“Every week one should live with the weekly parasha, and learn from it for our lives. Sometimes one has to delve deeply into the words of the commentators and put some effort into studying it in order to understand what is being said and its connection to our lives, but in the parashas of Vayeshev and Miketz, which deal with the life of Yosef Hatzaddik, there is no need to expend effort and delve deeply. If we just translate the story into Yiddish or into any other language we understand, one can acquire from Yosef instructions and guidance as to how a Jew is supposed to behave.” This is how the Rebbe started his discourse on the weekly parasha on Shabbat parashat Vayeshev, 5728 (1967).
Following that introduction, the Rebbe continued to describe Yosef’s trials and travails in flowery language (tzuros un churbanos) – how he was sold as a slave, and as Yosef himself described it, “For I was surely stolen from the land of the Hebrew.” He was torn away suddenly from his father and grandfather, and from his natural environment in general, and he had to learn skills, ways of life and methods of survival that were foreign to him.
His grandfather, Yitzchak, who had lived in a protected environment most of his life, certainly never needed this kind of life wisdom. Even his father Yaakov, who had been alone in Lavan’s house for 20 years, didn’t have to cope the way Yosef had to. For Yaakov, even though he was in Charan, from the moment that he built his home with his wives and children was in charge of his life, at least in regard to everything connected to his private home. He ran his house as he saw fit, to the point that he could say, “I lived with Lavan and observed the 613 mitzvot” (Rashi). But Yosef for many years did not have a household of his own – he didn’t even have a private abode at all. At the beginning he was a slave in the home of his master, and afterwards he was in prison and so on.
And all this through no fault of his own. He went through trouble after trouble. His situation got worse from moment to moment. First he was in the pit, then he was sold to the Yishmaelim and the Midyanim, and they sold him to the Egyptians. Try to imagine how slaves used to be sold, and imagine a seventeen-year old lad, orphaned and pampered, all alone in a strange land, and finally bought by Potiphar. I would expect him to be resentful and sad, in despair, bitter. But no. Yosef got up every morning and worked faithfully for his master, not like a miserable wretch, but like a successful person, and he was, indeed, very successful. But the troubles didn’t leave him. Again, in the same way, not only did Potiphar not thank him for his work, but he even threw him into jail even though he was innocent – and even more so, he was thrown into jail because he didn’t want to abuse his master’s trust in him. Did he become bitter and resentful in the jail? Not there, either. There, too, he arose every morning like new and did what he thought was the right thing and was very successful at it, to the point that he became the manager of the jail. And the story repeats itself; he helps the king’s cupbearer by interpreting his dream, and he has only one request: Mention me to Pharaoh. Not money, not gifts – nothing that will cost you anything or necessitate any effort. But the cupbearer forgot about him the very next morning.
So passed a few years of disappointment from the world: suffering, humiliation and shameful behavior of people. I would have expected him to give up on this world, to run away from people and go live alone in the desert. But no, Yosef continued to run his life as he saw fit. And the reason for that was that Yosef had grown up in a home that had taught him one central thing: that everything that happens in the world comes from Divine Providence, and everything has a reason, and as he himself said to his brothers when they were afraid that he would pay them in kind: “it was not you who sent me here, but G-d.” When a person lives with such a deep awareness, nothing that happens to him can knock him down.
This is the central message for anyone who reads Yosef’s life story. Everyone has the possibility of collapsing, giving up and being sad as he tries to cope with difficulties and challenges, and there is also the possibility of lifting up one’s head, looking forward and understanding that everything has a reason and a goal – like Yosef did.
In the book “Hayom-Yom” for the 1st of Cheshvan, the Rebbe spells this out even more: Since Hashsem said to Avraham Avinu “Go forth from you land etc.” the secret of beirurim (extracting) started, and by the decree of the superior Providence, a person goes his ways in the places where the sparks that need to be discovered by him are waiting for their salvation.
Be Yosef.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski