“Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.”
— Thomas Edison
“One more try” is a central message of this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash. Judah is given another chance. He has failed before — a number of times. First, Judah is the brother who suggests they sell Joseph into slavery. Just one chapter later, we read about Judah’s moral failure with Tamar. And now, he has been given another chance. He comes before Pharaoh’s number two to plead for the life of his baby brother, Benjamin. He doesn’t know what we know: the man in whose presence he stands is his own brother, Joseph, the one that he sold into slavery. Judah is given a second chance, an opportunity to do the right thing, to save his brother and spare his father even more grief.
Here, finally, Judah rises to the challenge. Instead of giving up on Benjamin, or — more broadly — giving up on his father and his family, Judah tries one more time. His heartfelt apology, his acceptance of his father’s favoritism, and — most powerfully — his willingness to exchange his own freedom for his brother Benjamin’s, offering himself as Joseph’s prisoner in his stead, moves Joseph to tears and leads to a beautiful reunion. The brothers are reunited, opening their relationships up to healing and forgiveness.
The drama of the moment is in knowing that it could easily have gone another way.
Judah could have, understandably, argued to Joseph: “Look, it’s obvious that my baby brother stole your precious goblet. He’s always been a usurper. Keep him! Just let me and my other brothers go in peace. Do not punish us on his account!”
We half expect Judah to make this very argument, getting rid of yet another favored brother.
But he doesn’t. Given a second chance, he refuses to give in to jealousy, pettiness, or hurt. He tries again and, this time, succeeds.
I’ve been thinking a lot about second chances these days. One of my teachers, Dr. Micha Goodman of the Shalom Hartman Institute, suggested on my recent trip to Israel that, in the wake of October 7, Am Yisrael has, collectively, been given another opportunity, a national “second chance.” The ultimate failure in such a moment would be not to try to get it right this time.
The path forward is unclear and fraught. But given some of the actions that have brought us to this moment, Goodman suggests that whatever solutions we attempt must be inspired by a commitment to both humility and solidarity because, he argues, it is arrogance and disunity that brought us to this tragic moment.
Humility: The first two Jewish commonwealths fell. God-forbid that, through our shortcomings, our own failures of imagination and leadership, we witness the loss of the third. Humility is required if we are to have the courage to reflect deeply on this moment and our own responsibility for it so that we can adjust, change, explore new paths so that we, like Judah, might finally get it right.
Solidarity: The only possibility for success, Goodman suggests, is in doing the work together. This will require compromise, tolerance, patience, and love. We most certainly will not always agree — we might never agree. But we have to embrace the fact that the only way forward is together. This has always been the case. We share a common history and a common destiny. Whatever fate befalls the Jewish people will affect each and every one of us. At this moment of great vulnerability, we must dedicate ourselves to Jewish unity.
Our parasha teaches us these lessons quite powerfully.
Judah and the other brothers come together before Joseph. Through Judah, they speak in one voice. In humility, Judah bows down to Joseph and, in humility, he acknowledges that the only way forward is a different way forward. The paths they have tried before have failed. A new path must be explored — together.
And so, too, with us. We have to find another way. It’s frightening for me to admit that I’m not certain that we will succeed. This moment is one of the most difficult we have ever faced as a people. But we have no choice. We cannot give up. We will have to try again, one more time.
With humility, with solidarity, we just might get it right at last.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Yoshi