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Daily manna from the Torah by Dr Ketriel Blad

VaYigash 11-1

And (he) approached

Genesis 44:18-30

And we said to my lord, 'We have a father, an old man, and a young brother, the child of his old age. His brother is dead, and he alone is left of his mother's children, and his father loves him.'... One left me, and I said, Surely he has been torn to pieces, and I have never seen him since.

Gen. 44:20, 28 ESV

What is a lie's weakness?

The brothers had shown their father Yosef's clothes all smeared with blood to pretend that a wild beast had devoured him. In that moment, they didn't say clearly right away that Yosef had died, but waited until Yaakov came to his own conclusion (37:32-33). Yaakov said that he had been devoured by a wild beast. However, 22 years later, Yaakov wasn't so sure that Yosef was dead because he said that he had never seen him since. This shows us that Israel had left a small window of hope open in regards to his son. The promises he had received from the Eternal and his son's dreams that he had kept in his heart had lit up that small sparkle in his aching soul.

However, his brothers had become used to lying when they said that Yosef was dead. We find the same thing in Reuven's reprimand in 42:22b where he says: "Now we must give an accounting for his blood" (NIVUK); the brothers knew that Yosef was alive when they sold him but they chose to lie and they became used to it. When one repeats a lie a lot, the mind gets used to it and many times the mind itself decides to believe it is true, even if it knows it is indeed a lie, because it wants it to be true.

But there is a great weakness in lies ­ reality itself.

Here we have a man, Yehuda, together with his brothers, all having chosen to believe a lie and hide the truth, speaking about Yosef as if he were dead, and in the very face of the "dead". Reality had much more power than the lie that had occupied the brothers' minds. This lie had no power against the truth. It only took Yosef to make himself known to them, speaking in fluent Hebrew about their family life, for that lie so much believed for many years to fall to ground and die once and for all.

The same thing will happen with many lies that are believed in the world. The lie of atheism will fall when the Almighty manifests. The lie of evolution will fall. The lie of social-communism will fall. The lie of a gentile people who consider themselves as the new Israel will fall. The lie of Islam will fall. The lie of Palestine will fall. The lie of the Israeli occupation will fall. The lie of the new world order will fall.

And the most glorious part is when the lie believed among the Jewish people that Yeshua is dead also falls, and the risen Messiah manifests in glory as the brother and saviour of the Jews, that day is getting closer!!

May the Eternal keep us from the lies that are believed in the world,

Shavua tov,

Ketriel

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