My father had two contenders for the “greatest man he ever met.” One was Winston Churchill who was also a passenger on the ocean liner that brought my father to America as an immigrant in 1949. No, they did not actually meet, but because my father was only eleven years old, he was able to get quite close to Churchill. The other contender was Rav Aharon Kotler z’l, the founding rosh yeshiva of the yeshiva in Lakewood. My father was never a full time student in Lakewood but he occasionally went there for Shabbos or Yom Tov and heard Rav Aharon speak on those occasions.
One afternoon during a visit to Lakewood, my father left his dormitory room and saw Rav Aharon pacing by the exit to the dormitory building. My father immediately realized that Rav Aharon was waiting for someone to escort him from the dormitory building to the building a few blocks away that housed the beis medresh – the study hall. My father also understood that he was the only student remaining in the dormitory building and that Rav Aharon would walk with him if he came to the exit and left the building so as to allow himself to be escorted. And so he turned around and went back into his bedroom, closed the door and waited another five minutes. After the wait, he emerged and saw that Rav Aharon was still pacing by the exit waiting for someone to escort him. And, indeed, as soon as my father reached the exit, Rav Aharon allowed my father to escort him the two blocks to the beis medresh which my father said were the longest and most frightening two blocks of his life but that Rav Aharon was the greatest man he ever met.
Decades later and shortly before he died, my father met up with his yeshiva hevruta, who had also become a psychotherapist, and said, “Rav Aharon appeared to me in a dream the other night, walking towards me through fire…how am I supposed to explain that to my analyst?”
You may have heard the generalization: Gentiles leave without saying goodbye, Jews say goodbye and don’t leave.
This quip might explain why the last five minutes of a Shabbos meal can take half an hour, but beneath the humor is a halakhic intuition: that ending a visit is a moment of responsibility. There is a Jewish way to end a visit and it entails escorting our guests out of our homes and part of the way on their journey. This mitzvah, called levayah, or escort, is learned from the Torah’s account of Avraham escorting his angelic guests after he had fed them. The halakhic obligation to escort guests is mentioned in the Talmud, codified in the medieval codes of Jewish law, and exists as a sort of bookend to the mitzvah of welcoming guests into our homes and providing them with food and shelter. When they leave, we accompany them out of our home on the first steps of their journey.
One of the few people I ever met who knew my father as a child shared with me that my father, upon learning this mitzvah, was very meticulous, as a precocious young boy, to escort guests four cubits, or six feet, on their way upon their departure from his family’s home. Perhaps this explained why his experience escorting Rav Aharon was among the stories he told most.
This mitzvah of levayah may also turn out to underlie a potent dynamic of Yosef’s reunion with his father.
When Yaakov was first informed that his beloved son Yosef is still alive and is not only alive but is ruling under Pharaoh over all Egypt, he is initially doubtful and reluctant to believe their report. Only after the wagons that Yosef sent to bring the family down to Egypt appear over the horizon does Yaakov believe that Yosef is alive and rejoice.
וַיְדַבְּר֣וּ אֵלָ֗יו אֵ֣ת כׇּל־דִּבְרֵ֤י יוֹסֵף֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר דִּבֶּ֣ר אֲלֵהֶ֔ם וַיַּרְא֙ אֶת־הָ֣עֲגָל֔וֹת אֲשֶׁר־שָׁלַ֥ח יוֹסֵ֖ף לָשֵׂ֣את אֹת֑וֹ וַתְּחִ֕י ר֖וּחַ יַעֲקֹ֥ב אֲבִיהֶֽם׃
“But when they recounted all that Joseph had said to them, and when he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to transport him, the spirit of their father Jacob revived.”
What was it about the wagons that was so important for Yaakov? Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehuda Berlin suggests that nobody would invest so much money in a lie. Somebody had to pay for all those wagons so the story must be true.
The Midrash Rabbah suggests an entirely new area of commentary and interpretation. Viewing the wagons seems like such an odd factor in shifting Yaakov’s perspective the Torah almost cries out for interpretation. The עֲגָל֔וֹת the midrash suggests are a reference to the eglah arufah – the ritual of atonement performed by breaking an animal’s neck – that is described in Parashat Shoftim. According to the midrash, Yaakov and Yosef were studying the laws of the eglah arufah before Yosef’s abduction and when Yaakov saw the agalot that Yosef had sent, he realized that he was receiving a coded message that could only have been sent by Yosef and he was revived.
Rabbi Ephraim Luntshitz, the rabbi of Prague and author of the early 17th century commentary known as Keli Yakar, takes this observation and deepens it. The ritual of the eglah arufah entails the elders of the city washing their hands over the heifer whose neck has been broken any time an unidentified human corpse is found in the wilderness. They wash their hands and declare:
וְעָנ֖וּ וְאָמְר֑וּ יָדֵ֗ינוּ לֹ֤א (שפכה) [שָֽׁפְכוּ֙] אֶת־הַדָּ֣ם הַזֶּ֔ה וְעֵינֵ֖ינוּ לֹ֥א רָאֽוּ׃
“And they shall make this declaration: “Our hands did not shed this blood, nor did our eyes see it done.”
Would anyone think that the elders of the city are murderers, asks the Talmud in Masechet Sotah? Of course not. Rather, they are declaring that they did not send the victim on his way without providing a protective escort.
Keli Yakar sees evidence that Yosef was fulfilling this obligation when he sent the wagons. The phrase אֲשֶׁר־שָׁלַ֥ח יוֹסֵ֖ף implies that Yosef himself accompanied them for part of their way up from Egypt. After all, a more, literal and straightforward account would have credited Pharaoh with sending the wagons; they belonged to Pharaoh and were filled with his possessions.
In this context, in this read of the story, Yosef is demonstrating that he is faithful to this distinctly Jewish form of ethical behavior as he sends a coded message to his father indicating he has remembered their broken-off study session on Parashat Shoftim. And we too can remain faithful to this facet of Jewish ethics by walking our guests out of our homes when they leave us and accompanying them on their journey at least daled amot – four cubits or six feet. Someone at special risk needs a longer escort and a great Torah scholar deserves a longer escort.
Keli Yakar explains that escorting guests is not about being polite; it is about protection. And the theory of protection that he develops is both subtle and significant. The escort does not typically accompany the traveler for the full duration of the journey. If that were the case, how would the escort then get back to his or her own home? It is sufficient to walk just a few feet, or to accompany someone just to the gate of the city in order to demonstrate to any bandits or violent people that the traveler is someone with friends. Even a brief escort creates the knowledge that this person matters, that someone will ask questions if harm comes to them.
In Yosef’s case, no harm would have come to those traveling in an entourage with Pharoah’s own wagons. Yosef nonetheless escorted his family for the first leg of their journey to signal to Yaakov his loyalty to his family’s ethical traditions even during circumstances where they would be less needed.
The Jewish community has been flummoxed in recent years by contemporary displays of antisemitic bigotry and violence. We seem confused about who our audience is when we condemn a statement or some dynamic as being antisemitic? Are we trying to convince the antisemite to recant in the face of our accusation? Are we making an appeal to some sort of societal umpire, the “grownups in the room” who can shut down expressions of bigotry or ethnic hatred in response to our clear condemnation?
But many individuals we might accuse of fomenting antisemitism will not accept our rebuke and our condemnation, no matter how loud or strident or how often it is repeated. They will not limit their voice or curtail their influence because they simply will not accept our evaluation if they even encounter it. But perhaps even more alarming, is the reemergence of proudly antisemitic voices in American public life who take pride in their hostility to Jews and Judaism. If virtue signaling was an annoying and cloying form of performative benevolence, it remains so much better than “vice signaling” in which the transgressive thrill of violating taboos or showcasing macho indifference to others is cultivated. Contemporary antisemites deny the charges or embrace them. They don’t ask themselves “am I right about the Jews?” They ask themselves, “will anyone care, will anyone stop me, will my victim be protected?”
This means that aside from whatever policies various Jewish communities might request from our elected officials, we can ask for something much more basic and potentially much more protective. We can ask our elected officials and our neighbors for levayah, for their protective presence. We do not necessarily need constant protection just as levayah of four cubits can be sufficient.. But we need them to show up in the aftermath of antisemitic attacks. We do not need our government to agree with every policy promoted by the Jewish community – we can’t even agree among ourselves on a set of policies to promote! But we need them to meet with us, and to stand with us and among us as we deliberate about the future of our neighborhood, city, and country.
Earlier this month I attended a brunch for local elected officials that was hosted by the JCRC – the Jewish Communal Relations Council of DC. The mayor and other elected officials spoke and so did candidates for mayor. Nothing that was said was dramatic or newsworthy but that was not the point. I left that breakfast feeling grateful that our local government is willing to stand with the Jewish community and treat us as full partners and as neighbors.
And of course, because levayah, and the protective presence it bestows is one of the ethical behaviors endorsed by the Torah, we should find ways to offer our own protective presence, not only to our friends, not only to those with whom we share kinship, but to any and all vulnerable people who can be brought under the protective canopy of our care and concern. Levayah is not agreement. Levayah is not an endorsement. It is the decision not to let another human being walk into danger alone.
Rabbi David Wolkenfeld 