Becoming A Shamash - The Helper Candle
Rabbi David Baum - Parashat Vayeshev
Years from now, after we are back in person without masks, we will take into account the miracles that we could not see during the dark days of the pandemic. Although it is hard to see them now, just like a small light in a dark room, we can see glimmers of hope and faith.
I wanted to share a story of a remarkable person I met last year, a caretaker for a Rabbi who was dying. I came into the rabbi’s home to say the Vidui, and his caretaker Robert, who has been with this Rabbi for years, was standing with me. I talked to the Rabbi, said my final words to him, told him about the parashah this week, because this Rabbi loves Torah, read the vidui (the Jewish confessional prayer).
Robert, his helper, his aid, got emotional and left the room. After my time with the Rabbi, I joined Robert in the other room, and he shared his story with me.
When the Rabbi’s wife needed help with her husband, as his condition worsened, she reached out to a company and asked for one criterion, send me a spiritual person. So they sent Robert. Robert stood with the Rabbi for years, helping him perform basic tasks, talking with him, and listening to him, bringing him to the store, bringing him to shul here at Shaarei Kodesh. He stood with him to the side, barely being noticed, rarely saying a word.
Robert told me his story - how he was going to be a minister, but it didn’t work out for him in the ministry in the Dominican Republic, and he got an insurance policy, to train to become a caretaker. When he couldn’t find a way to help through the ministry, he applied for a job through a company.
The company matched him with the Rabbi, and their relationship began. He told me the following: “I know now that I was paired with Rabbi Louis for a reason. Connie (his wife) told me the story of how I was chosen to be Louis’s caretaker later on in our relationship. But now I know why: because I am here to bring Rabbi Louis on the final journey that he was going to take.”
I bring this story to you because it was inspired by a story in this week’s parashah, a story that Robert, a deeply religious and spiritual man overheard and saw himself in it.
Our parashah, Vayeshev, is the final significant transition points of ancestors to descendants as we come to the close of Jacob’s story and shift to Jacob’s children, but mainly, Joseph. It will be a while until Joseph has the same direct experiences with God; instead, he sees God in other ways but doesn’t recognize it quite yet. I’ll give just one example.
When Joseph is at how lowest, in a pit, thrown in there by his brothers, the Torah describes the pit in this wayוְהַבּוֹר רֵק אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם ׃
The pit was empty; there was no water in it. No hope, no life. Where is God?
God does not reassure him that everything is going to be ok, that this is all part of a larger plan set into motion before he was born.
The reality that we read is closer to the reality that we experience than the realities of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When Abraham despairs that he will not have children, God reassures him. When Jacob worries that he will not die on his journey, God speaks to him, but Joseph receives no such assurances.
But God is with him, he just doesn’t realize it, and God came to him even before he is in the pit.
There is a very peculiar scene in our parashah before the famous story of Joseph being thrown into the pit.
וַיֹּאמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל־יוֹסֵף הֲלוֹא אַחֶיךָ רֹעִים בִּשְׁכֶם לְכָה וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֲלֵיהֶם וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ הִנֵּנִי׃
Israel said to Joseph, “Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “I am ready.”
וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ לֶךְ־נָא רְאֵה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם אַחֶיךָ וְאֶת־שְׁלוֹם הַצֹּאן וַהֲשִׁבֵנִי דָּבָר וַיִּשְׁלָחֵהוּ מֵעֵמֶק חֶבְרוֹן וַיָּבֹא שְׁכֶמָה׃
And he said to him, “Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.” So he sent him from the valley of Hebron. When he reached Shechem,
וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ וְהִנֵּה תֹעֶה בַּשָּׂדֶה וַיִּשְׁאָלֵהוּ הָאִישׁ לֵאמֹר מַה־תְּבַקֵּשׁ׃
a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?”
וַיֹּאמֶר אֶת־אַחַי אָנֹכִי מְבַקֵּשׁ הַגִּידָה־נָּא לִי אֵיפֹה הֵם רֹעִים׃
He answered, “I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?”
וַיֹּאמֶר הָאִישׁ נָסְעוּ מִזֶּה כִּי שָׁמַעְתִּי אֹמְרִים נֵלְכָה דֹּתָיְנָה וַיֵּלֶךְ יוֹסֵף אַחַר אֶחָיו וַיִּמְצָאֵם בְּדֹתָן׃
The man said, “They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dothan.” So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dothan.
The language is rich with commentary, but before we get to that, we have to look at this scene for what it is - Joseph getting directions from a random guy on the street. For a book that uses as few words as possible, why does it include this story?
The Rabbis look at this scene as vital to Joseph’s narrative. It involves an unnamed, anonymous man, an ish, much like the man who wrestled with Joseph’s father, Jacob when his name was changed to Israel.
An anonymous 'ish' or man, is the reason that Jacob changes his name to Israel. Where would Jacob be without this figure who wrestled with him? Where would we be?
Joseph is roaming around in the field and an anonymous man approaches him. Joseph does not begin the conversation, rather, the man does. Rashi and Ramban, two medieval commentators, claim that this was not a man, rather, an angel, in other words, a divine messenger. Rashi says the man is the archangel Gavriel.
I want you to return with me to the bedside of the Rabbi in his last days, and Robert, the man who sat by his side, but whom very few know his name, and story. When I told Louis that he was Gavriel for so many, Robert realized that he was Rabbi Louis’s angel, and he realized that he was placed in Louis’s path to bring him on his final journey.
Joseph is a young man at this point, just seventeen, but it begins his journey to become the Vice Roy of Egypt, and his people’s savior.
And then, I thought about the holiday of Hanukah, and the major mitzvah of the holiday - lighting the Hanukah candles. There are many laws about these candles, and one of the laws created the need for another candle. We are not allowed to use the lights of the Hanukah candles to do anything in our homes, only for the sake of the mitzvah of Hanukah - to look upon the light. And this is why we have the Shamash, the candle that is used to light the other candles, and to help us do the work that we may not think is very holy at all.
The Shamash is also the name of the person who turns on the lights in the synagogues, who is the first person to open up the shul, who cleans up at the end when everyone is gone. Where would we be without the Shamashim in our lives?
In a time when everyone wants to shine, when everyone has their own social media page when the preferred pronoun isn’t he/she/they, but I, when everyone wants to shine, we learn from the Shamash that sometimes, the anonymous people help us all shine by giving their light to others, and making us feel closer to God.
The Shamash doesn’t get the same attention as the other candles, but it teaches us that we must strive to live lives of service to others. And you oftentimes won’t have your name known, maybe you’ll just be that man or woman, but it is because of you that other lights can be kindled.
And perhaps this is the greatest lesson of the man who was really an angel.
The candles of the Hanukah can only be used to remind us of the miracle of Hanukkah. It can’t be used as a source of light to do the mundane things in life that we may take for granted; that’s what the Shamash is for.
But if we look at the light through the lens of the importance of the helper, the Shamash might be the holiest of all the candles because it allows us to see the work that must be done in this world.
And the people like Robert might be the holiest individuals because they help raise us up when we are down, and give us faith that the journeys we are taking, no matter how difficult, are the journeys that will help us reach God.
There are nurses and doctors who are holding hands in hospitals as we speak. They have masks on, shields covering their eyes. They aren’t looking for recognition, but they are asking us to be helpers. To sacrifice a little bit of our freedom by staying away from others as much as possible so we can make sure no one lies in a hospital bed gasping for breath.
Next week, I’ll be delivering some Sufganiyot to doctors and nurses at a local hospital. With the physical sweets, I wanted to also give them letters of encouragement, and how someone like them has made a difference in their lives. Please email me a picture of a letter, or a typed letter so I can give them some light.
May they give us strength and courage, and may we see their sacrifice not in the years to come, but today; and may we be God’s messengers in our lives, just as they are, bringing light to someone in their moment of darkness.
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