Parshas Vayeishev: Personal Potential

 In this week’s parsha we take an interesting detour from the main narrative to discuss the relationship of Yehuda and Tamar. Obviously from our vantage point we know why their story is important, but its placement interrupting the narrative of Yoseph seems to startle me every year. It is a story that evokes a wide range of emotions. We feel pity and anger and fear at the actions toward and by this young woman, but once we know the complete story, what we feel should be awe. And the complete narrative itself is replete with lessons.

 

The relationship of Yehuda and Tamar is a relationship that isn’t a relationship. Yehuda acknowledges that he is the father of her unborn children, but, as the Torah itself states: “And he did not know her again” (Bereishis 38:26). To be honest, that was a pasuk that always made me sad for her. I felt like they should be truly partnered, for their lives were so bound together, but they weren’t. They were partnered as they were for one purpose and that was the birth of their sons, which was significant for future generations.

 

It is almost impossible not to wonder why these two had to go through such tough times. If Hashem wanted these twins to be born from a union of Yehuda and Tamar, why not just make a shidduch? Why not bring them together in a more direct way? Why did they have to suffer?

 

Really, both of them suffered to get to this point. Yehuda lost two of his sons in the prime of their lives, and while the Torah doesn’t actually relay his emotional state, one can make assumptions from the fact that he kept Tamar from marrying Shelah. It was obviously quite a traumatic experience.

 

Tamar’s suffering came from multiple angles. Quite obviously there was the pain of becoming a widow before even truly becoming a wife. Hopes and prospects dashed not once, but twice. But the rejection for the third son was devastating on a far deeper level. Not only did it imply some level of blame upon her, but it also probably generated gossip and societal rejection. Even more painful was the fact that it put her one great desire out of reach. Tamar wanted to join the family of Yaakov. It was, she believed and knew, her destiny.

 

Yehuda and Tamar are two souls that had a mission together, and that mission was Perez and Zerach. That mission was the generations to come.

 

But we are not just the parents of our children. The narrative of Tamar and Yehuda teaches us something else as well, and that is the importance of process. Yes, their lives were challenging; but, they could not have met their potential without it. They had to dig deep within themselves and meet the potential that they had within.

 

To live up to our greatest potential, we often have to go through turmoil. In order to even start to discover the strength Hashem has given us, we need to look for our true selves. We need to be able to see what we have and what we need to give. Tamar had no interest in playing the harlot, but she knew that she wanted to bring forth the next generation of Yehuda’s family, and so she had to step out of her comfort zone and do something more. Yehuda could easily have saved his pride and denied her markers, but he dug deep and stood up to admit his truth. Both Tamar and Yehuda found their strength.

 

Next week we will light the Chanukah candles. Each night we light another candle. We start with one flame and the light expands from there. We do so to remind us that we only ascend toward holiness, that kedusha must grow.

 

Tamar and Yehuda were individuals who exemplified this idea. They put what was right from a kedusha point of view ahead of any concern about prestige or what things looked like to other people. This could not have happened at an earlier point in time as neither of them were ready, neither of them was able to access that individual power. Once they were, however, they set off a chain of miracles.

 

It is not always easy to look at ourselves as individual pillars of potential, as having within our own selves the power to be great. Very few people I know have lived an easy, stress-free life, but the greatest people I know are those who took those challenges and used it to build themselves, to become more, and to channel the reflection of Hashem into the world.

 

I hope you all have a beautiful Shabbas and a wonderful Chanukah.

PARSHAS VAYESHEV - Favorite Son Chosen Nation

Dedication: May we soon see peace once more after evil has been eradicated, and may our soldiers and the captives all come home safely.

I've spent a long day on the road with another ahead of me…so this will be more of a parsha thought than a full dvar Torah.

This week's parsha focuses, at the beginning, on Yosef being the favorite and the reaction of his brothers to this fact. The reaction, as we know, was not positive, but the relationship had purpose and led to Yosef's ultimate role of leadership.

The Jewish people are known as “the Chosen people,” and we refer to ourselves as Hashem's firstborn and beloved. Hashem created all of humankind btzelem Elokim; they are all His children. The Jewish people, however, have a special relationship with Hashem…and the other nations cannot understand the dreams we have, they cannot recognize the tikkun our nation has brought to the world.

Right now, we can relate too well to Yosef. We feel betrayed by the world, thrown into a pit. There are those who have shown us support, but somedays it feels as if the negative pressure is only growing.

And yet it is Chanukah… the time of miracles. It is the time when Hashem shows his hand. Yes, the world tries to crush us for that unique role, but time and time again we do more than survive. We thrive. Yosef went from slave to prisoner to viceroy, all while maintaining a path of righteousness.

There are many discussions about whether the miracle of Chanukah is military or spiritual, but we know that it was both. Showing might does not, as the rest of the world might think, negate spirituality. Yosef, while not militaristic, was a force of great power in Mitzrayim. The key is military might (or political power) while staying connected to Hashem and to our core Torah values.

Parshas Vayeshev: Optimism

Patience and anger, laughter and sorrow, attentiveness and distraction…These are just some of the character traits that describe the inner-workings of the human psyche. The fact is that the emotional make up of most people can feel contradictory; and, of course, each of us has different contradictions because every person has unique strengths and weaknesses. Life is a balancing act, and finding balance is a constant part of the journey.

Of all of the personalities about whom we learn in the Torah, Yosef is one of the most complex. Through that which is written in the chumash and the many teachings of the Midrash, we have a fascinating profile of a boy who grew into a man, of a favorite son who was hated by his brothers, of a man with the will power to stand up against seduction, and of a brilliant politician and strategist.

There are many character traits that are attributed to Yosef, the most fascinating of which might be the fact that, in his youth at least, he was vain. There is one character trait, however, that arcs over Yosef’s entire life that is particularly noticeable in Parshas Vayeshev. Yosef is an extreme optimist; he perpetually saw the good in others. One fascinating example of this trait is when he went to meet his brothers who were pasturing their sheep near Shechem. The brothers were not where he expected them to be, and he accepted directions from an unknown man. The very tone of his conversation with “the man,” with a stranger, is one of acceptance and trust.

In many ways, Yosef’s conversation with the stranger seems odd. The entire scenario feels out of place in the general narrative of the Torah because on the surface it seems like such a minor detail. Do we really need to care that Yosef needed and received directions? – I mean, there could be a lesson in that too -- It isn’t as if anything contentious happens between them or the man offers him some surprising words of wisdom. However, these brief verses force us to ask questions about it. Those questions lead to Midrashim, to explanations about angels and details about why the brothers changed their location. It also reveals a bit more about the trusting nature of Yosef’s character.

Yosef believed that people were worthwhile, that people would do the right thing. It’s why he didn’t hesitate to tell his brothers the second dream, even when the first one upset them. It’s why he seems to put up no resistance to his brother’s actions even as all that they do leads to his being sold into slavery. It is how he ends up in a compromising position with Eishes Potiphar. It’s there through every step. It is even commented on, to Yosef’s detriment, when the sages note how he languished in jail for two years because he believed the butler would do right by him (but that’s not this week’s parsha).

One might say that this was the truth with Yosef’s forefathers as well, but even Yitzchak, about whom so little is written in the Torah, offers more reaction to events than Yosef does in Parshas Vayehsev.

Is understanding Yosef’s character significant? Does it provide us with any halachic guidance or hashgafic insights? The simple answer is that “Who is Wise? One Who Learns from All People” (Ethics of the Fathers/Pirkei Avot 4:1).

On the one hand, perhaps the Torah is offering us a caution against such wide-eyed trust. Afterall, it becomes clear through Yosef’s story that many people do not have good intentions or that miscommunication can have dire effects. On the other hand, there is no more successful man recorded in the Chumash. He succeeded in every venture. Even getting sent to jail was a direct result of his success, and then he was successful in jail. Yosef made friends and influenced people wherever he went.

We are taught that, ultimately, the Torah values bein adam l’chavero and shalom over bein adam la’makom – interpersonal mitzvos over those between man and God. Yosef’s optimism was a blend of both focal points. His faith gave him strength; his belief in others drove him forward. It isn’t a dramatic lesson or a lesson that is particularly concrete. But it is one that we can take into our days and put to use – even if it means something as simple as being more pleasant to the grocery cashier or the man who cuts the line.

Wishing you all a beautiful Shabbas and a freilichen Chanukah (Sunday night!)

Sweet Dreams (Parshas Vayeshev)

What is your dream? This question, put recently to a group of high school students, needed to be clarified. What did the teacher mean by “your dream”? Did the teacher mean what images popped into the students’ heads when they slept, or was the sought-after answer a far more difficult question of what it was that the students hoped to achieve in their lives? What the teacher wanted doesn’t matter now, but it certainly makes one wonder why it is that the word dream can have such disparate meanings.

From a cynical point of view, one could say that the correlation of the dreams we have and our nighttime reveries are because most of either will never come true. Perhaps, however, the truth is that if we had the bigger picture – the G-d’s eye view, one might say – we might be surprised at how much of both actually do come true, just not necessarily in the way we understand it.

 This week’s parsha, parshas Vayeshev, is full of dreams. There are the obvious dreams that come in sleep: Yosef’s dreams of sheaves of wheat bowing to his grand sheave, Yosef’s dream of the sun and moon and stars bowing to his star, and the dreams of Pharaoh’s butler and baker. (If these are unfamiliar to you, they are written out in the parasha.) There are, however, many of the other types as well. Here are a few:

 1) The Midrashim talk about the very first word of the parasha, vayeishev – and he settled, and how it indicates that Yaakov wanted to settle down in one place and just live out the rest of his days uneventfully. It was his dream to have a mundane, boring, and peaceful upper middle age/old age.

 2)      Yosef was a 17 year old youth who lost his mother, whose only brother was eight years younger, and whose father held him on a pedestal because of his dead mother. As much as Yaakov favored him and gave to him, and even though the Midrash tells us that he often told Yaakov misinterpreted understandings of things he saw his half-brothers were doing, one can only imagine that Yosef wanted to be part the fraternal unity of the other sons. Binyamin was only 9, a mere child, but Yosef was not so significantly younger than Naphtali, Asher, and Zevulun. Yosef dreamed of not being different.

 3)      Potifar’s wife, the woman who framed Yosef and sent him to jail, had dreams of her own. According to the Midrash she believed that her descendants were supposed to be part of Yaakov’s family. In truth, the connection was meant to come through her daughter (adopted, depending on the Midrash), Osnat. Potifar’s wife dreamed of being more than the wife of Paroah’s butcher.

 

When parshas Vayeshev ends, however, the only dreams that have come to any fruition are those of Paraoh’s imprisoned butler and baker. The latter was executed and the former was restored to his position at court, where he blissfully forgot all about Yosef.

Although the narratives of many of the people in Bereishis traverse multiple parshios, Vayeshev is the first parsha that ends on a cliffhanger, meaning that the full narrative arc is not completed. Yaakov’s story until now has been broken into sections – from birth until he leaves his father’s household is one parsha, the following parsha details the next part of his life, when he marries and has children up until he decides to return to the Land of his fathers, and then, again, there is a parsha that covers his return and resettlement into the land. Vayeshev could have been as Yaakov dreamed, a final parsha in which Yaakov grows old and passes on his knowledge and his beliefs to his growing family. Instead, Yaakov moves to the back burner, so to speak, and we begin the story of Yosef…and there are almost no more “neat and tidy” parshios.  Vayeshev and Parshsa Mikeitz that follows are far more intertwined than the parshios that came before them, for it is only in Mikeitz that we understand not only what Yosef’s prophetic sleeping dreams meant (his position to his family in Mitzrayim) but how the heartfelt dreams of people can have a long, and sometimes convoluted, way of coming true. Yaakov’s time in Mitzrayim was a time when he rested, Yosef was included among his brothers eventually, and Yosef married Osnat and they had two sons.

We all dream, both night dreams and “daydreams.” Things happen in our lives, however, that make our hopeful dreams feel impossible. Think how Yosef must have felt when his brothers spoke of killing him, threw him in a pit, and then sold him to passing merchants. Surely he thought there would never be a chance at reconciliation… and he was wrong. It was simply that the path to the dream was a little – a lot - different than expected.

Dreams are important. Dreams keep us moving forward through the world. When stumbling blocks (or even giant mountains) get in the way of our dreams, we just have to do our best to find their essence and give those dreams meaning in our lives. And we have to remember that what we understand of our dreams is not from the G-d’s eye view.

 

Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

 

 

Brotherhood (Vayeshev #2)

This week’s Dvar Torah is about brotherhood. It’s not the typical topic one thinks about for Parshas Vayeshev, since this is the parsha in which ten of the sons of Yaakov sell their younger brother Yosef as a slave and tell their father that his son is dead.

Parshas Vayeshev is, in many ways, one of the easiest parshas to relate to because the emotions are so real. Real people experience jealousy and anger and hate and fear and love, all emotions prominent in this narrative. One can fairly easily relate to the feelings that the eldest ten had toward Yosef. And at the same time, when one reads Yosef’s multiple approaches to his brothers, one can even have that feeling of anxiety like when you read a book and watch the character say all the wrong things and remain oblivious to their impact.

Once could argue, however, that the older brothers are unified. They work together, they travel together, and they share feelings that, for better or worse, can be bonding. The problem is that bonding based on shared negative emotions is, by its very essence, flawed. They may all have resented and disliked Yosef, but they did not all share the same exact motives or levels of hate. And thank goodness that is so, or else they might have gone through with the initial plan to kill him.

This flaw in the brotherhood of Yaakov’s sons is also the reason that it could not hold strong. After lying to their father about Yosef’s death, what happens to the brothers? The fact is that we don’t really know what most of them were doing. However, what happened to Yehudah, who appeared to be the leader of the brothers as they decided Yosef’s fate, is telling. The central section of Parshas Vayeshev begins: “And it was in that time that Yehuda went from his brothers and turned to an Adulamit named Horah” (38:1). The unity of the brothers dissolved. The focus of their negative bonding was gone and was replaced, if not by guilt, then by a discomfort within themselves. The brothers did not come together again until the land of Canaan was suffering under a famine.

One of the biggest contributing factors of what happened to Yaakov’s sons was Yaakov’s reaction to Yosef’s second dream, the dream that appeared to foresee Yosef’s ultimate kingship. While Yaakov questioned the dream, and its meaning, he did not deny it. “And when he told it to his father and brothers, his father berated him, saying ‘What is this dream you have dreamed? Are we to come, I and your mother and your brothers, and bow low to you to the ground?’ So his brothers were wrought up at him, and his father kept the matter in mind.” The question is left rather open ended. Yaakov neither fully chastised his son for reaching beyond himself nor supported Yosef, which would have given his other sons an affirmation that this was Divine will rather than their little brother’s ambition.

On the holiday of Chanukah, we have a different reason to think about brotherhood. In the story of Chanukah, we can see how the lessons of Yaakov and his sons transmitted through the generations to another band of brothers also lead by a man named Yehuda. The Maccabees obviously had an enemy to unify them, but this was an external enemy rather than one of their own. More significantly, one can see an example of good father-son(s) communication in how Mattisiyahu directed his sons from his deathbed:

“Wherefore, my sons, be valiant and show yourselves men in the behalf of the law; for by it shall you obtain glory. And behold, I know that your brother Simon is a man of counsel, listen to him always: he shall be a father unto you. As for Judas Maccabeus, he has been mighty and strong, even from his youth up: let him be your captain and fight the battle of the people. Take also unto you all those that observe the law and avenge the wrong of your people.”

Neither Simon nor Yehuda were the eldest son of Mattisiyahu. The eldest son was Yochanan. (The younger two were Elazar and Yohonatan.) But Mattisiyahu saw the importance of placing his sons in their necessary and rightful roles. He needed his sons, the leaders of the Jewish rebellion, to avoid fighting among themselves. Simon, about whom it is implied had great wisdom, might have felt that his intelligence merited his assumption of leadership. But his father made it clear that his role was as advisor, while Yehuda was to lead the war effort. This was not a denigration of the other brothers, but rather it was an honest analysis of strengths and the best people to lead in order to benefit Klal Yisrael.

Would it have been better if Yaakov had said something specific at the time Yosef shared his dream with his full family – perhaps something to the effect of a statement that the truth in Yosef’s dream was one that could occur now or in the future as merited and should be a reflection of behavior, or perhaps he should have added to Yosef’s dream a broader explanation of each of their future roles. This we cannot say, for we know that every step that occurred in bringing Yosef to Mitzrayim was necessary for the benefit and formation of Klal Yisrael. We can, of course, hypothesis that this phrase, “and his father kept the matter in mind,” was included in the Torah to be understood and acted upon differently, perhaps, by Mattisiyahu centuries.

What lessons can we in our modern age draw from this reflection on brotherhood? Perhaps it is a lesson for parents, that parents should speak clearly to their children and help them understand how they try to provide what is needed for each of their children and for each of their children’s different needs. Or perhaps we can remember that our best unity comes from a love of Klal Yisrael and not from bonding together against other people’s motives and actions.

A Man Who Pointed The Way (Vayeshev #1)

Once upon a time in my life there was a man, really a boy - although at the time he seemed far older than me, who mentioned in passing that being Jewish was something that he thought about in everything he did. Being the 14-year-old that I was, I thought he was a little lame. That youth, without even realizing, had a major impact on my life because even though I had been disdainful in the moment, his words resonated deep within my soul. For me, that boy, a counselor at a BBYO summer program back in 1990, was an eesh b’sadeh, the seemingly random man in the field who asked Yosef what he was looking for and then directed him to his brothers (Bereishis 37).

It is a snippet of narrative told in just a few verses, but it contains many powerful lessons. In our current generation, one of the most significant of these lessons is about Hashem’s great desire for Jewish unity. Yes, it is a common trope, one that is brought up particularly often after our beautiful Jewish community suffers a tragedy. The reason it is so pervasive is because it is a concept with which we struggle mightily – not philosophically, but in actuality. Since biblical times, we have been working toward achieving and maintaining this goal, but we’ve had to restart that work far too often. Obviously, it is no easy task.

How does the eesh b’sadeh offer a lesson on unity when all he did was offer Yosef directions? It starts with the fact that, according to some opinions, the brothers took the sheep so far away to pasture because they wanted to get away from Yosef. Here we have disunity and conflict. Yaakov knew that there was tension between his sons. He sent Yosef anyway, with the specific mission: "ra’ey et shalom achehcha," see the peace of his brothers. Yosef is a faithful son - and some comment that he was actually oblivious to his brothers’ antipathy for him - and so he went. He loses his way, however, because his brothers have gone to a different location. Then he meets the unspecified man, the eesh b’sadeh. According to almost all of the commentaries, this man was the angel Gavriel. Some commentaries say that in his response that the brothers had left, Gavriel was warning Yosef that they were not of a mindset for peace with him. Nevertheless, he told Yosef where to go because, ultimately, Hashem wanted the brothers to be together. Hashem could send His messenger to warn Yosef and to point him in the right direction, but reconciliation of the sons of Yaakov had to come from themselves, unity must be the result of human effort.

The challenge of unity most often stems from problems with perception. By human nature we like to believe ourselves to understand the bigger picture. More challenging than that is the fact that we also tend to believe we understand other people’s motivations and thought patterns, and most of the time we are pretty far off the mark. When the ten shepherding brothers saw Yosef approach, they viewed him from their perception alone. They thought of Yosef with hatred, or with jealousy, or perhaps with fear – fear for their future. Much of their emotions stemmed from their reactions to Yosef’s dreams and their belief that he wished to rule over them. Many commentaries, however, seem to present Yosef as simply an exuberant youth who just wished to share his dreams.

And the perception of each brother was not the same, although in many ways, the picture painted by the narrative is that they were in agreement, on the whole, to get rid of Yosef. But Shimon saw him as the dreamer, the one who dreamed of being bigger, for he was the one who called out “Here comes the dreamer.” Reuvain saw him as a road to redemption, and he convinced them not to kill him so that he could rescue him and thus build himself in his father’s eyes. And Yehuda was the one who suggested selling him, looking at Yosef as a broader picture of one with whom he was connected but with whom he wanted a way to sever that connection.

The distinction between the tribes have essentially been lost by the great dispersion, but we remain in many ways, entrenched in this tribal mindset. In centuries past, we divided ourselves between our minhagim and our countries of origin. Ashkenazim marrying Sephardim was jokingly [mostly] referred to as intermarrying. In the current era, we align ourselves by denominations, and then we look at each other and we make assumptions that may be, but quite probably are not, true.

The eesh b’sadeh, the man in the field, represents people or incidents in our lives (both individual and as a people) whom Hashem sends to try to help us become whole again.  When we think back in our lives there are those moments we can find, like the words of the counselor at that camp, that give us a nudge in the right direction. However, sometimes these men in the field are not kind, they are warning that danger awaits on the path we are on. Even when we are given these guides, however, we are so often hampered by what happens next. When we allow our preconceived notions, our superficial judgments, our fear of the possibility that another might know something we do not, to inhibit us from coming together.  Like the 12 brothers who were our ancestors, the Jewish people have always had to learn how to deal with the fact that while we are all Jews, we are not homogeneous. We can't have unity if we don't learn to talk to each other like brothers. We today still need to rectify the inability of our ancestors to look and see from our brothers’ eyes.