What do porcupines do in winter? asked Schopenhauer. If they come too close together, they injure one another.

But if they stay too far apart, they freeze. Life for porcupines is a delicate balance between

closeness and distance. It's hard to get it right, but it's dangerous to get it wrong.

And so it is for us. That is the force of the word that gives our Parashai's name,

Vajigash, and he came close. Then Judah came close to him and said,

Pardon your servant, my lord, let me speak a word to my lord.

Don't be angry with your servant, though you are equal to Pharaoh himself.

For perhaps the first time in his life,

Vajigashel of Yehuda, Judah came close to his brother Joseph. The irony, of course, is that he didn't know it was Joseph,

but that one act of coming close melted all of Joseph's reserve, all his defenses, and as if

unable to stop himself, he finally disclosed his identity. Then Joseph said to his brothers, I am Joseph, is my father

still alive? How can we be sure that Vajigash is the key word? And the answer is because it

contrasts with another verse many chapters and many years earlier. Vajiru Otho Meirakok, the brothers saw him in the distance.

And before he reached them, they plotted to kill him.

Right at the beginning of this story, when Joseph was sent by his father to see how the brothers

were doing, tending the sheep, they saw him from far away,

from a distance. Imagine the scene. They can't see his face. All they can see is the richly

ornamented cloak, the coat of many colors, that so upsets them because it constantly reminds them

that it's he, not they, whom their father loves. From far away,

we don't really see people as human beings. And when we stop seeing people as human beings,

and they become instead symbols, objects of envy or hate, people can do bad things to one another.

The whole tragedy of Joseph and his brothers was distance.

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