Asking this question brings us back to the question of the relationship between migration and humanity, between humanity and spirituality...

The name of Josefa, in itself, is meant to say something about these different links that intertwine.

Josefa evokes a singular, unique name, like that of a person.

Josefa resonates in the feminine, in this way, emphasizing the hospitality.

Josefa echoes Joseph, a migrant figure, at the crossroads of Judeo-Christian and Muslim cultures: Joseph (יוסף), son of Jacob, whose narrative closes the Book of Genesis (Genesis 37-50), is also a great Prophet (Yusuf) presented in the Quran by one of the longest suras (Sura 12). The Joseph from the New Testament, as well, through the Escape to Egypt (Matthew 2:13-23), brings us back to the archetype of the refugee families’ exile.

Thus, according to the Tradition where each person claims to recognize himself, the scriptural texts can act like a mirror for the multiple migrations that cross our life whether we are a man, woman, son, brother, wife...

The migration of a brother...

Through Joseph (יוסף), the forced migration of a brother, the envy of his older brothers, sold for a few coins, taken into Egypt by a caravan of Ishmaelites. A violent and meaningless forced migration, but in the eyes of the narrator, and at the price of multiple displacements and deep transformations of the protagonists of this story, a sense emerges, and Joseph himself tells it to us: "Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing today." (Genesis 50:20)

The Migration of a people...

Furthermore, as a result of the ongoing famine, Jacob, Joseph's father, and all his descendants will experience a real "economic migration" to Egypt, the region’s "stockpile of grain" thanks to the strategic "land policy" led by Joseph himself. Several generations will stem from this economic migration: "So Joseph remained in Egypt, he and his father's household; and Joseph lived one hundred ten years" (Genesis 50:22). "The Israelites were fruitful and prolific; they multiplied and grew exceedingly strong, so that the land was filled with them" (Exodus 1:7).

The Migration of a people, constituting a new identity...

The presence of "the other" can be perceived as a threat, and again the stories of the "Book" mirror completely the current situation: "Now a new king arose over Egypt, who did not know Joseph. He said to his people, “Look, the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land.”" (Exodus 1:9-10)

Escaping from the land... Israel will experience this displacement, the ultimate existential migration, an Exodus willed by God himself, as a liberation of enslaved men and women, the archetype of our most basic liberation as human beings, "nowhere at home except within himself, perpetually in search of a better place, that is truly human, where greed would be controlled and where justice would dwell" (A. Wénin).

This Exodus, this ultimate migration, will mark the beginnings of Israel as the people of the Covenant: "When Israel went out from Egypt, the house of Jacob from a people of strange language, Judah became God’s sanctuary, Israel his dominion" (Psalm 114:1-2).

Those belonging to the Covenant will find their basic identity in it, and on every Sabbath, they are called to remember (Deuteronomy 5:15), a remembrance oh! so fruitful, through the ages, because it causes people to treat others fairly, and results in a hospitality that is rooted in our migrant being. We can identify with it... between strangers and people we know, a unique and basic freedom we all share…

"The alien who resides with you shall be to you as the citizen among you; you shall love the alien as yourself, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt" (Leviticus 19:34).