Od Avinu Chai!

Yosef has just told the brothers that Binyamin will remain in Egypt, and they are free to go.

 

Yehuda steps up and takes responsibility, “I will remain here. Binyamin must return or else our father will die of grief.” He is ready to go to war on behalf of his brother.

 

Yosef can no longer keep his secret and shouts out:

אֲנִי יוֹסֵף הַעוֹד אָבִי חָי

“I am Yosef! Is my father still alive?”

 

The brothers are dumbfounded. Yosef is still alive.

 

The words “ha-od avi chai” are also an indictment of the hypocrisy of Yehuda. Yosef knows Yaakov lives – Yehuda kept repeating this fact over and over. Rather, he is saying, “Now, you’re worried about causing our father grief!?! Why weren’t you so concerned when you left me in the pit?”

 

It is a very dramatic reunion.

 

Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach sees this moment of reunion as providing the Jewish answer to the world. He incorporates the words “Od avi chai” into his song, “Am Yisrael Chai,” which he composed for the Soviet Jewry movement.  He notes that “od avi chai” refers to our Father, God. As long as God is living, the Jewish nation lives. God is forever, and so are the Jews. While “Am Yisrael Chai” has a long history of being used to express Jewish solidarity, Reb Shlomo turned the words into an anthem of Jewish pride, strength, vitality, optimism and hope.

Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik sees the words “ha-od avi chai” as a question to each of us about our link to the past. In a lecture at Lincoln Square Synagogue in 1975, he related one of his experiences as a young boy in cheder in Khaslavichy, where his father was the rabbi. As the Rav related many times, his teacher was a Chasid and would impart Chasidic lessons more often than teach the simple lessons of the text.

“The episode I am about to relate to you took place on a murky winter day in January. I still remember the day; it was cloudy and overcast. It was just after the Chanukah festival, and the Torah portion of the week was Vayigash. With the end of Chanukah ended the little bit of serenity and yomtovkeit (holiday spirit) that the festival brought into the monotonous life of the town's Jews.

As far as the boys from the cheder were concerned, a long desolate winter lay ahead. It was a period in which we had to get up while it was still dark and return home from the cheder with a lantern in the hand of each boy, because nightfall was so early.

On that particular day, the whole cheder, all the boys, were in a depressed mood -- listless, lazy, and sad. We recited, or I should say chanted mechanically, the first verses of Vayigash in a dull monotone. We were simply droning the words in Hebrew and in Yiddish…

The boy, reading mechanically, finished reciting the question: Ha-yesh lachem av? Do you have a father? and the reply: Yesh lanu av zaken ve-yeled zekunim katan, We have an old father, and a young child of his old age. Then something strange happened. The melamed (teacher), who was half-asleep while the boy was droning on the words in Hebrew and Yiddish, rose, jumped to his feet and with a strange, enigmatic gleam in his eyes, motioned to the reader to stop. Then the melamed turned to me and…said to me: "What kind of question did Joseph ask his brothers, Ha-yesh lachem av? Do you have a father? Of course they had a father, everybody has a father! The only person who had no father was the first man of creation, Adam. But anyone who is born into this world has a father. What kind of a question was it?"

I began, ‘Joseph…’ I tried to answer, but he did not let me. Joseph, I finally said, meant to find out whether the father was still alive. ‘Do you still have a father,’ meaning, is he alive, not dead? If so, the melamed thundered back at me, he should have phrased the question differently: ‘Is your father still alive?’

To argue with the melamed was useless. He began to speak. He was no longer addressing the boys. The impression he gave was that he was speaking to some mysterious visitor, a guest who had come into the cheder, into that cold room…

In modern idiom, I would say he meant to express the idea that Joseph was inquiring about existential parenthood, not biological parenthood. Joseph, the melamed concluded, was anxious to know whether they felt themselves committed to their roots, to their origins. Were they origin conscious? Are you, Joseph asked the brothers, rooted in your father? Do you look upon him the way the branches, or the blossoms, look upon the roots of the tree? Do you look upon your father as the feeder, as the foundation of your existence? Do you look upon him as the provider and sustainer of your existence? Or are you a band of rootless shepherds who forget their origin, and travel and wander from place to place, from pasture to pasture?

Suddenly, he stopped addressing the strange visitor and began to talk to us. Raising his voice, he asked: ‘Are you modest and humble? Do you admit that the old father represents an old tradition? Do you believe that the father is capable of telling you something new, something exciting? Something challenging? Something you did not know before? Or are you insolent, arrogant, and vain, and deny your dependence upon your father, upon your source? ‘Ha-yesh lachem av?! Do you have a father?!’

Who knows more? Do you know more because you are well versed in the Talmud, or does your father…know more even though he can barely read Hebrew? Are you proud of your father? If a Jew admits to the supremacy of his father, then, ipso facto, he admits to the supremacy of the Universal Father, the ancient Creator of the world…’

That is the experience I had with the melamed. I have never forgotten it.”

Ha-od avi chai? Is our past kept alive in the Judaism of today? Do we look to our ancestors for inspiration and motivation or are they mere relics of a bygone era? Who do we look to for authentic, living Judaism?

Radio host Dennis Prager observes, “I’ve been in many Jewish homes. I’ve noticed that Reform Jews often adorn their homes with much Judaica and Jewish art. I often will find a painting of dancing Chassidic Jews on their walls.” He goes on to note. “I’ve also been to the homes of many Orthodox Jews who have a lot of Jewish art. I have never seen paintings on their wall of dancing Reform Jews.”

I don’t think it matters what kind of Jews we put on the wall. What’s most important is for Jews to live Jewishly. That is how we ensure the relevance, vitality, and growth of our community. That’s “Od Avinu Chai.” That’s “Am Yisrael Chai.” That’s how we keep our Judaism alive.