“He searched, beginning with the oldest and ending with the youngest; and the goblet turned up in Binyamin’s bag.”
The search for the goblet – which turns out to be in Binyamin’s bag – was staged, and the results of the search were known in advance. The one who planted the goblet, the one who searched for it and the one who “discovered” it, were one and the same. The search was carried it with government authorization, with use of force and with no sensitivity to the rights of privacy or respect. The purpose of the search was to incriminate Binyamin, and it was planned with malice aforethought.
We find other types of searches in the Bible. Lavan searches for the missing terafim as he would for a truly lost object. Shaul searches for missing donkeys, but he finds, instead, monarchy. We can understand from the story of Shaul that sometimes a searching person is someone who is ready for change, someone who will accept an alternative to his original search, recognizing that the alternative satisfies his true needs and desires. In such cases, the searcher himself was unaware of what he was really looking for.
In our day-and-age, the searches with which we are most familiar are “Google searches.” We type in a set of key words and then work our way through the many search results to find the one that best satisfies our needs. The better we are at defining our search, the more likely it is that the results will turn up what we want. The problem always is clarifying the needs of the searcher. In Google searches, we often learn how to search from our previous searches.
Even though the search described in our parasha is artificial, it nevertheless serves as an archetype for defining searches in an entirely different setting. The opening Mishnah in Massekhet Pesahim describes the obligation to search for hametz (leaven) by means of lamp on the night preceding the 14th of Nissan. The Gemara’s explanation (Bavli, Pesahim 7b) of the obligation to search with a lamp appears as follows:
The Gemara asks: From where are these matters, i.e., that the search should be conducted by the light of the lamp, derived? Rav Ḥisda said: We derive it by the hermeneutic principles of verbal analogy and juxtaposition: The term finding in one context is derived from finding in another context, and finding is derived from the word searching, and this searching is derived from searching elsewhere, and searching there is derived from the word lamps, and lamps is derived from lamp.
Rav Hisda derives the idea of searching for hametz with a lamp from the words “finding,” “searching” and “lamps” as they appear in a series of biblical verses that he assembled where these concepts are mentioned:
“Finding” in one context is derived from “finding” in another context by verbal analogy, as it is written here: “Seven days leaven shall not be found in your houses”(Exodus 12:19), and it is written there: “And he searched, starting with the eldest, and ending with the youngest; and the goblet was found in Benjamin’s sack” (Genesis 44:12). And the word “finding” in this verse is connected to “searching” in that same verse by juxtaposition, as the verse says: “And he searched... and was found.”
And “searching” is derived from “lamps” by means of juxtaposition, as it is written: “And it shall come to pass that at that time I will search Jerusalem with lamps” (Zephaniah 1:12). And finally, the word “lamps” is derived from “lamp” by means of juxtaposition, as it is written: “The spirit of man is the lamp of God, searching all the inward parts” (Proverbs 20:27). Together these verses indicate that the search for leaven must be conducted by the light of the lamp.
At first glance, Rav Hisda’s teaching seems complicated and strange. What possible connection could there be between the prohibition against having leaven in your house on Passover and the search for a goblet in Binyamin’s bag?
Perhaps Rav Hisda makes this connection because he is trying to offer an explanation for the eve-of-Passover search in a conceptually unique manner. We usually assume that our task is to search out physical hametz of a certain minimum size in order to destroy it before the holiday. This teaching clarifies that aside from a negative search-and-destroy mission, there is also a positive element to the search, as can be derived from the search that led to the discovery of the goblet in Binyamin’s bag.
We can get a better idea of this search by studying the lamps with which God will “search Jerusalem.” In that verse, God is searching for the sinners of Jerusalem by means of lamps, and those lamps are “the lamp of the spirit of man.” Deep in the soul of man is where the lamp of God can be found – a light of purity and cleanliness. To uncover this lamp, a man must be pure, without a foreign goblet among his belongings.
By making the connection between the search for hametz and the search for the goblet, Rav Hisda succeeds in explaining the rules of the search for leaven, while simultaneously offering insight into the Yosef story. Yosef’s search is not an ordinary one; he has no need to search for a goblet that he placed there himself. The point of the search is simply to unnerve the brothers by going through their possessions. There is a message in this search – Yosef wants to show the brothers that they are focused on the wrong thing and that they need to refocus. They must clarify for themselves what brought them to Egypt in the first place, and they must be reminded that the ultimate good will not be found in the sheaves of grain that were placed in their bags but in their own good intentions. If they put aside their immediate desire for food with which to feed their family, it will allow them to think about how to maintain their overall family structure and about what they did to bring the family to the brink of collapse.
What becomes clear is that searching is always just the beginning of the road. Oftentimes, someone begins searching for something specific without realizing that what he truly needs is something entirely different. One search leads to another, and that search leads to yet another one. Only at the very end is the core essence to be found – that inner kernel that every searching person desires. That is where the lamp can be found, flickering as it shines outward from inside.