So Happy I Could Die – Parshat Vayigash

It seems like an innocent enough expression of happiness. ‘I am so happy I could die’ has become the title of a song by Lady Gaga and like many other phrases it has become a hackneyed, meaningless phrase expressing one’s happiness. After all, could one be so happy they could die?

 

In this week’s parsha, we find perhaps the earliest incident of someone saying ‘I’m  so happy I could die.’

 

Yakov’s son, Yosef, had been missing for over 20 years. Yosef’s status was ‘missing and presumed dead’. Yakov had spent years in anguish over his son’s disappearance, especially since he felt partly responsible having sent Yosef out on that fateful day of his disappearance.

 

So, when after 20 years, his children return home from a dangerous mission to Egypt and report that Yosef is still alive, Yakov feels unbridled happiness. In fact, the Torah reports that upon finally seeing Yosef he exclaims, "I will die this time, since I have seen your face, that you are still alive."1

 

The Kli Yakar, a 17th century sage, commenting on that verse, explains with extreme emotional intelligence, “prior to this moment, Yakov’s life had been a life of anguish, and he felt dead while still living…but now he became a living person again…after all, one who lives a life of anguish is similar to dying every single day.” Until now Yakov had been living with his emotions shot for over 20 years and felt like he died from anguish every single day. And now, he experienced a renewal of life. And as he experienced that renewal, he could now live each day being happy in the knowledge that Yosef is alive and well.

 

(As an aside, I cannot even imagine what it must be like for families of the hostages held in Aza, for over 400 days whether they know their status or not. The anguish, the confusion, the doubts, the ‘what if’s…they have spoken their anguish eloquently, yet I cannot claim to understand how they must feel.

 

I would like to offer a prayer that the day may come soon that all the families will be reunited)

 

Our own mortality is one of three unavoidable issues in life that often cause us pain – the other two being loss and culpability. In logotherapy they are called the “tragic triad.”3

 

How we view our lives in the face of the tragic triad and specifically our own mortality helps guide us to be the person we wish to be with the time we have – especially since we don’t know how much time we actually have left.

 

Is there a bucket list? Do we wish to change internally? What values would I like to rely on? What am I being called upon to do right now?

 

Dr. Viktor Frankl says that we need not fear death and that "death marking the end of a lifetime can frighten only the person who has not lived his lifetime to the full." For such a person, life is not a countdown to death but rather time in which to live fully and authentically. Of course we are not perfect and there are times when we fail to reach this objective. That is fully expected of humans as we are imperfect and will always be so. But then again, we can also continue to strive to live our lives fully and authentically.

 

Can we say, ‘I am so happy I could die? ‘ I don’t know.

 

But we can perhaps, be able to live - not in fear of death, but rather in love of life.

 

image assisted by gpt.

Footnotes

 

  1. Bereishit 46:30. Chabad translation
  2. 45:27. my own translation
  3. Frankl, Viktor E.. Man's Search for Meaning (p. 137). Beacon Press. Kindle Edition.
  4. Frankl, Viktor E.. The Doctor and the Soul: From Psychotherapy to Logotherapy (p. 130). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

 

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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