Parshas Mikeitz: The Liberation of Forgetting and Menashe's Legacy

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It must have been a funky day that morning in Shul when Y Israelites said Yosef in a loud and assertive declaration Vayikare Shemo Be Yisrael.

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Menashe An interesting name.

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And Yosef in one of the most emotional and happy moments of his life, when he's finally been gifted a Jewish child offspring, has a moment that really will define his inner thoughts, his psyche, his outlook on life.

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We have so many different sources that what name that you give your child whether it's from Zadie or Babi, or from your Rosh Hashiva, or it's just a name that your wife finds to be cute it really does have an effect on the person and can aid him or shut him up, signify certain characteristics in the child.

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But Yosef chose at that moment not a name like Sholem, yisrael, yaakov or Johnny, but Menashe, the first child or, to my knowledge, the first Jewish child that ever received that name.

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Menashe.

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But why?

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Yosef teiches it up.

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Yosef explains to us why he called his child Menashe and what significance that name has to him.

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It says, quote what does Menashe mean?

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It references the fact that God has made me forget my travels and my dad's house, my parental home.

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Interesting name, don't you think?

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The word Noshani glists on the spot.

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41-51 says God has made me forget all my trouble and the troubles that were in my father's house, probably referencing the being sold away and thrown into a pit of vipers.

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The Chitzkuni tells us again this name, menashe also references Ki Noshani is a Lushen of Eshikhecha, a Lushen of forgetting Noshani.

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There's some other commentators that learn a Lushan, like the Evan Ezra of.

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It's a word of Hanani, hanani like compassion, which would be understandable.

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It's a nice name for a child Forgetful, forsaken, ditched, forgotten.

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Short-term memory loss, that's what it means, benasha, to forget.

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It's a rather funny name, don't you think?

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But folks, yosef here is giving us a masterclass on how it is that he accomplished what he did and that the Torah declares, asserts about his life and legacy, that he is the Ishmatzliach, he is the Evin, mosu Aboinim.

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He was the despised one.

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He was thrown out onto the streets by his brothers, but Heisal Ereshpina, he became the cornerstone of Judaism.

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And how did he do it?

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Well, he named his son Menashe.

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Listen here to what incredible lesson Yosef taught us by the naming of his Bechar.

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We don't cite this Sefer often, but it is incredible work.

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The Sefer's title is Haksav HaKabbalah, authored by the great Rebbe Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, lived in the 1800s, died in 1839.

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Around that time.

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Goal of the work is very much to show how Chazal is the most obvious and clearly most straightforward way to interpret the Pesukim.

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He was a big sworn enemy of the Reform movement, hakasava Hakabala.

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It really is an incredible commentary on the entire Pentateuch.

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But listen here to what he says is behind the name Menashe.

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Quote says what does that word mean?

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It means that it is a forsaking, an overlooking, a disregarding that one does before he forgets something.

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At the beginning, you steer away from you disregard, you forsake the matter that you are recalling, you forsake it in your mind and then afterwards then you forget it.

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That comes in as this sort of human capability to forget, but it starts with a in overlooking and a disregarding, a.

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Moving on that at the beginning, yasur v'yazuv adavar mizichrono, the ability to forget, is what Yosef named his child, menashe.

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And think about it.

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Of course Yosef would name his son, the key to his success, as this ability of noshani, that he had to be able to forsake past thoughts, because think about how he spent the beginning of his life.

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It really is two entire different act one and act two's, due to even parts of a play, because the beginning of Yosef's life is nothing more than becoming homeless, thrown onto the streets, disregarded, sold multiple times.

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Just imagine being in a boxcar or in some sort of crate, being sold by a bunch of non-Jews from one place to another.

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You don't even know, as you are changing hands, whose possession you are in, until you finally get down to Egypt and you are now incarcerated, thrown into the bottom depths of prison.

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After, at such a young age, he still has his youthful haircut, a fade down the sides.

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He's a Nair.

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He does Mice and Nairas.

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He's literally still a youth, a teenager.

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He's already attacked by a wild bear that we call Aecius Potiphar.

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He's fought with temptation.

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He's fought with starvation, hunger.

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He has suffered emotionally, physically.

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Who knows what type of therapy we'd want to put this type of child who's been through this type of trauma through in modern times.

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He has had quite the tough upbringing.

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He's had to live through the projects, house to house, sleeping on couches.

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Talk about post-traumatic stress disorder.

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But what does Yosef do as he moves into Act 2, which is filled with peace, filled with malchus luxury, dedicating himself, filled with malchus luxury, dedicating himself to organizing the entire Jewish exodus?

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What does he do?

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He makes a loud declaration, a loud pronouncing of that.

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I have forgotten my past failures.

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I have forgotten the trauma.

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I have chosen to forget, not dwelling, but moving on, unshackling myself from the past, sad, morbid experiences.

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Do not be fooled you have the ability to forget, you have the ability to move on.

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Ya'azov, there's this, as Rabbi Xav HaKabbalah puts it, this ability to ya'azov to forsake a thought, to move on from it, and then, naturally, the body, the brain, works its way of just letting it flutter off into the distance or pass by like clouds.

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Ya'azov, that happens before the Shekecha.

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That's what Yosef did, and that's what he declared, and that's what he said he was going to name his son.

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Think about you get a sort of peek over the wall into Yosef's mind here the Ishmat's Liech.

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What does he do?

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He forgets.

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You know so many times that the seven fallings that we have on our path to the eighth rising and triumph.

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They always get in the way and they don't allow you to, because the eighth time you are so shackled by the past experiences, the trauma, the what if I fail again?

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How could I launch this if in the past this happened?

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How could I move on and forgive that person if they did this to me, and when you do look back at your life, there's a fair amount of skeletons in the closet and some hurtful experiences.

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If you've lived a life that is eventful and you really did get out there.

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What perspective did Yosef take on his past Tsarist?

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To forget it, to identify the memory, perhaps, process the emotions, see it and then move past it, move on?

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I don't know if he needed professional help.

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Don't believe so.

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Not sure if he just reframed it, understood that it was all part of the plan.

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Whatever perspective he took was it meditation, mindfulness?

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However, he dealt with the triggers of this past trauma.

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However, he did it, the Ishmat Sliach Noshani, he forgot and he named his eldest son as he moved into the second chapter of his life breeding children that are robots in the army of Hashem to carry out his will and to organize that when Yaakov and his children should come down to Mitzrayim, everything should be taken care of so that the Jewish people could leave Mitzrayim with wealth and with a big rash, a big ho-hum, a big statement no, shani, I forgot all the past.

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Oh yeah, you threw me in a pit.

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I moved on Vaya'azov, zichrono.

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I remember it was one time when I was in 10th grade that I was on my basketball team and we had decided To go up against the Gateway Crusaders I think that was the team.

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We were playing in their court in our uniforms the blue and yellow.

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I think it was Ref Mike that was ref in that game Me, nehemia, yossi Mati Ike, playing against these rather talented Gentiles and I was the shooting guard or I was supposed to be the shooting guard to watch the ball go through the hoop.

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But that afternoon I had taken nine three-pointers and missed all nine of them.

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And while the game was coming down to one of its final moments, the coach drew up a play that we were down by two.

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We needed a three-pointer to win the game.

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It would be the elevator play, where I would cut to the bottom of the basket and then cut back up.

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The two bigger players would slide in together, closing the elevator doors on my opponent.

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I would skip right through them, catch it on the top of the arc and then turn square up, balance eyes, elbows, follow through and try to drill the three-pointer.

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But on that afternoon I had no interest in taking that shot.

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I said, coach, don't call the play for me, call it for Nehemia, call it for Nick.

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I'm 0 for 9.

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Coach Trent Bazemore, our basketball coach.

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He said, mike, shooters got to shoot and I don't care that you on this afternoon can't even throw a rock into the ocean if you were standing on a boat.

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That's what he said to me.

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Shooters got to shoot.

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Run the play.

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We need you to take the shot.

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I'm not going to tell you how the story went, if I hit it or not.

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You have to reach out and say what's up, did you make it?

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But that's what it has to be.

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You have to be able to live life If you want to be Matsliach to be able to forget that you went 0 for 9.

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Forget that.

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You have not made a bloody shot the entire afternoon.

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Not let it sway your confidence.

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Beat your confidence down into a pulpit.

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Instead, I got the next one.

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Kind of shrug your shoulders a little bit.

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You follow in the most I mean this in the most peaceful way the mild cognitive impairment type of mentality where you retain your critical thinking, you retain your reasoning skills.

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But people that suffer from this, they sometimes have significant short-term memory loss.

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But short-term memory loss I'm advocating should be used in a way that I do not remember my failures.

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I do not remember being thrown into a viper-filled, poisonous, reptile-filled, scorpion-filled, lacking water type of pit in the middle of a desert.

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I forgot it, I have moved on, I have chosen to neglect it, I have chosen to overlook going 0 for 9.

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And even the reason I actually missed that shot is I exposed myself here on the Motivation Congregation podcast.

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I did miss that shot against the Gateway Crusaders but we did go back to beat them in the championship, so all was well.

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It very much was because I failed to fully forget.

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As I'm running the play, I'm not going to hit the shot.

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I know it Tight, not ready Now.

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Shani Elohim was the reason that Yosef was probably so likely to succeed in his second act, second epoch.

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Second epoch, he names his own son that overflowing with tears, probably streaming down his face.

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God, I have forgotten the hardships of my past and I have moved on.

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That's what the name Menashe means.

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Every Friday night, this vark comes to my head.

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When you give a bracha, you look down at the words my head.

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When you give a bracha, you look down at the words in the siddur.

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I give a bracha because I have daughters.

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I give the sarif go racha ve'leah, but yivarecha shem v'yishmarecha.

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We give a bracha be like Ephraim and Menashe.

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It always hits me you gotta be able to shrug your shoulders and be able to say I'm gonna hit the next shot.

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Got to be able to shrug your shoulders and be able to say I'm going to hit the next shot.

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You got to be able to.

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In the realms of learning, you can really apply this idea.

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You come, sit down at the Gemara and say I've never seen this Gemara before.

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You have that mild short-term memory loss of not assuming that you've already know what's here.

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I've heard the story, I've learned this page of Gemara, I've learned this Bressa before.

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I've learned this Moshe Sefer before.

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But know, with fresh eyes, with a new perspective, you can choose to be a Zohar Zichrono, to forget how you previously thought that you ever even saw this Gemara and move forward.

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K'inoshani Elohim, ah, a fresh Gemara, I'm all ready to go, like the first day I've seen it, like that deterrent had just been given because you have chosen to forget.

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It's an ability, says Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, that humans possess of that you choose to disregard past failures.

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You choose, you choose.

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You choose to not dwell on the past and turn, unshackle yourself and then move forward with a fresh, energy-filled niris, youthfulness, exuberance about taking on life.

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I encourage you to open up the can of worms and look into your past, whether you reframe certain traumas, whether you have tremendous results and hatzlacha in your past.

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If you forget it, you can see yourself as now still hungry again, as opposed to feeling complacent from prior success, successes, advances, and that's my idea for you today.

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Take a play out of the Ishmat's playbook and disregard past tsarists, past traumas, past even understandings of certain Torah concepts, and see things in a fresh way, in a new way, like the way Yosef Atzadik did when he said on that morning at Sholi

Parshas Mikeitz: The Liberation of Forgetting and Menashe's Legacy

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