By Melissa Patack Berenbaum, Dec. 21, 2024
“If anyone is going to be overdressed, it may as well be you.” These were words spoken by my mother, Sandra Cohen Patack, z’l, often to me, my siblings and to her grandchildren. She always wanted us to look our best, because when you look your best, you act your best and you do your best.
This drash is dedicated to her memory. Her 10th Yartzeit was earlier this month, although some days it feels like she died 10 days or 10 weeks ago. But it seems like a good opportunity to reflect on some of the Torah values she lived and modeled.
Unlike Jacob in our parsha today, she did not give one child or grandchild a special coat or other garment to show off or to demonstrate favoritism. In fact, she deliberately and carefully made each of her children feel as if each of us was her favorite! I don’t have recollections of being jealous of my siblings either over material gifts or maternal attention. And I know from my mother’s relationship with her two brothers, they didn’t experience sibling rivalry either. More devoted siblings you could not find, than my mother and her brothers, my uncles Howard and Art.
So what is going on with this Biblical family, creating such turmoil and divisiveness?
37:4 “And when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of his brothers, they hated him so velo yachlu dabro le’shalom.” What’s the meaning of this last phrase? Robert Alter’s translation states: they “could not speak a kind word to him.” Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks offers two additional translations: “they could not speak peacefully to him” and “they could not speak to him on friendly terms.” Maybe they talked about mundane things – logistics of the household, but not about personal matters.
Why did Jacob love Joseph best? He was the first born of his true love Rachel. And Rachel died in childbirth, so Joseph had no biological mother. By showering this very visible extra attention on Joseph, is Jacob compensating for the absence of a mother figure in Joseph’s life?
Rashi wrote that one reason for Jacob’s demonstrable favoritism was that Joseph resembled Jacob, had his facial features. Ramban offers another explanation, saying that it was the custom of an elder to take one of their younger sons to be with them, to lean on, to attend to the elder. Joseph served this role for Jacob. And Jacob imparted to Joseph all he had learned, so he considered Joseph to be his wise son. But it would seem Jacob could have relied on Joseph in this special way and even taught him, without demonstrating clear favoritism.
Sforno notes “here Yaakov had committed an error, allowing the love in his heart for Joseph to be now become visible through preferential treatment of him.”
We know that a parent should not demonstrate preference for one child over another, but is the blame all on Jacob? Couldn’t the brothers have seen their way through this…find a way to talk to their brother Joseph about his bragging and boasting?
Rabbi Lord Sacks, cites Rabbi Yonatan Eybeschutz, Talmudic scholar of the first half of the 18th Century who wrote:
Had the brothers been able to speak to Joseph they might have told him of their anger at his talebearing (remember in v. 2 he brings bad reports about his brothers as they tend the flocks), and of their distress at seeing the many-coloured coat. They might have spoken frankly about their sense of humiliation at the way their father favoured Rachel over their mother Leah, a favouritism that was now being carried through into a second generation. Joseph might have come to understand their feelings. It might have made him more modest or at least more thoughtful. But lo yachlu dabro le-shalom. They simply couldn’t bring themselves to speak.
Joseph compounds the wounds when he tells them of his dream of their binding sheaves in the fields when his sheaf stands upright and theirs bow to his sheaf. Now, here’s where another of my mother’s creeds is relevant. When her children looked as if they might be on the cusp of arguing with one another, she would tell us: BE NICE!
Why does Joseph have to share this dream with his brothers, as Rambam notes, in an arrogant way? Joseph knows he has alienated his brothers; they can’t speak to him in a friendly manner, and certainly not about anything significant. But he goes on by telling his brothers and his father of his dream in which the sun, moon and stars were bowing to him. This finally gets a rebuke from his father, although the verse (11) says that Jacob “kept the thing in mind,” meaning, according to Sforno, Jacob “thought that the dream reflected in fact what would occur.”
There was a lot at stake in this strained relationship between Joseph and his brothers. After all, this breach causes the brothers to sell Joseph into slavery, which brings him to Egypt, where eventually he does take on an important leadership position, but ultimately leads to the enslavement of the Israelites, from which the Israelites are eventually freed, under the leadership of Moshe, eesh HaElohim, and where they become a people and a nation, flourishing and thriving, overcoming obstacles and tragedies, to this very day.
My mother’s values – not showing favoritism to any one child, and actually making each feel very special and absolutely loved – are Torah values, despite that they are not necessarily modeled in today’s parsha. And she was an extraordinary grandmother to her 4 grandchildren. For Josh and Mira, she took them on countless outings, both large (Niagara Falls) and small (for ice cream); she went to Pressman and read stories in their classes and helped with holiday projects. For me, when the kids were little and with Michael’s incessant travel schedule, her presence on her extended visits became the balancing leg of my very wobbly stool. There was one time when I had a housekeeper/nanny quit abruptly, and I looked at Josh and Mira and said we just have to take care of each other for a little more than a week until Bubby gets here to take care of all of us.
And her creed of “Be Nice,” is a truncated version of the commandment in V’Yikra, chapter 19, verse 18, “to love your neighbor as you love yourself.” As referenced by Rabbi Yitz Greenberg in his new book, The Triumph of Life, Rabbi Akiva states that this is the great principle of the Torah to love our neighbor as yourself. Being nice, is, simply put, the right thing.
Which brings me to the next Torah value my mother embodied – community and relationships. My mother was devoted to her family, her parents when they were alive, her brothers, her children and grandchildren, but also to her aunts and uncles and her cousins. She loved nothing more than to be at every bar mitzvah and wedding, and bris and baby naming, if she could get there. And she was a loyal friend to many. She gathered people for celebrations and when needed, she supported those in times of loss. Her festive tables, full of sumptous food, displayed beautifully, were truly a marvel.
When she died, we took her recipe files (saved on index cards in her handwriting, or clipped from a magazine or newspaper) and shared them among us -siblings and grandchildren. Most every week, when I make Hallah (which sadly I only began to do after she died, so I didn’t take the opportunity to bake with her), I use the index card she wrote her recipe on. It’s missing some details – like how long to knead the dough – but I feel her presence when I’m doing what she did. I could go on, but we want to get to the conclusion of the service so we can engage in something she very much enjoyed – share some food, catch up with each other, find out if someone needs some support or help, exchange views on events of the day, invite someone to do something, and just generally, be in community.
Before I conclude, I would like to acknowledge Tamar and join in celebrating her Aliyah. May you go safely and enjoy being with your family.
Leet me also say a few words about another great matriarch and Jewish leader. Last Sunday, we said farewell to Barbi Weinberg, who devoted herself to her family, the Jewish people and Israel. She was the mother of 4, grandmother of 12 and great-grandmother to 24. She was the first woman President of the Jewish Federation of Los Angeles and the founder of The Washington Institute of Near East Policy, a think tank that convenes conferences, publishes articles and engages with policymakers in a manner that emphasizes the importance of Israel, as a democracy and ally of the U.S. Barbi identified the need create a think tank to provide a better understanding of the complexities of Israel’s neighborhood and providing the intellectual foundation and background for those advocating for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. And she accomplished it. The Washington Institute is a respected institution in Washington and beyond, regarded as an authority with deep subject matter expertise on the region.
About 15 months after my mother died, her picture was on the front page (above the fold) in The Troy Record. Troy is the neighboring city to Albany. It was eye-popping; she was done up and well-dressed. How was that possible? I asked my brother and sister if she had been hiding out in Troy for the last year!! But no, it was an older photograph. Every February Troy had a week where restaurants and merchants stayed open, and residents were encouraged to come out and spend some money on a dark cold winter night. So, in announcing the 10th Anniversary of Troy Night Out, the newspaper featured my mother, probably overdressed for the occasion and giving us one more chance to remember her in the fullness of her life, enjoying community and the pleasures of a night out.
I thank my mother, Sandra Cohen Patack, for everything she did for me, for my family and beyond. I’m grateful that she didn’t foment sibling rivalry and favor one of us over the others! May her memory continue to be a blessing.
May the hostages be freed soon and returned home to their loved ones. Shabbat Shalom.