BESHALLACH: The Bones of Yosef, the Danube River and the Shoah

The most incredible thing about our Tora is its actuality and relevance: the fact that in its immortal lines, we read events and stories that occurred thousands of years ago, and suddenly, boom! We find something very similar in the latest news from that week’s newspapers… Sometimes it’s just a matter of opening our eyes and discovering these “coincidences”. One example.

YOSEF AT THE BOTTOM OF THE NILE

This Shabbat in Parashat Beshallach we read about the Jews’ departure from Egypt. And one of the first things that this Parsha tells us is that before leaving Egypt, Moses took “the bones (the remains) of Joseph” with him to be buried in the land of Israel. The Sages of the Talmud give us some details of this event. Firstly, all agree that Joseph’s remains were not buried in the Valley of the Kings, in a pyramid, like the remains of the Pharaohs and other essential people of Egypt. Joseph’s remains were thrown into the Nile River. And Moses had to rescue his body from the bottom of the river. The Sages debate the reason why the bones of Joseph were thrown into the river by the Egyptians. The Gemara in Sota says that the Egyptians, aware that Joseph had saved the country’s economy, wanted to use Joseph’s bones as an esoteric element, an amulet, throwing his body into the Nile in a metal chest so that Joseph’s body would “bless the Nile”. Like when some people throw coins into the Fonte de Trevi with the hope that the money in their pockets will multiply. Midrash Tanchuma presents a radically different opinion, which I think it might be closer to the Peshat: Yosef’s remains were disinterred from his luxurious tomb and thrown into the Nile as an act of disdain by the new Egyptian leader, a revisionist Pharaoh who blamed the Jews for all their miseries, towards the great Jewish leader. Regardless of the reason why Yosef’s body was thrown into the river, the Sages explain that before leaving Egypt, Moses took the time to refloat Joseph’s bones from the bottom of the Nile, carry him and bringing his bones to Israel. Miraculously, Moses was able to retrieve Yosef’s remains and were buried in the land of Israel (Shekhem).

WATER, WITH JEWISH BLOOD

The Nazi invasion of Hungary in 1944 caused the largest, fastest, and most efficient mass deportation and murder in human history. In just eight weeks, about 424,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Within six months, over half a million Jews, 565,000, were killed in these and other concentration camps. The Jews who remained in Hungary were not faring better. Between December 1944 and January 1945, the Hungarian police forces known as the “Crossed Arrows” took thousands of Jews out of the ghettos of Budapest and murdered them in cold blood. Men, women, elders, and children were executed on the banks of the Danube, and their bodies were thrown into the river. Before killing them, the Hungarian police forces made them take off their shoes and tied their hands with their shoelaces, so they couldn’t escape by swimming.  The bodies of thousands of Jews—it is estimated to be no less than 3,500, although some say 20,000!—lie in the murky depths of the Danube. On April 16, 2005, Hungary erected a monument in memory of the victims of these terrible killings. It is called “Shoes on the Danube Bank.”