וַיַּרְא יַעֲקֹב כִּי יֶשׁ־שֶׁבֶר בְּמִצְרָיִם
Va’yar Ya’akov ki yesh shever b’Mitzrayim …
And Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt … (Genesis 42:1).
We lost a sage of our era with Leonard Cohen’s passing. His absence prompted me, as it has so many others, to revisit his words and to absorb his unflinching wisdom. Leonard Cohen was a prophet of brokenness, a seeker of the light who did not ignore the inherent frailties and folly of the human condition. In “Anthem” (1992), he sang:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in.
These words echo the teachings of Jewish mysticism. Rabbi Isaac Luria, a formative giant of Kabbalah who lived and taught in Tzfat (Safed) in the mountains of the Galilee in the 16th century, explained the brokenness of our world with a compelling origin story that still animates Jewish thinking today. Luria explained that when God attempted to create our world, God poured the infinite Divine light into the vessel of creation. But it was impossible for the finite creation to contain that infinite light. The light caused the vessel of creation to crack. Much of the light escaped and rejoined the Divine source, but much also remained hidden in the shards of our sublime yet broken world.
Luria taught that the human task is to find and recognize the countless sparks of Divine light. Through our attention and devotion to freeing these sparks, we do our part in helping to repair the broken vessel of our world. Luria named this process תִּקּוּן עוֹלָם Tikkun Olam, “Repairing the World.”
So we can see the Kabbalistic background of Leonard Cohen’s verse, but what has this got to do with our Torah portion? As Jacob addresses his sons at the beginning of Chapter 42, there is a vast famine underway. Unbeknown to Jacob, his son Joseph is in Egypt. Joseph successfully interpreted Pharaoh’s dreams as predicting seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of famine; he then proposed a plan to store the grain of the plentiful years in preparation for the lean years to come. Joseph is now second-in-command to Pharaoh, disbursing that grain to feed the entire populace. News travels to Canaan about the food stores in Egypt, “And Jacob saw that there was grain in Egypt.” — Va’yar Ya’akov ki yesh shever b’Mitzrayim. Jacob will send his sons down to Egypt to procure provisions, thus setting into motion the drama of their reunion with Joseph.
Rabbi Menachem Nachum of Chernobyl, known by his pen name Me’or Eiynayim, “Enlightener of the Eyes,” was a disciple of the Ba’al Shem Tov and a Hasidic master of the 18th century. Rabbi Menachem Nachum offers a mystical interpretation of this verse. Remember, Jewish spiritual teachers throughout the ages understand Torah as primarily a spiritual rather than a physical journey. Rabbi Menachem Nachum notices that שֶׂבֶר shever, which means “grain” or “provisions,” also means “brokenness” or “breakage.” He also notes that מִצְרַיִםMitzrayim, which means “Egypt,” also means “the narrow place” or “constriction.” Thus, he reads the verse Va’yar Ya’akov ki yesh shever b’Mitzrayim as “And Jacob saw that there was brokenness in the Place of Constriction.”
On the spiritual journey, Mitzrayim is our physical world: a place of constriction and brokenness, in which the Divine Light is present but hidden. Our task as spiritual beings is to descend from the Promised Land, the place of Divine Oneness, into the world of broken vessels — vessels that were shattered when the light of Oneness overflowed into them. The task of Jacob’s sons — that is, the Children of Israel — is to recognize the sparks of light that are hidden and waiting to be released, and uplifted by our searching hearts and our righteous deeds.
Father Jacob sees the light glimmering through the cracks of our shattered world. He sends us down into our beautiful, broken world to seek that light in all we do, and to liberate the sparks and let them fly! Rarely is that a simple or easy task, but who said that a life filled with purpose was supposed to be easy? May we be blessed with each other’s good company as we pursue our holy, human work.
The light is always there, mingled with dark, but we have to know where to look and how to see. Or as Leonard Cohen — Eliezer ben Natan ha’Cohen was his Jewish name — taught us in “Suzanne”:
And she shows you where to look amid the garbage and the flowers
There are heroes in the seaweed, there are children in the morning
They are leaning out for love and they will lean that way forever
His memory is a blessing.
Parashat Mikeitz always falls during Hanukkah. May the light of the Hanukkah flames remind us of the light shining through the cracks of our broken and beautiful world, and in the coming year, may we know where to look amid the garbage and the flowers.