“And Joseph said to his brothers, Hasten and go up to my father, and say to him, So said your son, Joseph: God has made me a lord over all the Egyptians. Come down to me, do not tarry... And you shall tell my father [of] all my honor in Egypt and all that you have seen, and you shall hasten and bring my father down here...
And Pharaoh said to Joseph, Say to your brothers, Do this: ...take yourselves wagons from the land of Egypt for your young children and for your wives, and you shall carry your father and come... And the sons of Israel did so, and Joseph gave them wagons by Pharaoh’s orders, and he gave them provisions for the way...
So they went up from Egypt, and they came to the land of Canaan, to their father, Jacob. And they told him all of Joseph’s words that he had said to them, and he saw the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him, and the spirit of their father Jacob was revived” (Gen. 45:3-27).
A parasha of ups and downs
“Up” and “down” are directions emphasized in this parsha. Rashi comments: “The Land of Israel is higher than all other lands.” Egypt, on the other hand, is “down.” After Jacob sees the wagons and grasps that Joseph is really alive in Egypt, God appears to Jacob in a dream and says to him, “Do not be afraid of going down to Egypt, for I will make you into a great nation. I will go down with you to Egypt, and I will also bring you up” (Gen. 46:3-4).
It could not be more strongly emphasized that the move to Egypt is a descent. However, as God’s words to Jacob imply, it is a “descent for the sake of an ascent” and will lead to Israel becoming a great nation.
The feeling of ascending and descending energy resonates throughout the story of the descent into Egypt, the first of four preordained exiles. The Jewish story is one of descent (exile) and ascent (redemption). While exile and redemption appear to be polar opposites, we see that they are part of the process that is divinely ordained. The Hebrew words for “exile” (galut) and “redemption” (geula) share the same root letters, the basic meaning of which is “to reveal.” The difference is that redemption (geula) contains the letter aleph, the first letter of the alphabet, which stands for the One God.
It is even said in the Talmud that God went down with us into Egypt: “Wherever they were exiled, the Shechinah (divine presence) is with them” (Megillah 29a). The Lubavitcher Rebbe adds: “In all their affliction, He is afflicted” (Isaiah 63:9): He Himself suffers their affliction, as it were.
Right now, even though we have descended into a time of pain and suffering, we believe and pray that we shall ascend victorious over forces of darkness and end God’s suffering.
One detail that is repeatedly emphasized in the story is the wagons (agalot) which Joseph sends to Jacob and which then carry Jacob, his sons, and their families down to Egypt (Gen.t46:5). What is the significance of these wagons? Why does Jacob’s spirit “revive” when he sees them?
One explanation is that Jacob realizes that official Egyptian wagons could only be used with the king’s permission. Therefore, Jacob realized that his sons’ report – “Joseph is still alive, and he is ruler over the whole land of Egypt” – must be true, as only a ruler would have the authority to send the wagons (Midrash Lekah Tov). These wagons belong to the Egyptian government (“Take wagons from the land of Egypt,”45:19).
Another explanation of the wagons is derived from the fact that the word agalah (wagon) has the same root letters as “heifer” (eglah). According to the Midrash, before Joseph was kidnapped he had been studying Torah with his father, and they had come to the passage about the egla arufa – the heifer that is killed on the site of an unsolved murder. Jacob saw the wagons as an allusion to this passage, and this to him was a sign that Joseph had not forgotten his Torah but had remained faithful in Egypt to the tradition of his fathers. Hence, Jacob’s spirit revived.
Yoram Raanan’s diptych Wagons is part of a series of vertical paintings, one meter in height. In this format, the narrow width of the canvas creates intimacy, while the height gives the sense of going beyond arm’s reach to greater horizons and vistas. Our usual mundane horizontal perception of the world is uplifted to a vertical axis and into realms beyond the dictates of the mind.
The painting evokes an imaginary bronze landscape flowing with the motion of wet gold and alizarin crimson. The alizarin crimson is heavy and feels earthbound, while the iridescent gold brings light and a feeling of redemption, mirroring both the feeling of ascent and descent. We are drawn into depths of copper and gold which are lifted up with spiritual blues. The blues may hint to the crossing of rivers and to the Nile, which was so central to Egypt.
In the left-hand panel, we see groups of human figures, seemingly in motion on a downward path, traveling toward an uncertain future. In the right-hand panel, the image of a chariot and riders asserts its presence. The chariot/wagon seems to be descending, carrying Jacob down to see his beloved son.
The children of Israel go down to Egypt as a family, intending to stay for the duration of a famine that is meant to last five more years. However, only 210 years later do they emerge as a nation and ascend to the Land of Israel with great prosperity. Why is it that our nation is born in Egypt, a place of constricted consciousness?
Perhaps it is part of the mystery of “descent for the sake of ascent.” ■
Meira Raanan is the author of Art of Revelation: A Visual Encounter with the Jewish Bible, a commentary on the paintings by her husband, Yoram Raanan. She also teaches Jewish meditation. Esther Cameron is a poet, scholar, and essayist living in Jerusalem. She is editor-in-chief of The Deronda Review.