayer, the self-driven will is obliterated, and all that remains is unity with the divine.
In his English translation and commentary on the commentaries of Kedushas Levi, Eliyahu Munk describes the Berditchever as referring to the Zohar’s interpretation of Psalm 48:5 — כי הנה המלכים נועדו (“when the kings come together”) — which it takes to mean not an alliance of kings, as a plain reading of the Psalm would suggest, but a confrontation between two potentates. Munk further guides us into the crannies of the Berditchever’s meaning by focusing on the word כי — which means “when” or “as” or “at the time”.
The letter כ is associated in the Lurianic imagination with the royal crown, or more properly submission or bowing (since the letter is bent) to the royal will. The letter obliterates itself in the presence of greatness. Thus is the call from God by the tzadik answered throughout Torah not with אני but rather אנוכי. The function of the כ is self-diminishment in the divine presence. And thus the letter resonates with the notion of אין — the becoming of nothing. They who wear the crown are obliged to negate themselves in service of their office. One who rules is no longer a person in the same sense as a commoner would be — they are subsumed into the office and role of their sovereignty.
The letter י, on the other hand, is associated with the individual Jew, the son of Jacob, whose feet are planted upon the earth in corporeal, unobliterated form, and who is personified in this story by Judah (יהודה) — whose name (like the name of God) begins with this letter. Munk further relates (one hopes on behalf of the Berditchever, though at times it is difficult to tell) that the Arizal associated י with יראה — the aspect of awe. Various ancient midrashim aside, Judah approaches the unknown/unknowable Joseph with this very attitude in the course of his pleadings.
In this very moment (כי) when these two forces collide we see the individual corporeal Jew (י) come together with the self-obliterated divine ruler, which perhaps helps us understand the meaning of כ. כי הנה המלכים נועדו — when two forces come together. In this moment the will and identify of a righteous individual becomes destabilized as the ego approaches pure אין. This is the moment — the moment beyond moments — the egoless moment, when divine and human motivation come together, and the very mind of God is changed.
(In a very broad way, there appear to be certain resonnances here with the buddhist idea of anātman or non-self — the idea that there is no identifiable or stable “self” in any person. Access to this truth, not unlike the tzadik‘s ability to cause תשובה on the part of God, is obtainable only through deep practice and meditative activity, not to mention right action. )
In the end, Judah’s long entreaty succeeds and leads directly to one of the most poignant, dramatic moments in all of Torah, as Joseph reveals himself to his brothers and repents of his ruse toward Benjamin. Metaphorically, the God-king makes teshuvah, and the impossible harmony is achieved. But the story of the revelation is a particularly human one, involving tears, shock and infinite, unimaginable joy. The words Joseph uses to reveal himself are אני יוסף (no sign of כ here.) We read:
Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and cried out: ‘Have everyone withdraw from me!” So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. His sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace. Josseph said to his brothers: “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumbfounded were they on account of him.
Genesis 45 1-3