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Vayigash 5766
By Rabbi Dr. Barry Leff
Congregation B’nai
Israel
Toledo
,
OH
Do
you believe in karma? The idea
that “what goes around, comes around,” you get what you deserve?
There is a passage in this week’s Torah reading, Vayigash, which at first
reading suggests the very troubling idea that perhaps when the Jews were
enslaved in Egypt, they were getting what they deserved.
Toward the end of this week’s parsha, when the famine has come to the
land
of
Egypt
, the Torah tells us that
Joseph went about his job with great efficiency.
The
Torah tells us “And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the
land
of
Egypt
, and in the
land
of
Canaan
, for the grain which
they bought; and Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh’s house.
And when money was all spent in the
land
of
Egypt
, and in the
land
of
Canaan
, all the Egyptians came
to Joseph, and said, Give us bread; for why should we die in your
presence? for the money is gone.
And Joseph said, Give your cattle; and I will give you food for your
cattle, if your money is gone.”
So
after having spent all their money on food, Joseph tells them to give up
their cattle if they have no money left.
The people give up their cattle for food.
Of
course, that food doesn’t last forever.
The next thing that happens is the people come and tell Joseph “We
will not hide it from my lord that our money is spent; my lord also has
our herds of cattle; there is nothing left in the sight of my lord, but
our bodies, and our lands; Why shall we die before your eyes, both we and
our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be
servants to Pharaoh; and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that
the land be not desolate.”
The
Egyptians are so desperate for food, they offer themselves up as slaves.
Clearly they believed it was better to be a live slave than to die
free.
This
too came to pass; the Torah tells us “And Joseph bought all the
land
of
Egypt
for Pharaoh; for the
Egyptians sold every man his field, because the famine prevailed over
them; so the land became Pharaoh’s.”
Joseph moved the people to cities, presumably since the farming was
no good anyway. The priests
kept their land by royal dispensation.
Joseph approaches the people and tells them, “Behold, I have bought
you this day and your land for Pharaoh; lo, here is seed for you, and you
shall sow the land.”
It
sure sounds like Joseph has enslaved the entire population of
Egypt
.
Which is what made me think, wow!
Maybe the Jews becoming enslaved was a kind of karma for the fact that a
Jew enslaved all the Egyptians!
It
would seem to be a kind of poetic justice, wouldn’t it?
Joseph the Jew enslaved the Egyptians, so a few generations later
the Egyptians enslave his descendants?
But
as is often the case with Torah, to get to the real story, you have to
read the text closely.
Right after Joseph seems to claim he bought the people the Torah
continues: “And it shall come to pass at harvest time, that you shall give
the fifth part to Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of
the field, and for your food, and for them of your households, and for
food for your little ones. And
they said, You have saved our lives; let us find grace in the sight of my
lord, and we will be Pharaoh’s servants.
And Joseph made it a law over the
land
of
Egypt
to this day, that
Pharaoh should have the fifth part; except the land of the priests only,
which became not Pharaoh’s.”
Joseph didn’t actually enslave the people, although the people were
certainly ready to become slaves.
The Torah says
"acquire both us and our land.”
The Egyptians were offering themselves as slaves.
But the next verse simply says
“and Joseph
acquired all the land in
Egypt
.”
It doesn’t say anything about acquiring the people.
Ramban, Nachmanides, a 13th century Spanish commentator, says
this is because Joseph took pity on the people.
When Joseph says “he acquired the people,” he clarifies that the
people will pay a tax of 20% to the Pharaoh.
Ramban says the people offered to be slaves, but Joseph rejected
that, because all that Pharaoh wanted was the land.
Once Pharaoh owned all the land the people technically became
sharecroppers, and it would have been appropriate for Pharaoh to keep 4/5
and let the farmers keep 1/5.
But Joseph, in his great compassion, let the people keep 4/5 and he only
kept 1/5 for Pharaoh.
So
Joseph really gave the people a very good deal.
They weren’t slaves.
They had to pay a 20% tax.
What the heck, we’re more slaves than that—the top marginal income tax
rate in
America
is 35%, and that doesn’t
include Social Security or State or Local Income Tax!
Now
Ramban says Joseph did this because of his compassion.
But the truth is, this was also a good bargaining strategy.
During my 20 years in the business world, I negotiated many contracts of
all kinds—contracts with suppliers, contracts with customers, contracts
with investors. I negotiated
one contract that resulted in over $100 million worth of business.
Sometimes I had the superior bargaining position, sometimes the
inferior. There are a lot of
things I learned about negotiating strategy, and one of them was what
Joseph did: leave some money on the table.
If
you are in the superior position, it is often counter-productive to force
the other party into a bad deal.
In the long run you often come out behind if you negotiate the very best
deal and squeeze the last penny out of a contract.
There are several reasons why.
In
the first place, squeezing people leaves a bad taste in their mouths.
It sours a relationship.
If you are putting together a business deal, you want both sides to be
enthusiastic about the deal and to work hard for its success.
If one side is demoralized, they won’t work that hard for
success—and in the long run, both sides might end up making less money.
Besides the relationship aspect, there is the motivation aspect.
If Joseph made the people slaves, they have no incentive to work
hard whatsoever unless someone is standing over them with a whip—and it’s
not practical to have a ratio of one whipper to one whippee everywhere you
turn. If Joseph kept 4/5 for
Pharaoh, that’s an 80% tax rate.
Once they made enough to live on, what incentive would people have
to work harder? It almost all
would have gone to Pharaoh.
By
not enslaving the people when that’s what they expected, Joseph and
Pharaoh were heroes. By
imposing a 20% tax burden instead of an 80% tax burden, Joseph left the
people with a lot of incentive to work hard.
You might say Joseph anticipated Reagan and “supply side economics”
by 3500 years.
By
the way, you shouldn’t think I’ve gone over to the dark side overnight.
I’m not advocating cutting the top tax rate to Joseph’s 20%.
A 35% tax for rich people is not a terrible burden.
But I do think it’s a good idea that we got rid of the crazy 94%
top tax rate that existed during WWII.
The
point is don’t be greedy. As
it says in the book of Proverbs, “There is one who gives freely, and yet
increases; another one withholds what he should give, and only comes to
want. The liberal soul shall be
made rich; and he who waters shall himself be watered.”
Joseph demonstrated this with his actions—when he had the upper hand, he
gave freely, he was a liberal soul.
A good role model for us all.
Unfortunately, this last week we also have been treated to a very bad role
model: Jack Abramoff. Abramoff
has pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy, fraud, and tax evasion.
There is a possibility that a few members of Congress may go down
with him.
He faces up to 11 years in federal prison and must pay $26.7
million in restitution. He
admitted to corrupting government officials and defrauding his clients out
of $25 million.
He
was a bright, capable, well connected man who could have made PLENTY of
money completely legitimately.
Instead he pushed not only as hard as he could, but beyond the line of
what is legal. The fact that
he identifies himself as an Orthodox Jew—you may have noticed he’s always
wearing a hat in any pictures you see of him—makes this a genuine
chillul Hashem, a desecration of God’s name.
When someone publicly identified as Jewish acts in such a
shamefacedly greedy and corrupt way, it only serves to fuel anti-Semitism
and certainly does not help God’s image among the secular.
In
this week’s parsha, Joseph shows us a much better way—don’t be so greedy.
Don’t push for every last nickel you can get away with.
Wise
stock market investors will tell you that if you’re smart you can make
money whether you are optimistic about the market (a bull) or pessimistic
about the market (a bear). But
there is a saying worth heeding: “Bulls can make money.
Bears can make money.
But pigs get slaughtered.”
In
this week’s parsha Joseph gives us a valuable lesson about not being a
pig.
Shabbat Shalom
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