A vort from the Rebbe on this week's parsha, Parshas Beshalach. In the beginning of the parsha it says, ויסב אלקים את העם דרך המדבר ים סוף, that Hashem circled the Yidden the derech through the מדבר to Yam Suf, etc., etc. Then right after that the pasuk says, ויקח משה את עצמות יוסף עמו, that Moshe Rabbeinu took the bones of Yosef with him. Since one pasuk is written after the other, there must be a connection between the two. In other words, because the Yidden went through the מדבר, that's why Moshe took the bones of Yosef. Also, another question, another point to make is, why does the pasuk refer to Yosef as עצמות יוסף, the bones of Yosef? It doesn't seem too bekavodik, too respectful to use on Yosef the bones of Yosef. When Yosef himself asked his brothers in the end of Parshas Vayechi to take him out of Mitzrayim when they leave, he also used the words bones, my bones. But that's Yosef talking about himself. He doesn't talk about himself in a has to talk about himself in a respectful way. But when the Torah tells us, why doesn't the Torah say it in a more respectful way? Why does it use עצמות יוסף? And the Rebbe explains it like this על פי חסידות. You know a desert, a מדבר, is a dangerous place, especially the מדבר that the Yidden were going into, which the pasuk refers to as a מדבר הגדול והנורא נחש שרף ועקרב וצמאון אשר אין מים, a place of snakes and scorpions and no water, etc., etc.

So that's physically, but it also represents a place which is a spiritual danger. When it says It says in the pasuk that a מדבר is a place אשר לא ישב אדם שם, that an Adam doesn't live there. Adam is a person. Sometimes we refer to the Eibershter also with the title Adam, kevayachol, used as Adam HaElyon, the Adam of above. And when the pasuk says that מדבר, a desert is a place אשר לא ישב אדם שם means place where the Aibershter, that Hashem, כביכול, Godliness is not found there. It's a place that is far, far from kedushah, spiritually pretty, pretty low. When a person goes into a desert, it means he's coming to a place where there are spiritual nisyonot, spiritual tests, and it's very possible, God forbid, for a person to stumble and fall down in a spiritual level, as it actually happened to the Yidden when they went through the מדבר. There were few times where they actually had a descent in their spiritual madregah. So when the Yidden were going out to the מדבר, to such a place, what happened was, in order to protect ourselves from these problems, Moshe Rabbeinu took the עצמות יוסף.

עצמות means the bones, but besides meaning the bones, it also comes from the word עצם. עצם means essence. They took along, Moshe brought along the essence of Yosef. When you want to know the essence of a person, it's hinted in his name, it says in sefarim. The name Yosef was given to him by Rachel, his mother, and the lashon she said was יוסף ה׳ לי בן אחר. Hashem should add to me another son. But the Tzemach Tzedek says a pshat in this pasuk that what it means is that the mission of Yosef is to be mashpia, to influence on any, a somebody who is in a level of אחר. אחר means another, and other means somebody who's separated, removed from kedushah, from holiness. He is אחר, like we use the לשון סטרא אחרא. When we speak about kelipot, we say the word sitra achra, the other side. And the job of Yosef is to change over from the אחר, to turn him into a בן. יוסף ה׳ לי בן אחר, to make a בן, which is a son, to make this person a son to אבינו שבשמים, to our Father in Heaven, even though he was an אחר at first. He was אחר, he was somebody who was far from kedushah. And this is the reason why the pasuk says that Moshe took עצמות יוסף עמו. Moshe took along this philosophy that we have to work on being mashpia on others. We have to take along with us, when we go into a midbar, a place which is dangerous, the way to be protected is if we use this philosophy that we constantly are looking how to make other people better. יוסף ה׳ לי בן אחר, to make from an acher a ben, and that's therefore you're able to be protected from yourself falling into the trap of the danger of the midbar. And this is the connection. The pasuk says, ויסב אלקים את העם דרך המדבר, the Aibershter was taking the Yidden through the midbar. So in order to be protected from the dangers of the מדבר, ויקח משה את עצמות יוסף עמו. Moshe took the etzem of Yosef, what Yosef represents, that philosophy, and that gave them the koach that when they go through the midbar, they should withstand all the tests, and they should come out that the danger, the spiritual danger should not have any influence on them.