True Honor

Yosef dictates to his brothers that they should tell Yaakov that he is alive and well.  Not only that but he is the viceroy of Egypt and has honor, fame and glory.  Is this the message Yosef wants to send to Yaakov, that he is rich and famous?  Does Yaakov care about the fame of Yosef; he wants to know that he is a good Jew?  Yosef says והגדתם לאבי את כל כבודי במצרים, the word כבוד is with a ו'.  However, Lavan’s sons are complaining that Yaakov stole the sheep from their father it says עשה את כל הכבד הזה (לא:א)  over there כבוד is spelled without a ו'.  Why is there this difference in the spelling?  The midrash elaborates on the verse said in regard to Yaakov that כבד refers to gold and silver. However, this seems to contradict the Mishna in Avos (6:3) that כבד refers to Torah?  He cites the that that is the difference between כבד and כבוד.  With a vav it means Torah, without a vav it means gold and silver.  Obviously, this distension requires an explanation, what’s the difference yes vav or no vav?  But the distinction is obvious for the kabbalists teach us that the letter vav refers to Torah (see first piece in Likutay Moharan.)  The Barditchiver explained that the three ways to spell out the letter vav, וו,ואו,ויו make the numerical value of 12 corresponding to all the tribes, 13 referring to Hashem אחד=13 and 22 referring to the 22 letters of the אלף-בית that make up the Torah.  All of these three aspects which go together are hinted to in the letter vav (see further elucidation and explanations based upon this idea in the intro. to the שו"ת שמע שלמה מאת הראשון לציון ר' שלמה עמאר.)

Based upon this Gra we understand that Yosef wasn’t telling Yaakov about his monetary and political gains in Egypt, he was telling him about his spiritual survival throughout the great challenges of Egypt.  I would like to add one-point בדרך אפשר.  The word כבד is the same word in Hebrew used to refer to the liver.  The kabbalists teach that the word מלך stands for the three rulers of the body, מוח,לב וכבד.  The brain is the intellectual side of the person, the heart is head of the emotions and desires, and the liver is chief representative of the slow, sluggish, coarse physicality of a person.  All three of these leaders compete and jostle for control of a person.  The liver is viewed as being the animalistic, the most basic and disgusting part of a person’s makeup.  I believe the word כבד comes to teach that one who’s whole ambition, their lives’ goal is to amass wealth is a lowly, crass and uncouth individual.  He/she is no better than the animal who spends their whole life just eating, sleeping and taking care of its basic needs.  The only way for a person to avoid this fate is to add a vav, to flip כבד into כבוד, to infuse himself with Torah.