Parashat Vayeshev: Ego in the Way

What stands in the way of hearing God’s message is often our own ego.

The Yosef story begins with his dreams. Yaakov, his father, also had dreams. But what is the difference between them? The one dreamt of a ladder leading up to heaven and God at the top, and the other, of himself in the middle of a circle of bowing family members. The one of God at the top; the other, of himself at the center.

Now, to be sure, there is something divine in Yosef’s dreams. They are a kind of prophetic vision of the future. But what they are missing is one essential element – a sense of who runs the show. Yosef had to learn this the hard way, by being pushed down multiple times, until finally he is able to articulate, at the end of the story, that all was indeed planned by God and that he, Yosef, is merely an instrument of the divine will.

Avraham heard clearly the message to leave his homeland. Yosef, too, had this gift of hearing/seeing the divine plan. But he could not properly understand its contents because his own ego was in the way.

Where is this happening for us in our own lives? When we try to figure out the right path, are we looking for an answer that puts us as the star of the show? Are we trying to figure out how to get others to bow down to us or are we trying to figure out how to understand the role that we, each one of us as an individual, is intended to play in God’s plan?