Dvar Torah for Parshat VaYigash

Based on LM II, 117

'Yosef recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.Ó
'I am Yosef! Is my father still alive?!Ó
(Genesis 42:8; ibid., 45:3)

The Rebbe once commented: I am very jealous of a kosher Jew, anehrlikher Yid. He seems to be just another human being walking around with guts and limbs like everyone else. In fact, he is something altogether different (Rabbi Nachman's Wisdom #14).

Rebbe Yehuda Aryeh Leib Alter (5607ø5665/1847ø1905), the famed Rebbe of Ger more commonly referred to by the title of his work Sfas Emes, once pointed out that the greatness of a genuine tzaddik is unfathomable to the ordinary mind. As proof he would cite the episode of Yosef HaTzaddik and his brothers. They had met with Yosef HaTzaddik on three separate occasions, each time holding long protracted discussions with him. Yet, they never had an inkling that they were talking to a saint of the highest stature. They thought they were dealing with an Egyptian, through and through! The brothers were far from being spiritual-primitives. They had known their grandfather, our Patriarch Isaac, and were still (in their mid-40s, early 50s) living in close proximity to their father, our Patriarch Jacob. Nonetheless, not only they did fail to realize that the person they were talking was their superior, but they thought he was a pagan!

Rebbe Nachman points this out in another venue and from another perspective. He related that when he was in Eretz Yisrael many of the tzaddikim who were living there told him that prior to their coming to the Holy Land they had thought that the Land was in a different world, on a totally different spiritual plane. That was the conclusion they had reached about the Holy Land from their study of both the revealed and hidden Torah. Then, when they arrived in Eretz Yisrael, they saw that it was indeed part of planet Earth! To all outward appearances it was exactly like the lands in which they had been born!

Rebbe Nachman said that he wanted to make people aware of this fact. The Rebbe said it was a common mistake for people to expect that a tzaddik would look different, and engage in acts and behavior different from ordinary people. People expect that a tzaddik or God-fearing individual should be clearly recognizable on the outside. In truth, however, a kosher Jew"even a bona fide tzaddik"walks, talks, eats, etc, just the way an ordinary person does.

Yet, in the same way that one who believes in the sanctity of the Holy Land can discern somewhat its uniqueness, so, too, one who believes, can discern somewhat the uniqueness of the kosher Jew and the tzaddik, who are totally different than those around them.