ASTRONOMICAL PROPORTIONS
This week’s Parsha Vayeishev begins the drama of Yosef and the brothers that will continue through the next several Parshios. The drama is extreme and there is cause for great concern that the reader will project his own set of life experiences on the players of this drama. For example, when reading that the brothers were jealous when Yaakov gave Yosef the special jacket we tend to project our own sense of petty jealousy. We extend that sense of jealousy to the point that they actually wanted to kill Yosef.
Naturally, we know that such petty jealousy cannot be ascribed to the fathers of our people. It is untenable to contemplate that the foundation of our people rests on such petty folks. Many of us are familiar with the notion that our early ancestors were people of gigantic stature. There are many areas of greatness; intelligence, righteousness, closeness to HaShem, thoughtfulness and consideration of others and perhaps many more attributes that qualify the greatness of a person. When we say that the Chofetz Chaim was great, the implication is that he was great in all these qualities. When we recognize that he was extremely great we use our frame of reference and multiply his greatness many times over till we have an image of extreme greatness.
We tend to use ourselves as a starting point to begin multiplying greatness, so that the Chofetz Chaim was a thousand times bigger than me. To me that sounds like a great deal of his greatness. However, I most recently discovered a different frame of reference to use by which I can have a more accurate picture of the greatness of our Sages.
Please consider the following scale. Place two dots next to each other less than half a centimeter apart and one dot represents the Earth and the other represents the Sun.
Using this scale we would have to travel over a mile before we would arrive at the closest star to the Sun if drawn to scale. In our galaxy, the Milky Way, there are about well over 100 billion stars making the overall size of the Milky Way quite significant, 100,000 light years across. Astronomers have estimated over 100 billion galaxies in the universe and the space between each galaxy is about one million light years. In short, using the two dots to create the scale of the map of the universe, the entire earth would not provide sufficient space to draw that map.
In light of this overwhelming proportion I realize how small minded I become when I multiply myself by large numbers. It is with this scale of multiplication that we must enlarge the great-ness of the early Achronim and from them to the Rishonim and from them to Anshei Knesses HaGedola until we reach the Shevatim themselves. By the time we have arrived at the Shevatim we will realize how the drama played out in our Parshios has a different meaning than any mortal being can imagine. We are fortunate to have the Rishonim explain to us how to understand the emotions and actions of the players and we must tie our understanding to their explanations.
Of course, we must still learn the lessons that can be gleaned from the drama even though we cannot quite fathom mistakes made by these giants. From Yaakov we learn not to treat one son differently than the rest and from Yosef we learn the gravity of speaking loshon hara and so on.
Only astronomical proportions can be used to begin understanding the greatness of our Avos haKedoshim.
When HaShem promised Avraham that his descendants will be as numerous as the stars that could not refer to the actual num-ber of children because there simply are not that many people in the world. Perhaps He was telling Avraham that his descend-ants will be measured in astronomical proportions.
Have a wonderful Shabbos and a very happy Chanukah.
Paysach Diskind