G’shu Na - Vayigash 5774
In 2004, I spent a semester in South Africa, studying at the University of Cape Town.
It was the tenth anniversary of the end of Apartheid.
I lived in a house with roommates from Connecticut, Ohio, Johannesburg, Zimbabwe,
and Seychelles, an island I had never heard of before that year.
I remember the steep climb to campus each day;
Breathing heavy and pushing uphill
with an eye on Table Mountain, flush against the horizon.
Each time I reached the Jammie Steps, the gathering place at the center of campus,
I would turn around to look out
at the sea of corrugated metal shacks that seemed to stretch on forever.
When I studied at UCT, ten years after the official end of Apartheid, students of all colors were admitted to the University.
South Africa, the Rainbow Nation, had a new constitution that recognized fourteen official languages.
On election day, lines stretched around street corners,
as people proudly displayed ink stains on their thumbnails,
a sign that their votes and voices counted.
Still, the Rainbow Nation remained divided,
with gated neighborhoods for Whites buffered by golf courses,
set apart from the crowded townships where those labeled Black Africans, Coloureds and Indians had been forced to live decades earlier.
Where people grappled with poverty and alarming rates of HIV and AIDS
Where Black women spent most of their wages on transportation to and from work.
That year, the media and classrooms and arts and cultural scenes buzzed with talk of the ten years.
People spoke about how far the country had come and the distance left to travel,
We asked questions about how to tell the stories of Apartheid,
of neighborhoods razed to the ground, of uprisings, of stagnation and struggle,
of burnings and lacings and poisonings, of the disappeared, of the heros, of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, of fear and forgiveness.
“How are we to remember the past and to see how it lives in the present?” we asked,
“How can South Africa achieve the dream Nelson Mandela voiced of a future of dignity, equality, justice and peace for all?”
When my great grandmother left Lithuania for the U.S., some of her siblings went to Israel and others went to South Africa. The week before I left South Africa, I went to meet my distant relatives in Johannesburg. My cousin Maureen Sandler worked at a gift shop at the Sandton City Mall. Towering above the luxury stores, there was an enormous bronze statue of Nelson Mandela. I remember coming up to Mandela’s ankle, looking up in awe.
Nelson Mandela, zichrono livracha,
Nelson Mandela, a giant in courage, a master of forgiveness, an architect of teshuvah for his country.
Emerging from twenty-seven years in prison, Nelson Mandela led the South African people toward life,
Brought them together to find a way forward from years of violent conflict and oppression.
A few years ago, Mandela was asked, after everything he had been through in his life,
“How do you keep hatred in check?”
He responded, “Hating clouds the mind. It gets in the way of strategy. Leaders cannot afford to hate.”
I think of this week’s parsha - in which we witness Yosef’s leadership
and a striking moment of reconciliation between Yosef and his brothers.
Years after he had left him for dead in a pit, Yehuda bows before Yosef, second in command to Pharaoh, as he appeals for the release of their youngest brother, Benjamin.
Yehuda has demonstrated that he has changed, that he is capable of teshuvah.
In rabbinic commentary, he is viewed as the archetype of the Ba’al Teshuvah.
He finds himself in a familiar situation, with the power to decide the fate of his brother.
Once again, he could easily sell out his brother.
Only this time, he makes a different choice.
When Yosef reveals his true identity to his brothers, they are dumbfounded.
Yosef speaks, “G’shu na. Come forward to me . . . I am your brother Yosef, the one you sold into Egypt. Now, don’t be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me down here; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you.”
Yosef weeps and embraces Benjamin.
He weeps and kisses all of his brothers.
He promises them he will take care of them.
He sends them with provisions to return to their father Jacob, to tell him the news that his beloved son is alive, and to return with all of their households to make a life in Egypt.
I am moved by Yosef’s ability to embrace his brothers, to take them back in love, to not get stuck in bitterness over the grave wrongs of the past.
The Torah tells us that only after the brothers receive Yosef’s embrace do they speak.
Perhaps Yosef’s embrace gives them permission to forgive themselves.
To know they aren’t locked into who they have been in the past.
To see themselves as those who have become different,
human beings who are worthy of life.
“G’shu - Na! Come forward to me.” Yosef says.
G’shu Na.
Come forward.
Please.
Nelson Mandela called out to an entire nation. G’shu Na! Come forward.
The time has come. Though we are afraid and hurt and angry. G’shu Na!
The time has come. Though we are afraid and hurt and angry. G’shu Na!
Nelson Mandela, in his wisdom, knew that in order to find a way forward,
people had to speak the hurts of the past, to give words to the wounds of Apartheid.
He orchestrated the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, creating an official framework for people to tell their stories,
to publicly name the suffering caused by the State,
to piece together bridges across treacherous societal divides.
Mandela’s life and leadership was imbued with faith that people and societies are capable of teshuvah, of making changes to live as their highest selves.
Can we, too, believe that in every society torn at the seams,
that amidst the fear and the terror of the unknown -
there are those ready to do teshuvah -
those on all sides of divides, with the courage to restore and repair,
those who can make a change and see a way forward?
Moving forward while carrying the memory of the past in all its truth and complexity.
May the memory of Nelson Mandela be a blessing for the people of South Africa and for all those in our world who long for dignity and justice.
May we hold onto our own stories in all of their complexity.
May we trust in the potential within ourselves and within other human beings to step forward in teshuvah.
May we hear the voices of Yosef and Nelson Mandela calling to us,
G’shu Na!
