Dvar Torah - Vayigash

This is an abridged version of the essay Three Steps for Mankind, written by Rabbi Sacks in 2011.

Before beginning the Amidah, we take three steps forward. These steps symbolise a formal approach to Hashem. Rabbi Eleazar ben Yehudah said these three steps match to the three times in the Torah where the word vayigash, “and he drew close,” is used in connection with prayer.

When Avraham heard of God’s intention to destroy Sodom and Gemorah, he “approached (vayigash) God to ask Him to spare the people.” 

This week, Yosef’s goblet has been found in Binyamin’s sack and he is being detained. Yehuda could abandon him, but instead he pleads for his release. “Then Yehuda drew close (vayigash) to him and said: Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word to my lord”.

The third time vayigash appears is in the great showdown between Eliyahu HaNavi and the 450 false prophets of Baal. The 450 prophets prepare their sacrifice and ask Baal to send fire. Nothing happens. They cry all day, but no fire comes. Then Eliyahu steps forward (vayigash) and prays. Fire descends, and the people fall to the ground, saying: “The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God”.

Three approaches, three prayers, but very different from one another. Avraham prays for justice. Yehuda prays for mercy. Eliyahu prays for God to reveal Himself.

Avraham prays on behalf of strangers. Yehuda pleads with Yosef for the sake of his brother Binyamin and his father Yaakov who, he knows, will not be able to bear the loss of yet another beloved son. Eliyahu speaks to God, as it were, for the sake of God. He wants the people to renounce idolatry and return to their ancestral faith – to the one true God who rescued them from Egypt and took them to Himself in love. Their respective stances, too, are different. Avraham, in the course of his prayer, calls himself “nothing but dust and ashes.” Yehuda describes himself as a “servant” in the presence of a ruler. Eliyahu describes himself as a prophet, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left.” Avraham represents our sense of awe in the presence of infinity, Yehuda our humility in the face of majesty, Eliyahu the grandeur and dignity of nevi’im.

There are echoes of these encounters in the first three paragraphs of the Amidah. The first is about the avot. God “remembers the good deeds of the fathers.” This reminds us of Avraham’s prayer. The second is about gevurah, God “supporting the fallen, healing the sick, setting free the bound and keeping faith with those who lie in the dust.” When we recite it, we are like Yehuda standing before Joseph, a servant in the presence of sovereignty and power.

The third is about Kedushat Hashem. When an act makes people conscious of God’s existence, we call it a Kiddush Hashem. That is precisely what Eliyahu sought to do and succeeded in doing on Mount Carmel.

These three prayers – each a historic moment in the unfolding of the human spirit towards God – together represent the full spectrum of emotions and concerns we bring to prayer. Each is introduced by the word vayigash. As we take three steps forward at the start of each prayer, we are thereby retracing the footsteps of three giants of the spirit, Avraham, Yehuda and Eliyahu, re-enacting their great encounters with God.

In 1969, Neil Armstrong, the first human being to set foot on the moon, uttered the famous words: “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” Behind our three small steps towards heaven lie three no less historic leaps for humankind.