Honored Rabbeim, Avi Mori, Eemee Morosi, Family, Friends,
But it has also means that we have completed our goal of finishing Maseches Rosh Hashonoh in time for my bar-mitzva. My father chose this Maseches to learn with me since he claimed we were more likely to find chase scenes here than in the more yeshivish masechtos - though now that its over i don't actually remember coming across any, and will be more suspicious when he comes up with his next learning recommendation.
In this week's parasha, we began to retell again the story of Yoseif. There are plenty of action scenes and plotting as the favored son is betrayed by his brothers and sold into slavery in egypt while his father yaacov is deceived - according to some miforishim, midoh kineged midah for his own previous deceptions - and thinks him dead. By the end of the parasha, the story is taken up to the point where yoseif has been thrown into Potifar's jail where he meets two other prisoners, the sar hamashkim and sar ha'ofim -The Cup bearer and chief baker to the Pharoh and interprets their dreams for them. He also begs the Chief baker, whose release Yoseif foretells, to please remember him to recommend him to Paroh so that Yoseif might also be released from jail. The parasha concludes by noting that the sar hamashkim, after being released and restored to his official government position, promptly forgot Yoseif's request to put in a good word for him with Paroh, and Yoseif is left in prison - for another two years.
The rabbis comments on this episode are very difficult to understand. For example, Rashi explains that Yoseif is actually being punished with an additional two years in jail for the act of seeking help from the sar ha'mashkim when he should have placed his reliance in hashem. Similarly the Kli Yokor finds fault with yoseif for seeking help, and explains that when yoseif says "ki im zichartoni" he is implying that his only hope of freedom is through the sar ha'mashkim and this showed his lack of bitochon for which he was punished. But it is very difficult to understand why someone should be punished for showing initiative and attempting to save himself. Sure enough, we found a gaonic peirush which directly disputes that of rashi and the other miforshim. R. Shmuel Ben Chofni Gaon emphasizes that there is no failing of bitochon if a man tries everything within his power to save himself. Thus no similar criticism is directed at yaacov who relied on the use of presents to appease his brother Eisov when he found out that Eisov was riding to meet him with an army of soldiers, and no criticism of lack of bitachon was directed at Yitzchok when he told Avimelech that Rivka was his sister, as he feared that they would kill him if they realized he was the husband, and no criticism was made of Avrohom who in similar dnagerous circumstances pretended that Sara was his sister. So here too Yoseif is not at all to be blamed for seizing on whatever opportunity there may come to help free himself.
So we see that different talmidei chachomim may arrive at very different interpretations of the torah - and that is ok because shivim ponim latorah and there are deep lessons to be learnt from all our mifarshim.
When we see that different chachomim - even different Chazal - could hold differing opinions on matters of torah interpretation, we should not be surprised that there are differences of opinion on other matters as well. The world outside is changing very rapidly and new problems and opportunities will are opening before us. And sometimes we may here different messages from different rebbes or parents about the right way to deal with that outside world. I hope I can learn something from all of them.
When i was born, home computers were racing along at a few megahertz, memory chips were going for a hundred dollars a megabyte and a few hundred kilobytes could be stored on floppy disks. Already at my bar Mitzvah all that has changed up to thousand-fold. And there have been many other changes as well, many of which affect us directly as frum jews, giving us both opportunities and problems. As a thirteen year old bar mitzvah boy, you will not expect me to settle any of these problems for you. But I'll close by citing an observation of one of the Hungarian g'idolim of the last century, The Dor Rivi'ie. The Dor Ri'vie observed that the Torah She'Bi'Al Peh was never originally meant to be written down at all, in order to preserve the freedom of each new generation of talmidei chachomim to adjust tradition to the new knowledge and circumstances of the day. There is a lot of new knowledge out there today and it keeps growing. What is important now for me is to continue to learn Torah with my rebbes and acquire the skills as well as the external knowledge that will one day allow me to achieve my own balance, one that is right for me and contributes to Kilal Yisroel even as the world keeps changing around me.
I have to thank - because my father insisted- my parents, my sisters, my relatives, all my teachers and rabbeim and everybody else here who came out on this cold day to help me celebrate my bar mitzvoh. Yogi Berra once said it aint over till its over. Well, now it's over. Thank you all for coming.