“When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and you think to refrain from raising it for him, you must nevertheless raise it with him!” (Ex 23:5).
This is one of the many laws – dealing with subjects as far-ranging as slavery, the Sabbath and judicial procedure-- in this week’s parsha, fittingly called Mishpatim,”Laws.” This particular law describes a situation in which one comes upon one’s enemy and sees that his beast of burden has collapsed under the weight of its heavy load. The Torah spells out a natural response – not to help one’s hated enemy – and then insists that one nevertheless lend a hand.
The word used here for the “raising” of the burden is azov, which also means “to leave behind.” “Leave behind what is in your heart concerning him,” says Targum Onkelos, an ancient translation of the Torah into Aramaic. “Leave behind at that moment the hatred in your heart concerning him and take apart the burden and carry it with him,” says Targum Yonatan, another classical translation.
The ass, then, is not the only one who needs his burden unloaded! This commandment is also intended to help you relieve or “leave behind” your own burden, the burden of your hatred of another human being. If you have an enemy, then you, like that donkey, are falling down under a heavy burden. Stop and help relieve your fellow ass’s burden, and you will find that your own burden has also been relieved.
In the children’s book Zen Shorts, a panda bear tells a story about two monks who were travelling together. When the older monk stops to help carry an arrogant demanding rich woman across a puddle and receives no thanks for this task, the younger monk becomes angry and remains so for hours. When he finally expresses his anger, the older monk says: “I put that woman down hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?” The question is not whether one is right to feel anger or hatred at another human being, but rather what effect it has on the one who feels the anger or enmity, how such emotions weigh us down.
The point of this Torah law – like many others -- is not only to provide aid for those in need, in this case the animal and its owner, but also to train the person doing the aid, to teach him to act righteously -- despite his hatred-- and thereby to find some relief from that hatred. After all, the Torah could have stated the law more simply: Help your fellow when his animal is collapsing under his burden. The mention of hatred indicates that what is important here to the Torah is not just the net result of aid given but also the state of mind of the giver.
Perhaps it is for this reason that the Torah bothers to tell us the initial thoughts of the one who sees this animal. He first thinks he will refrain me’azov lo, “from raising it for him.” His first thought is that the action will be solely for the benefit of his enemy. No, says the Torah. Azov ta’azov imo. Imo, “With him,” not “for him.” With him. Together. You will both be benefiting, you as well as he.
The Hasidic Rebbe of Piaseczno is said to have told his young students every Shabbat eve, between every single course, the same exact message – “The most important thing in the world is to do something good for another person.” And when you do, do not think that the only person who is gaining from this do-gooding is the other. It is you. Azov ta’azov imo. Together. When you help another, it changes you, too, lifting both your burdens at the same time.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Parashat Yitro: Standing Alone Together
Vayihan sham Yisrael neged hahar. “Israel encamped there opposite the mountain,” opposite Mount Sinai in preparation for receiving the 10 commandments in this week’s parsha. The Hebrew verb Vayihan is in the singular here, causing the rabbis to say that, unlike other encampments, this one was done belev ehad, “with one heart,” as a single peaceful unified people.
As an American, raised in a culture where individuality is a core value, too much unity scares me. What happens to individuals in such a group setting? Do they lose the ability to express themselves differently from the group? Does “with one heart” imply a lack of individuality?
The ten commandments are also given in the singular, beginning with Anokhi Hashem Elokekha, “I am the Lord your” –the word “your” is in the singular –“God.” Here the midrash takes a different approach, saying that God spoke to each individual according to his or her individual ability and personality, appearing to each one as if He were looking and speaking to her alone. The Sefat Emet carries this midrash one step further, saying that during the Mount Sinai experience, each person was able to see his individual connection to God, to see the part of himself that was a piece of God.
These two traditions – seemingly contradictory, one with its emphasis on unity, the other with its emphasis on individuality – are actually complementary. Peaceful togetherness can only happen when each individual feels valued, when each individual feels he has a special place with God, and therefore also a special place in the community. The 2 commandments which stand at either end of the 10 commandments, forming a kind of envelope around the whole, convey precisely this message. “I am the Lord your – individual – God.” And “Do not covet” the possessions of your neighbor. Do not desire to be someone else. Know that you, as an individual, were created in the image of God and have your own special place in God’s universe. Be, therefore, not jealous of your neighbor, but at peace with yourself and with others.
Directing oneself toward God helps this effort. In the eyes of man, all kinds of hierarchy exist, and society tends to value some individuals more than others. But in the eyes of God, all hold a piece of God within them. All have a place. The people encamped belev ehad – with one heart – neged hahar -- opposite the mountain. It was standing opposite this mountain of God that helped them each feel valued and therefore at peace with each other.
Perhaps the feeling at Mount Sinai was not unlike the feeling of praying the silent Amidah together with a minyan (a prayer quorum). Each person speaks quietly and personally to God, but the whole group does so in the same room at the same time, with the knowledge that all are directing their hearts in the same direction. We stand before God--as individuals--“with one heart.”
As an American, raised in a culture where individuality is a core value, too much unity scares me. What happens to individuals in such a group setting? Do they lose the ability to express themselves differently from the group? Does “with one heart” imply a lack of individuality?
The ten commandments are also given in the singular, beginning with Anokhi Hashem Elokekha, “I am the Lord your” –the word “your” is in the singular –“God.” Here the midrash takes a different approach, saying that God spoke to each individual according to his or her individual ability and personality, appearing to each one as if He were looking and speaking to her alone. The Sefat Emet carries this midrash one step further, saying that during the Mount Sinai experience, each person was able to see his individual connection to God, to see the part of himself that was a piece of God.
These two traditions – seemingly contradictory, one with its emphasis on unity, the other with its emphasis on individuality – are actually complementary. Peaceful togetherness can only happen when each individual feels valued, when each individual feels he has a special place with God, and therefore also a special place in the community. The 2 commandments which stand at either end of the 10 commandments, forming a kind of envelope around the whole, convey precisely this message. “I am the Lord your – individual – God.” And “Do not covet” the possessions of your neighbor. Do not desire to be someone else. Know that you, as an individual, were created in the image of God and have your own special place in God’s universe. Be, therefore, not jealous of your neighbor, but at peace with yourself and with others.
Directing oneself toward God helps this effort. In the eyes of man, all kinds of hierarchy exist, and society tends to value some individuals more than others. But in the eyes of God, all hold a piece of God within them. All have a place. The people encamped belev ehad – with one heart – neged hahar -- opposite the mountain. It was standing opposite this mountain of God that helped them each feel valued and therefore at peace with each other.
Perhaps the feeling at Mount Sinai was not unlike the feeling of praying the silent Amidah together with a minyan (a prayer quorum). Each person speaks quietly and personally to God, but the whole group does so in the same room at the same time, with the knowledge that all are directing their hearts in the same direction. We stand before God--as individuals--“with one heart.”
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Parashat Beshallah: The Beginning of the Journey
The children of Israel, on the eve of their departure from Egypt in last week’s parsha, paint their doorposts and lintels with the blood of the paschal lamb. The Sefat Emet suggests that the image of the doorway is significant. They are on the cusp of a new life. God has created a doorway into the Torah for them.
It turns out the door does not simply open into a place of residence, but leads instead to a long twisting pathway, a road to be travelled. The path created by the parting of the two walls of the Red Sea symbolizes this road, and God’s choice of the “long way around” the desert mentioned in the first verse of this week’s parsha makes it clear that the road will be a long one.
This sense of journey is an important counter-point to the exhilaration of the exodus of last week’s parsha. Even after 10 plagues, the job is not done. One’s enemies, and in the classic Hasidic interpretation, one’s spiritual challenges, will continually follow one around. Steps forward are made. The Israelites see the Egyptians lying dead on the banks of the sea, believe in God, and, overcome by clarity and gratitude, sing the great Song of the Sea. But what next? Even this great moment – during which the midrash says that a maid-servant saw God with greater clarity than the greatest of prophets – does not last. Changes, spiritual changes, must happen slowly and gradually. Immediately after the parting of the Red Sea, the people complain of thirst.
Thirst is their next challenge. Facing the Red Sea, there was too much water; what they needed then was dry land. Now they are on the other side of the Sea, facing the next spiritual challenge, a problem of the other extreme, a lack of water. Later in the parsha, they will confront problems of hunger , a return of thirst, and another enemy attack, Amalek.
The problems and challenges of the long road through the desert continue throughout most of the rest of the Torah. Such is life. Such is a Torah life. It is not without moments of exhilaration and clarity, moments of standing in one place and singing out one’s praise to God. But it is mostly a journey. Like the waters of the Sea, the image of life here is not stagnant, but continuously moving, moving and growing, always with an eye to the Promised Land, but never actually getting there.
The ability to travel this journey is a privilege and a blessing. Slaves cannot travel, cannot move forward or upward, always chained to their place in society. The exodus was a door not to the land itself – with all its implications of settling down-- but to a road, an opening and an opportunity to travel this challenging yet rewarding journey.
It turns out the door does not simply open into a place of residence, but leads instead to a long twisting pathway, a road to be travelled. The path created by the parting of the two walls of the Red Sea symbolizes this road, and God’s choice of the “long way around” the desert mentioned in the first verse of this week’s parsha makes it clear that the road will be a long one.
This sense of journey is an important counter-point to the exhilaration of the exodus of last week’s parsha. Even after 10 plagues, the job is not done. One’s enemies, and in the classic Hasidic interpretation, one’s spiritual challenges, will continually follow one around. Steps forward are made. The Israelites see the Egyptians lying dead on the banks of the sea, believe in God, and, overcome by clarity and gratitude, sing the great Song of the Sea. But what next? Even this great moment – during which the midrash says that a maid-servant saw God with greater clarity than the greatest of prophets – does not last. Changes, spiritual changes, must happen slowly and gradually. Immediately after the parting of the Red Sea, the people complain of thirst.
Thirst is their next challenge. Facing the Red Sea, there was too much water; what they needed then was dry land. Now they are on the other side of the Sea, facing the next spiritual challenge, a problem of the other extreme, a lack of water. Later in the parsha, they will confront problems of hunger , a return of thirst, and another enemy attack, Amalek.
The problems and challenges of the long road through the desert continue throughout most of the rest of the Torah. Such is life. Such is a Torah life. It is not without moments of exhilaration and clarity, moments of standing in one place and singing out one’s praise to God. But it is mostly a journey. Like the waters of the Sea, the image of life here is not stagnant, but continuously moving, moving and growing, always with an eye to the Promised Land, but never actually getting there.
The ability to travel this journey is a privilege and a blessing. Slaves cannot travel, cannot move forward or upward, always chained to their place in society. The exodus was a door not to the land itself – with all its implications of settling down-- but to a road, an opening and an opportunity to travel this challenging yet rewarding journey.
Wednesday, December 15, 2010
Parashat Vayehi: On Protection and Connection
On his death-bed, Yaakov gives the following blessing to his grandchildren, Menasheh and Efraim:
The God before whom my fathers Avraham and Yitzhak walked,
The God who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day,
The Angel who has redeemed me from all harm
-----Bless the lads [Hebrew, ne’arim].
In them may my name be recalled,
And the names of my fathers Avraham and Yitzhak,
And may they grow into teeming multitudes upon the earth (Genesis 48:15-16).
Yaakov offers two blessings here: protection and connection -- the blessing of protection from God above and the blessing of connection to those who came before (Avraham and Yitzhak ) and to those who will come after (the teeming multitudes). May these children feel protected from all harm by God’s watching Angel. And may they feel that they are a link to the past and the future, standing between their ancestors and the growing future nation.
These two blessings are not separate here, but deeply intertwined. The protection comes from the God before whom our ancestors walked. It is through our connection to them that we learn to rely on God and to feel protected.
The form of the blessing expresses this message as well. The names Avraham and Yitzhak appear at the beginning of the blessing and at its end, and right in the middle— enclosed in the protective shell of their ancestors and their ancestors’ God - are the ne’arim, the children. It is their connection to the past and to the Angel who saved their parents that will serve as a comforting enveloping presence as they make their way and become multitudes upon this earth.
Yaakov knows from trouble in his life. When he looks into his descendants’ future, surely he sees that they, too, will face great trouble, years of slavery and oppression. He cannot undo this future. All he can do is offer them a sense of protection, a sense of being enclosed and watched over, like a shepherd watches his flock. And this sense of protection, he tells them, comes from above, from God, and also from behind and in front, from the ancestors who believed in God, and from the future generations who will carry on the tradition.
In the words of the midrash (made famous by a Mordecai ben David song), we are ma’aminim benei ma’minim, believers, the children of believers.
The God before whom my fathers Avraham and Yitzhak walked,
The God who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day,
The Angel who has redeemed me from all harm
-----Bless the lads [Hebrew, ne’arim].
In them may my name be recalled,
And the names of my fathers Avraham and Yitzhak,
And may they grow into teeming multitudes upon the earth (Genesis 48:15-16).
Yaakov offers two blessings here: protection and connection -- the blessing of protection from God above and the blessing of connection to those who came before (Avraham and Yitzhak ) and to those who will come after (the teeming multitudes). May these children feel protected from all harm by God’s watching Angel. And may they feel that they are a link to the past and the future, standing between their ancestors and the growing future nation.
These two blessings are not separate here, but deeply intertwined. The protection comes from the God before whom our ancestors walked. It is through our connection to them that we learn to rely on God and to feel protected.
The form of the blessing expresses this message as well. The names Avraham and Yitzhak appear at the beginning of the blessing and at its end, and right in the middle— enclosed in the protective shell of their ancestors and their ancestors’ God - are the ne’arim, the children. It is their connection to the past and to the Angel who saved their parents that will serve as a comforting enveloping presence as they make their way and become multitudes upon this earth.
Yaakov knows from trouble in his life. When he looks into his descendants’ future, surely he sees that they, too, will face great trouble, years of slavery and oppression. He cannot undo this future. All he can do is offer them a sense of protection, a sense of being enclosed and watched over, like a shepherd watches his flock. And this sense of protection, he tells them, comes from above, from God, and also from behind and in front, from the ancestors who believed in God, and from the future generations who will carry on the tradition.
In the words of the midrash (made famous by a Mordecai ben David song), we are ma’aminim benei ma’minim, believers, the children of believers.
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Parashat Vayigash: On Hiddenness and Revelation
Yosef reveals his identity to his brothers in this week’s parsha after a long period of hiding behind the mask of an Egyptian viceroy.
Hiddenness and revelation -- these concepts usually refer to God. Indeed, mystical interpreters like the Sefat Emet see this narrative as a parable for the soul’s search for the hidden aspects of God in the world.
There is support for such a reading in the narrative itself. Yosef is the first of our ancestors not to have direct communication from God, to live in a world – like ours – where God’s purpose is hidden. Yosef’s recourse is interpretation; he learns to see, or rather, to read, God’s purpose in dreams and life events. When he reveals his identity to his brothers, he also reveals something about God -- his interpretation of God’s role in his life, of God’s purpose in sending him down to Egypt to provide food for the family and for others. In a world where God is as hidden as Yosef is himself, divine revelation comes via interpretation.
Revelation is achieved by other means as well. Yehuda, too, plays a role in the process of unveiling Yosef’s identity. Through the speech which begins this parsha, he in effect forces Yosef to reveal himself. A midrash in Breishit Rabbah brings the following parable to illustrate Yehuda’s actions: It is like a deep well of fresh, cool water that no one can drink from because of its depth. Along comes a wise person and ties cord to cord, and thread to thread, until he is able to reach the fresh water at the bottom and draw it back up for all to drink.
Yehuda’s lengthy speech ties word to word and sentence to sentence to dig down deeper and deeper, reaching for the secret that he must have sensed lay hidden inside of this strange Egyptian viceroy. The midrash is an apt illustration of Yehuda’s task in relation to his brother Yosef – to uncover the depths of his hiddenness and to pull him back out of the pit they threw him into. But the midrash – with its use of the evocative figure of well water -- also seems to be reaching farther, to be implying a spiritual quest, an attempt to draw out of the depths of the world and all its hiddenness the cool fresh waters of spiritual sustenance, of divine revelation.
The midrash may also be referring to its own hard-won insights into the depths of the Torah. For the rabbis, the Torah is a deep well of secrets to be mined by those who – like themselves -- know how to tie cord to cord (and verse to verse) and keep digging until the fresh cool waters of the Torah’s secrets are forced to reveal themselves.
Revelation can be achieved by many means – by interpretation, by perseverance, and perhaps also through the kind of honesty, bravery and selflessness displayed by Yehuda in his speech. The key is to believe that there is something hidden to reveal in the first place, to have a sense of mystery about the universe, to be willing to dig deeply in the world and in the Torah in the hopes of reaching those fresh cool waters of revelation and inspiration.
Hiddenness and revelation -- these concepts usually refer to God. Indeed, mystical interpreters like the Sefat Emet see this narrative as a parable for the soul’s search for the hidden aspects of God in the world.
There is support for such a reading in the narrative itself. Yosef is the first of our ancestors not to have direct communication from God, to live in a world – like ours – where God’s purpose is hidden. Yosef’s recourse is interpretation; he learns to see, or rather, to read, God’s purpose in dreams and life events. When he reveals his identity to his brothers, he also reveals something about God -- his interpretation of God’s role in his life, of God’s purpose in sending him down to Egypt to provide food for the family and for others. In a world where God is as hidden as Yosef is himself, divine revelation comes via interpretation.
Revelation is achieved by other means as well. Yehuda, too, plays a role in the process of unveiling Yosef’s identity. Through the speech which begins this parsha, he in effect forces Yosef to reveal himself. A midrash in Breishit Rabbah brings the following parable to illustrate Yehuda’s actions: It is like a deep well of fresh, cool water that no one can drink from because of its depth. Along comes a wise person and ties cord to cord, and thread to thread, until he is able to reach the fresh water at the bottom and draw it back up for all to drink.
Yehuda’s lengthy speech ties word to word and sentence to sentence to dig down deeper and deeper, reaching for the secret that he must have sensed lay hidden inside of this strange Egyptian viceroy. The midrash is an apt illustration of Yehuda’s task in relation to his brother Yosef – to uncover the depths of his hiddenness and to pull him back out of the pit they threw him into. But the midrash – with its use of the evocative figure of well water -- also seems to be reaching farther, to be implying a spiritual quest, an attempt to draw out of the depths of the world and all its hiddenness the cool fresh waters of spiritual sustenance, of divine revelation.
The midrash may also be referring to its own hard-won insights into the depths of the Torah. For the rabbis, the Torah is a deep well of secrets to be mined by those who – like themselves -- know how to tie cord to cord (and verse to verse) and keep digging until the fresh cool waters of the Torah’s secrets are forced to reveal themselves.
Revelation can be achieved by many means – by interpretation, by perseverance, and perhaps also through the kind of honesty, bravery and selflessness displayed by Yehuda in his speech. The key is to believe that there is something hidden to reveal in the first place, to have a sense of mystery about the universe, to be willing to dig deeply in the world and in the Torah in the hopes of reaching those fresh cool waters of revelation and inspiration.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Chanuka and Parashat Miketz: On Miracles
Do you believe in miracles?
Chanuka begs the question. Al Hanisim ve’al hapurkan, we say and sing. “For the miracles and for the salvation,“ we thank you, God.
What is the miracle of Chanuka? Usually we say there are two. The military miracle, that a small band of Maccabees was able to defeat the mighty Syrian-Greek army. And the miracle of lights, that a single jug of oil lasted for eight days instead of one. But maybe these two miracles are –like the two dreams of Pharaoh that Josephs says are really one in this week’s parsha – actually two manifestations of the same phenomenon. Both miracles express the strength of something small, a single can of oil and a tiny nation. Chanuka is about the triumph of the small, the survival of the nation of Israel, which, like a little flame set against the backdrop of a long winter night sky, should, by all rights, have flickered and died long ago.
Chanuka teaches us to believe in miracles, strengthens our faith in the indomitable divine spark in our midst. Chanuka is by necessity a winter solstice holiday; coming at our darkest time in the year, it reminds us to believe in light even in the midst of darkness. In Pharaoh’s dream from this week’s parsha, the skinny cows and skinny stalks of wheat swallow up the fat ones. That is the natural way of the world, the way of our worst fears, that trouble will outflank fortune, evil crumble good, darkness overwhelm light. But on Chanuka we are all -- like Yosef -- able to combat such nightmares. We stand, armed with our little lights, and push against the darkness, declaring our faith that light – no matter how faint -- will always triumph.
Is this realistic? Sometimes the evil side has the bigger army, the larger guns, the power of the state to torture and kill. On Chanuka we assert that miracles are realistic, that it is not numbers or power or might that prevail, but spirit, the spark of divine light, the flame inside us. The Maccabees and their little can of oil stand for all those who should have given up but didn’t, all those who fight might with courage and faith – the American revolutionaries, Gandhi and his followers, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
On Chanuka we remember their heroism and are strengthened by it. The word Chanuka has the same root as the word for education, chinuch. Chanuka is a kind of education, an education of the soul. We begin with one candle – small and flickering – but over time, our faith grows, and each night we find ourselves capable of pushing back against that darkness a little bit more, until, on the final night, our houses are sparkling with light, and we, with courage and faith.
Unlike the miracles of Passover – the 10 plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea – the miracles of Chanuka happened through human agency. On Chanuka, we learn that we, too, are responsible for playing our part in making miracles happen. We thank God daily for turning darkness into light each morning, but He has also implanted in us the divine spark, a spark which is also capable of turning darkness into light, of lighting a candle in the midst of the darkest of nights.
Chanuka begs the question. Al Hanisim ve’al hapurkan, we say and sing. “For the miracles and for the salvation,“ we thank you, God.
What is the miracle of Chanuka? Usually we say there are two. The military miracle, that a small band of Maccabees was able to defeat the mighty Syrian-Greek army. And the miracle of lights, that a single jug of oil lasted for eight days instead of one. But maybe these two miracles are –like the two dreams of Pharaoh that Josephs says are really one in this week’s parsha – actually two manifestations of the same phenomenon. Both miracles express the strength of something small, a single can of oil and a tiny nation. Chanuka is about the triumph of the small, the survival of the nation of Israel, which, like a little flame set against the backdrop of a long winter night sky, should, by all rights, have flickered and died long ago.
Chanuka teaches us to believe in miracles, strengthens our faith in the indomitable divine spark in our midst. Chanuka is by necessity a winter solstice holiday; coming at our darkest time in the year, it reminds us to believe in light even in the midst of darkness. In Pharaoh’s dream from this week’s parsha, the skinny cows and skinny stalks of wheat swallow up the fat ones. That is the natural way of the world, the way of our worst fears, that trouble will outflank fortune, evil crumble good, darkness overwhelm light. But on Chanuka we are all -- like Yosef -- able to combat such nightmares. We stand, armed with our little lights, and push against the darkness, declaring our faith that light – no matter how faint -- will always triumph.
Is this realistic? Sometimes the evil side has the bigger army, the larger guns, the power of the state to torture and kill. On Chanuka we assert that miracles are realistic, that it is not numbers or power or might that prevail, but spirit, the spark of divine light, the flame inside us. The Maccabees and their little can of oil stand for all those who should have given up but didn’t, all those who fight might with courage and faith – the American revolutionaries, Gandhi and his followers, the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
On Chanuka we remember their heroism and are strengthened by it. The word Chanuka has the same root as the word for education, chinuch. Chanuka is a kind of education, an education of the soul. We begin with one candle – small and flickering – but over time, our faith grows, and each night we find ourselves capable of pushing back against that darkness a little bit more, until, on the final night, our houses are sparkling with light, and we, with courage and faith.
Unlike the miracles of Passover – the 10 plagues and the splitting of the Red Sea – the miracles of Chanuka happened through human agency. On Chanuka, we learn that we, too, are responsible for playing our part in making miracles happen. We thank God daily for turning darkness into light each morning, but He has also implanted in us the divine spark, a spark which is also capable of turning darkness into light, of lighting a candle in the midst of the darkest of nights.
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Parashat Vayeshev: Yosef's Transformation
Our ancestors did not start out great. They grew, over time, through struggle and ordeal, into greatness. In the past few parshiyyot, we saw Yaakov suffer and grow in his own way. Now it is Yosef’s turn. Yosef starts out haughty and vain, taunting his brothers with his favored status and dreams of grandeur; we will watch him learn -- through the experience of being brought low, again and again – to be humble.
There are three sets of 2 dreams in the Yosef narrative and each set marks a different stage in Yosef’s development. The story begins with his own dreams, in which the earth and the sky bow down to him and revolve about him. What hubris! What blasphemy! While his father Yaakov dreamed of a ladder reaching up to heaven with God nitzav -- standing -- at the top, Yosef’s dream contains no God. No god, that is, except himself, the only one whose sheaf is nitzavah – standing -- in contrast to the bowing sheaves of his brothers.
Yosef is literally lowered from his pedestal multiple times in this parsha -- thrown down into a pit by his brothers, hurad, “brought down,” to Egypt, in the south, and then thrown into jail, also called here a “pit,” a place of lowness.
It is in jail that we begin to see a change in Yosef. The second set of dreams in the Yosef story does not belong to Yosef, but to the butler and the baker, his jail-mates. Yosef has grown. He is no longer narcissistically self-involved – dreaming of a world that revolves around him -- but is able to hear the needs and stories of others.
He also here acknowledges for the first time that God has something to do with his abilities, telling his dreaming jail-mates, “But God surely has interpretations! Tell me [your dreams].” This is new, this invocation of God as His partner, a definite step forward. And yet, at the same time, the statement implies an equation of himself with God – Yosef doesn’t spell out why they should tell him the dreams if it is God who has interpretations, making it seem like he is an extension of God in some way, also a kind of hubris.
Two more years of jail cure him. The final change in Yosef can be seen in next week’s parsha, in Yosef’s reaction to the third set of dreams, Pharaoh’s. In one word he reveals a complete change of attitude: Biladay, “Not I,” he says, but “God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.” Not I. What a long way Yosef has travelled from those first dreams of self-absorption!
Ironically, it is now – now that he can stand ego-less before Pharaoh, a humble servant of God – that he realizes his dreams of grandeur, becoming viceroy to the king. True greatness cannot be achieved without humility. One’s own dreams are only realized if one learns to listen to the dreams of others, becoming part of the world, not above it, a brother to others, not a god.
Yosef’s journey of self-transformation was a long, hard one. It inspires us with the possibility of transformation and also with the challenge to -- like Yosef -- turn life’s ordeals into opportunities for personal growth.
There are three sets of 2 dreams in the Yosef narrative and each set marks a different stage in Yosef’s development. The story begins with his own dreams, in which the earth and the sky bow down to him and revolve about him. What hubris! What blasphemy! While his father Yaakov dreamed of a ladder reaching up to heaven with God nitzav -- standing -- at the top, Yosef’s dream contains no God. No god, that is, except himself, the only one whose sheaf is nitzavah – standing -- in contrast to the bowing sheaves of his brothers.
Yosef is literally lowered from his pedestal multiple times in this parsha -- thrown down into a pit by his brothers, hurad, “brought down,” to Egypt, in the south, and then thrown into jail, also called here a “pit,” a place of lowness.
It is in jail that we begin to see a change in Yosef. The second set of dreams in the Yosef story does not belong to Yosef, but to the butler and the baker, his jail-mates. Yosef has grown. He is no longer narcissistically self-involved – dreaming of a world that revolves around him -- but is able to hear the needs and stories of others.
He also here acknowledges for the first time that God has something to do with his abilities, telling his dreaming jail-mates, “But God surely has interpretations! Tell me [your dreams].” This is new, this invocation of God as His partner, a definite step forward. And yet, at the same time, the statement implies an equation of himself with God – Yosef doesn’t spell out why they should tell him the dreams if it is God who has interpretations, making it seem like he is an extension of God in some way, also a kind of hubris.
Two more years of jail cure him. The final change in Yosef can be seen in next week’s parsha, in Yosef’s reaction to the third set of dreams, Pharaoh’s. In one word he reveals a complete change of attitude: Biladay, “Not I,” he says, but “God will see to Pharaoh’s welfare.” Not I. What a long way Yosef has travelled from those first dreams of self-absorption!
Ironically, it is now – now that he can stand ego-less before Pharaoh, a humble servant of God – that he realizes his dreams of grandeur, becoming viceroy to the king. True greatness cannot be achieved without humility. One’s own dreams are only realized if one learns to listen to the dreams of others, becoming part of the world, not above it, a brother to others, not a god.
Yosef’s journey of self-transformation was a long, hard one. It inspires us with the possibility of transformation and also with the challenge to -- like Yosef -- turn life’s ordeals into opportunities for personal growth.
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