Pensamento Judaico sobre Gênesis 43:32

The historical loneliness of the Jew percolates from a feeling of compulsive fate. He is as alone ‎in ‎his life on earth as in his death. The concept of kever yisrael emphasizes the Jew’s ‎strange ‎detachment from the world. Sociologists and psychologists may say what they wish about ‎the ‎inexplicable isolation of the Jew. Their explanations are nothing more than barren ‎speculation, ‎incapable of rationally describing the phenomenon. Jewish separateness belongs to ‎the ‎framework of the Covenant of Fate that was concluded in Egypt. In truth, Judaism and ‎withdrawal ‎from the world are synonymous. Even before the exile in Egypt, separateness ‎descended upon ‎our world with the appearance of the first Jew, our father Abraham. Abraham ‎the Hebrew ‎‎(ivri) lived apart. “The whole world was on one side (ever), and he on ‎the other ‎side” (Bereshit Rabbah 42:8). Balaam, when he gazed upon the Israelite camp, ‎understood the ‎wonder of the experience of Jewish separateness and proclaimed with ‎amazement: “They are a ‎nation dwelling alone and shall not be reckoned among the nations” ‎‎(Numbers 23:9). Even if a Jew ‎reaches the pinnacle of social and political accomplishment, he will ‎not be able to free himself from ‎the chains of isolation. Paradoxical fate watches over the isolation ‎and uniqueness of the Jew, ‎despite his apparent integration into his non-Jewish environment. ‎Even people of power and ‎authority, such as Joseph, the regent of Egypt, was separated from ‎Egyptian society and remained ‎alone in his tent. “And they served him [Joseph] by himself … and ‎for the Egyptians … by ‎themselves.” (Genesis 43:32). (Egyptians could not eat with the Hebrews, ‎because it was a taboo ‎for them). Before his death Joseph pleaded with his brothers, “When God ‎will surely remember ‎you and bring you out of this land, you shall carry up my bones from here” ‎‎(Genesis 50:25). For ‎despite my greatness and glory I am tied to you and your existence both in life ‎and in death. This ‎singular, inexplicable phenomenon of the individual clinging to the community ‎and feeling ‎alienated from the outside world was forged and formed in Egypt. There Israel was ‎elevated to the ‎status of a nation in the sense of a unity¹⁰ from which arises uniqueness as well .The ‎awareness of ‎the Fate Covenant in all of its manifestations is an integral part of our historical-‎metaphysical ‎essence.‎