A thought on Parshas Vayeshev

"...va'yeivch oso aviv..." "...and his father wept for him..." (36:35 When Yaakov is presented with misleading evidence that his son has been killed, he falls into a prolonged state of mourning. Our verse seems to add that he not only mourned for his son but that he cried for him as well. This seems superfluous. Rabbeinu Avigdor analyzes this and, as Rashi also writes, he suggests that our verse is not referring to Yaakov the father weeping for Yosef the son. Rather, as Yaakov mourns for his son Yosef, the Torah adds that his father, namely, Yitzchak the father of Yaakov, cried for his son who was going through such grief. But then, Rabbeinu Avigdor ponders why our verse does not simply parallel the verses which describe Yaakov's grief process. The Torah might have written that Yaakov mourned, and Yitzchak mourned along with him. What is the distinction between mourning and crying? Rabbeinu Avigdor then offers, as does Rashi, that Yitzchak had ruach ha'Kodesh - Divinely inspired higher vision - and knew that his grandson Yosef was actually alive. Hence, his weeping was not a mourning state but rather the tears of a father who sees the plight of his own son and is powerless to intervene. Why didn't Yitzchak intervene and inform Yaakov that Yosef was still alive? The answer is that Yitzchak was aware that this was part of a Divine plan which he was not permitted to reveal, even to spare his son such grief. Now Rabbeinu Avigdor shifts into his role as halachist, as a posek or decisor of law. In all truth, he writes, had Yitzchak believed that Yosef was dead, he would have been obligated to fulfill the Talmudic law that "if one would be obligated to mourn for someone, then he is also obligated to mourn with that person." This means that if a person is in mourning and has close relatives whom - should it have been the mourner who died - would be mourning for him, then those potential mourners must in fact join in with that relative as he mourns for someone else. It sounds a little complicated but as an illustration, Yitzchak would have to mourn, potentially, the death of his son Yaakov. That halachic and familial bond between father and son also necessitates that if Yaakov is mourning someone related to him, then Yitzchak must participate in his son's mourning as well. Therefore, from this halacha alone we must go back to our verse and appreciate its clarity along both pshat and halachic lines. From the fact that Yitzchak cried but did not mourn - which he should have been doing since his son was mourning - it must be that Yitzchak knew that his son was mourning in vain (that is a double entendre for those who know Yiddish) because he knew that Yosef was still living. Parenthetically he concludes, just as grandfather Yitzchak would have to mourn his grandson, a grandson must join his father in mourning his own grandfather, his father's father. This is in fact the minhag of the poskim of Ashkenaz. Wishing you a good Shabbos and an illuminated, joyous Chanukah. D Fox