Parashat Vayeshev: Fatal Heroics
This time next week, believe it or not: we’ll be right in the middle of Hanukkah! The familiar sounds of blessings and songs will fill our homes and the synagogue. And one of those, of course, will be Mi Yemalel—Mi yimalel gvurot Yisrael, otan mi yimneh? Hen bekhol dor yakum ha’gibor goel ha’am! Who can tell of the heroic deeds of Israel? Who can count them?
Yes, in every generation a hero arises to save the people.
But really, what is a hero? What makes a person or an act heroic?
Beginning on this past Thursday, on Thanksgiving, and showing throughout the weekend, CNN put together their fourth annual All-Star Tribute to CNN Heroes. Essentially, there were over 10,000 nominations for “everyday heroes,” and a blue ribbon panel made up of celebrities and heroes themselves, selected the top ten. These top ten were people like Guadalupe Arizpe De La Vega, who founded a hospital in Juarez, Mexico, that cares for about 900 people daily, irrespective of their ability to pay. Or, Susan Burton who started the nonprofit “A New Way of Life Reentry Project,” providing sober housing and other support services to formerly incarcerated women in California. Or, Evans Wadongo, who invented a way for rural families in Kenya to replace smoky kerosene and firelight with solar power, distributing an estimated 10,000 free solar lanterns. Sure these are all everyday people whose extraordinary accomplishments are making a difference in their communities and likely beyond, but the campaign and program doesn’t truly take an opportunity to define hero for us, the wider audience.
In Pirkei Avot, Ben Zoma taught us: Ezeh Hu Gibor? Who is mighty? Who is a hero? The one who controls himself accordingly—hakovesh et yitzro (Avot 4:1).
But there’s more to that answer and to that definition. It’s much more than subduing one’s evil inclination. To be a hero is much more than to do a good deed, though good deeds do lay the foundation for heroics.
Hen B’khol Dor Yakum HaGibor: And there were several acts of heroics in this morning’s Torah portion.
We’re reminded that Joseph’s brothers wanted to kill him, outright (Genesis 37:20). However, the reason the brothers throw Joseph into the pit initially and do not kill him is because Reuven steps forward and intervenes:
“He said, ‘Let us not take his life.’ And Reuben went on, ‘Shed no blood! Cast him into that pit out in the wilderness, but do not touch him yourselves’—intending to save him from them and restore him to his father” (Genesis 37:21-22).
Would Reuven have made CNN’s heroes list? Was his act pure enough? Was it grand enough? According to the midrash, it would seem that Reuven probably would not have made the final cut.
Before referring us back to Reuven’s intervention, Rabbi Yitzhak bar Marion taught: When a person does a mitzvah, k’sheh adam oseh mitzvah, he or she should do it happily, yehe oseh otah b’lev sameah. (Leviticus Rabbah 34:8)
But then the midrash continues: If Reuven had known that the Holy Blessed One would write concerning him, “When Reuven heard, he saved Joseph from his brothers’ hand,” Reuven would have carried Joseph on his shoulders and taken him directly to his father Jacob.
Had Reuven foreseen that his “heroics” would have been recorded, he would have acted more explicitly and, for lack of a better word, more heroically. When Reuven performed the mitzvah of saving his brother, he didnot do so with a happy heart. His intervention was perfunctory; it was and, as we can tell from the midrash, perhaps ambivalent. He could have gone further, but did not have the drive to do so. He could have really intervened, but did not have the proper motivation.
The definition of a hero has nothing to do with the actual person or their actions; it is all about the intention.
If a person goes out of his or her way to do everything in their power to save another, to help another, to be there for another, and does so with an open heart and an open mind – and they do so willingly and not begrudgingly – then that is an act of heroics, and they are a hero.
But if the intentions are otherwise, even if the action seems heroic, the person is anything but.
To willingly and happily perform a mitzvah, at any opportunity, to do so for the greater good, and not for the recognition and renown, that is heroic. And according to the folk song, that is our destiny.
Next week, we will light our hanukkiyot – ourHanukkah menorahs – and in doing so we fulfill the mitzvah of pirsum hanes, of publicizing the miracle, of telling the story, of recounting the heroics of our people. As we recount our heroes, let us recall what it truly means to be a hero, to serve others selflessly, and not to serve others in order to serve ourselves. La’asot mitzvah b’lev sameah. And to do so voluntarily, joyfully and with gusto. Because if we can do that, then, perhaps, in the next generation, we may be those heroes recounted in song gathered around the menorah.
