Internal Beauty

Zechariah (9:13)  כִּֽי־דָרַ֨כְתִּי לִ֜י יְהוּדָ֗ה קֶשֶׁת מִלֵּ֣אתִי אֶפְרַ֔יִם וְעֽוֹרַרְתִּ֚י בָנַ֙יִךְ֙ צִיּ֔וֹן עַל־בָּנַ֖יִךְ יָוָ֑ן וְשַׂמְתִּ֖יךְ כְּחֶ֥רֶב גִּבּֽוֹר.  Why are the conquerors of יון referred to as the people of ציון specifically?  The Alshich says since the battle of Chanukah was waged by the Chasmoniam who were the bearers of the Torah which is associated with ציון as in כי מציון תצא תורה.  And it is the Torah which the possuk concludes is the great sword which will be used to smite Javan.  

However, even though the Alshich notes the beginning of the possuk notes Yehuda and Efraim and then continues to the בני ציון indicating a third group, there are seforim that point out a connection between ציון and יוסף.  The word ציון itself can be broken into צ יון in which the צ stands for צדיק, Yosef is called tzaddik.  Closer to the point, the gematria of יוסף and ציון is exactly the same, 156, see much ado about this in Kol Hator.  Why is the power of Yosef used to defeat יון and what is its connection to ציון?  

Yosef is the only man in Chumash described as יפה תואר ויפה מראה.  Rashi tells us in Vayetzeh when the same expression appears in the Torah's description of Rachel, that תאר is צורת הפרצוף and מראה is זיו קלסתר.  In other words, תאר refers to the actually form of the face, how everything comes together to create a beautiful image and מראה refers to the internal shine that radiates of the face.  חכמת אדם תאיר פניו, the face expresses the internal wisdom that exists within the individual.  The תאר is an external beauty but it is even deeper when accompanied by מראה, a reflection of an internal purity. Why is it significant to know that Yosef was handsome and why is he the only man in Chumash given this description?  צִיּוֹן כְּלִילַת יֳפִי or as the possuk (Tehillim 50:2) says מציון מכלל יפי.  Zion is also called יופי, why? 

In its purest form יופי is an expression of the heavenly dimension meeting earth.  Zion is the meeting place of heaven and earth.  Yosef is the midah of yesod, כל כל בשמים ובארץ, the midah which combines heaven and earth.  The beauty is a reflection of the gashmi being used for the proper designated, ruchni purpose.  When the gashmi is inline with the ruchni purpose it was created for the internal purity shines though.  The יופי is not a maaleh on its own accord but is a mirror of the internal beauty of something being used for its designated purpose.     

The Greeks were known for their appreciation of aesthetics.  The beauty of Yefes is meant to adorn the אהלי שם.  It is a means to accentuate the spiritual usage of Shem.  However, they appreciated beauty but not as a means to an end but rather as an end in of itself.  The root of such a mistake shares the same roots as the origins of the sin of idolatry.  They also started with noble intensions to serve Hashem through His messengers but in the end they worshipped the means, they viewed that as an end in its own right an missed the bridge to the connect back to Hashem.  They got stuck in יפה תואר but it was not יפה מראה, there was no reflection of an inner, genuine truth shining through.  (This part is based upon shiurim from Rav Moshe Shhapira.)     

Rav Kook writes (see as an example his letters volume 4) that Zion refers to Yerushalayim as the capital of the nation of Klal Yisrael.  It is the term used to describe the seat of the malchus of Yisrael, of the mundane power of government.  Yerushalayim refers to the place of kedusha, the place of the Mikdash, the place that parallels the spiritual realm above.  That is why, as Rav Kook explains in the letter, he wished to move away from Mizrachi, and Zionism to form דגל ירושלים, a movement devoted to bring kedusha to the settling of Zion.  

This is why Zion is called יופי.  Its יופי is a mirror of the usage of the mundane force of the government body to facilitate the kedusha of Yerushalayim to to shine.  This midah is embodied by Yosef.  It is precisely because Yosef had the capability to live in the depths of Egypt, the טומאת הארץ, that he did not get lost in the externalities of beauty, that he is described as being handsome.