Emerging From The Pit

As a kid growing up in New York, I used to cross the street alone to get to and from school, walk to the corner market by myself, and roam the neighborhood with friends until dark. I wouldn’t say I was fearless—I recall that I didn’t love heights—but I didn’t suffer anxiety that prevented me from hiking the Colorado Rockies or climbing to the top of the Statue of Liberty.

Something changed when I became a parent. 

On a family trip to Israel, I became aware I’d developed claustrophobia. After descending through a narrow passage into a cave at an archaeological excavation site, I began to panic about how we would emerge from underground. Reassured by my spouse that our tour guide would not put us in harm’s way, I calmed down. But a few days later, while visiting Hezekiah’s tunnels for the third or fourth time in my life, I nearly passed out.

I couldn’t understand why this was happening; I couldn’t point to any particular experience that would cause such a traumatic response to being in a confined, dark space. 

It would take another four years before I came to understand that the source of my fear was that I would die and my children would be left without their mother. Tsvi Blanchard was teaching Torah to our Rabbis Without Borders cohort, and he said, “To understand Joseph as an adult, you have to be with him in the pit.” 

Just imagining Joseph’s experience in the pit overwhelmed me. 

We read in Parashat Vayeshev, “And it was when Joseph came to his brothers: and they took off Joseph’s coat, the coat of many colors, which he had on. And they took him and threw him into the pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it.” (Genesis 37:23-24) 

Rashi is bothered by this seeming redundancy: “Since it states, ‘the pit was empty,’ don’t I know ‘there was no water in it?’ Why does the text say, ‘there was no water in it?’” He then explains, quoting earlier midrashim, interpretations: “There was no water, but there were snakes and scorpions in it.” (Bereshit Rabbah, Talmud Bavli.)

I find it plausible that Joseph not only feared he wouldn’t survive in a pit with no source of drinking water, that he may have also been afraid of dying from a snake bite or scorpion sting. The presence of a dangerous creature whose venom could cause a painful death would be a more pressing concern for me than the absence of water. 

Richard Elliott Friedman challenges Rashi’s reading of the text in his Commentary to the Torah (p. 126): “Rashi takes this to be redundant: if it is empty, of course there is no water in it….But it is not redundant. Rather, two things are conveyed: It is empty. This conveys he is alone and helpless. There is no water in it. This conveys that his survival is in danger.”

Joseph’s experience of being alone and helpless in the pit amplifies his anxiety about dying. In 2011, when Tsvi taught this Torah, I was overcome by grief. Earlier that year, we adults at Camp Ramah Darom had experienced devastating grief when a camper died in a drowning accident. We also accompanied the parents of the camper in their grief.

I still remember the moment I realized the Assistant Director was about to tell me that a camper had died. Even now, I shiver as I recall my knees buckling, my choked request: “Wait. I need to sit down.” I remember every detail of the events of the next three weeks, the strength it took to hold each other back from descending into despair.

I leaned on my rabbinic colleagues and social workers, and I drew on my professional training and personal experience to help campers and counselors process their grief. Wanting to be of service, I never once allowed myself to dwell on the details of the accident or thoughts of the teenager’s dying moments.  

Months later, sitting around a seminar table at Clal’s New York City office, I was caught off-guard by Tsvi’s words and how they transported me to the north Georgia mountains, to a moment of intense fear and unexamined pain.

Being with Joseph in the pit was a gasp of breath away from being with Andrew, our camper, underwater, his foot caught between the rocks in the riverbed beneath the rapids. 

The memory of thirteen years ago is still vivid, and also somewhat faded, as new terror occupies the foreground of my mind. I put down my pen, carefully securing the cap, and press my palms against my eyelids. These rituals are ineffective at containing my tears. 

For many weeks now, as we recite urgent pleas to the one who blessed our ancestors to deliver our siblings in captivity, I struggle to overcome a growing sense of despair.  I listen to a podcast, in which an expert describes the medical conditions that released hostages, deprived of sufficient food and potable water, now suffer from. I fear our prayers are uttered in vain. 

My friend arrives with dinner and we try not to talk about the news, but we fail. Within minutes she asks, “Can you believe it about this kid?” I shake my head. I know she is referring to the discovery that Omer Neutra, believed to have been held hostage for 423 days, was murdered on October 7th and his body is still in captivity.

I confess to her that I have nothing left in me, no words, no Torah. I can’t write. “You can,” she insists. 

So I scribble notes about Joseph in the pit, review Rashi’s commentary, reread Friedman, and create a new Google Document to begin a draft. I can’t stop thinking about the hostages—alone and helpless, in dark tunnels under Gaza—can’t stop wondering, if they are ever released, whether they will survive the deprivations of their captivity.

As I write, I’m again transported by Torah. I pray for Joseph to emerge free.