7 Tevet 5786 · 27th December 2025
Parashat Vayigash
A Devar Torah by Ben Eaton
"G-d only knows
G-d makes his plan
The information's unavailable to the mortal man"
— Paul Simon
Lines from a 1977 song written by one of the three greatest living singer-songwriters, Paul Simon (the other two being Bob Dylan and Paul McCartney - anyone who wishes to dispute this can do so at Kiddush). As those of you who recognise the lyrics will know, the lines that follow are a bit more cynical:
"We work our jobs
Collect our pay
Believe we're gliding down the highway
When in fact we're slip slidin' away"
— Paul Simon
Paul Simon has always done Jewish angst brilliantly. But if you take those first lines as something that is just a fact of life, then you have two choices: cynicism or faith. Note that I didn't say scepticism - that's something different and involves the use of reason, which we'll come back to.
Do You Believe in G-d?
Here's the question: do you believe in G-d? If not, then what are you doing here? If your response is "looking for G-d" then that's a good answer. There's nothing wrong with being agnostic - it means that you are open to the possibility that G-d exists. But to call yourself a practicing Jew and be avowedly atheist? That's just absurd. There's too much stuff in the Torah that makes absolutely no sense without a belief in G-d, and too much other stuff that you can't ignore if you do believe in G-d.
Modern militant atheism has made belief in G-d unfashionable. For those of you suckered by (or "learned in") Marxist doctrine, the existence of G-d is disproven by a cold rationality (which, for some reason, doesn't extend to empirical analysis of the success of Communism). This should worry us as Jews because, despite his rejection of Judaism, Marx was Halachically Jewish and influenced (consciously or otherwise) by the social justice ideals of the Torah. But as Dennis Prager warns: "When Jews abandoned Judaism, many of them did not abandon Judaism's messianic impulse…they simply secularized it and created secular substitutes". Or as GK Chesterton put it: "When people stop believing in G-d, they don't believe in nothing; they believe in anything".
Even something supposedly as secular as science hasn't been immune to this quasi-religious thinking. Michael Crichton refers to this in his 2003 essay "Aliens cause global warming" where he discusses the worrying rise of scientific consensus in lieu of evidence - to quote: "Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had".
Even Richard Dawkins, probably the most famous atheist of our age, has fallen foul of secularists because they have adopted scientifically unsound positions that are nonetheless politically fashionable. He applied his usual logic and scientific rigour to their nonsensical claims, only to be met with derision and the withdrawal of his award for "Humanist of the Year". This must have come as a bit of a shock to the man who devoted an entire chapter of his 2006 book "The god delusion" to speculating on the evolutionary basis for religion. His position can be broadly summarised as: religion is an evolutionary dead end because, by devoting time and resources to things that seemingly serve no survival purpose, it is an inefficient use of the ecosystem. Ironically, by doing this he falls into the same trap as Marx - as Michael Shapiro points out in his book "The Jewish 100": "Marx seemingly ignored the fact that people were worth something too. Spiritual, cultural, and intellectual capital did make a difference. His intense concentration on the causes and operations of systems failed to recognise the interplay of people making things happen."
In Sefer haMitzvot, Maimonides declares "The first mitzvah is to know and believe in G-d". Which in a roundabout way brings us to Joseph. Now if Joseph is sure of two things, it's that G-d is with him and that Joseph knows how to interpret dreams (including, as we discovered with Pharaoh's dreams, G-d's intentions in those dreams). Yet at no point in the Torah does G-d speak directly to Joseph. We know when G-d speaks to people directly because the Torah tells us. G-d doesn't just speak to the Patriarchs and Prophets - He also speaks to less-than-righteous people, such as Balaam and Abimelech. In this week's parsha, G-d speaks to Jacob while he's on his way to Egypt. But never directly to Joseph, whose only "Hineini" moment is in parshat Vayeshev (two weeks ago) where Jacob sends him to check on his brothers, which leads him to an encounter with a man who finds him "wandering in the fields" and asks him "what are you looking for?". According to Rashi, this man was actually the angel Gabriel - who continues a habit of angels asking existential questions that the recipient interprets literally. For example: in parshat Lech Lecha when Hagar runs away, she encounters an angel who asks "Where are you coming from and where are you headed?". Both Hagar and Joseph take the questions at face value. In Joseph's case he says "it is my brothers that I am looking for", an answer that comes full circle in this week's parsha.
Faith and Reason
More cynicism from Paul Simon again, this time in 1990: "faith is an island in the setting sun, but proof is the bottom line for everyone". But I don't think faith and an empirical approach are mutually exclusive. To quote my favourite sci-fi show: "Faith sustains us in the hour when reason tells us that we cannot continue…Faith and reason are the shoes on your feet. You can travel further with both than you can with just one."
Joseph sees G-d in everything - he doesn't dismiss Divinely orchestrated events as mere random chance. To paraphrase Einstein: "G-d does not play dice with the universe". Even when all manner of misfortune befalls Joseph he never loses faith. Joseph never turns away from believing in G-d. When he finally comes clean to his brothers, three times he says "G-d sent me". The indignity and suffering that resulted from his brothers' actions years previously is swept aside because of Joseph's recognition of the bigger picture.
There is a saying popular among soldiers that "there are no atheists in foxholes". Two millennia of hoping for a return to Zion and it seeming ever more impossible and then in 1948, against militarily superior odds, we get our homeland back. For those of you not familiar with military history, suffice it to say that Israel winning the War of Independence was a miracle. On paper we should have lost several times over, but in reality (which is the only battleground that matters) we won. The journey to that moment was one that can only be reasonably explained by Divine intervention - Covenant and prophecy fulfilled. Am Yisrael Chai!
The Right Man, in the Right Place, at the Right Time
Faith is hard. But you have to start from the belief, or at least entertain the idea, that G-d exists and the Torah is Divinely inspired. Otherwise, why bother? There is a Divine plan - G-d will get you where you need to be in order to do what He needs you to do. But the downside of free will is that sometimes you won't do that thing. The older I get, the more I become aware of missed opportunities that came with everything short of a written invitation. So, we need to be alert to what G-d is asking of us at any given moment. That's why we study Torah - because sometimes the answers aren't easy and we need to have at least some inkling of where to start. But we also need to strive to observe the Mitzvot as much as we can, not least because Judaism is not just an intellectual exercise, but because our actions should reinforce our faith which in turn should enhance our understanding. It's a perpetual cycle of growth, but one that cannot begin without that first step.
So, when it feels like our world is in freefall, perhaps we all need a bit more Joseph in us. We may not hear the voice of G-d directly, but we should be looking for Him in the everyday. Joseph doesn't allow his misfortune to make him jaded or make him think that G-d has abandoned him. Instead, he walks in G-d's ways and does what he can wherever he is, to improve the world for others. Once his brothers sell him into slavery, Joseph's life goes from that of a boy who does not know what he is looking for - to becoming the right man, in the right place, at the right time. In Vayigash, Joseph looks back and sees the handiwork of G-d in his life's journey. May we merit to do the same.
Shabbat Shalom