Torah of Recovery: Vayeshev

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Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire, location 5599, Kindle edition

“He sought to settle in peace” indicates a cognitive and aesthetic ambition to see history resolved, sojournings over, in this world. What “leaps upon him” is the wild animal that tears Joseph apart—tarof toraf Yosef. Instead of yishuv ha-da’at, clarity, composure, coherence, there is tiruf ha-da’at, confusion, bewilderment, loss of consciousness.

Rabbi Dr. Bradley Shavit Artson, The Everyday Torah, p. 62-63, Kindle Edition

In the development of Joseph's character and the events of his life, the Torah portrays a bittersweet lesson about the loneliness of pride. On the surface, there is no reason for Joseph to be lonely. He is, after all, the favorite child of his father surrounded by eleven brothers in the midst of a bustling and energetic family. Joseph has the potential to fill his life with friendship, family, and love. Yet his need to be preeminent, his need to belittle the gifts and experiences of this family in order to glorify his own talents, isolate him from his own kin.

Bereshit Rabbah 84:7

(7) “Joseph, seventeen years old…” – and you say he was a lad? The term lad, used here in connection with Joseph, generally indicates someone younger than seventeen. It is because he would perform the actions of a lad – he would groom his eyes, lift his heels, and curl his hair.

George Robinson, Essential Torah, p. 329

Thus every act that we read as the product of arrogance is really a response to his emotional isolation, his overeagerness to make an impression on a world in which everyone in the family seems to be older, tougher, and not interested in him.

Richard Elliott Friedman, Commentary on the Torah, p. 735, Kindle Edition

No one seems to know that the dreams are prophetic: not the brothers, not Jacob, not even Joseph himself. Joseph will be able to interpret other people’s dreams—but not his own. Like many of us, he will learn what every psychoanalyst knows: that seeing the meaning of one’s own dreams is the hardest.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 393, Kindle Edition.

Once the brethren of Joseph led their father's flocks to the pastures of Shechem, and they intended to take their ease and pleasure there. They stayed away a long time, and no tidings of them were heard. Jacob began to be anxious about the fate of his sons. He feared that a war had broken out between them and the people of Shechem, and he resolved to send Joseph to them and have him bring word again, whether it was well with his brethren.

RA & USCJ, Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary, p. 229

We never hear of this man again. Yet if Joseph had not met him, he never would have found his brothers. He never would have been sold into slavery. The family would not have followed him into Egypt. There would have been no Exodus. The history of the world would have been so different! Could that man have known how his chance encounter changed history? Do we ever know the consequences of the little acts of thoughtfulness we perform?

Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, US Congresswoman, at https://www.instagram.com/aoc/p/Ca_WTUoA83T/?img_index=1

Revolutionary and transformative changes, from the inside out, happen more like mosaics.

Think of it like this: no matter who we are, how visible or invisible or big or small, each one of us is just one tile. Whether you see that as liberating or disempowering is a matter of perspective. When you have your eye pressed all the way up to the single tile of a mosaic, it can look quite meaningless. A single piece of shattered glass could look worthless. Or perhaps a piece of small painted porcelain could seem beautiful, but too small to “be” anything. Or maybe a stunning rare slab of stone may think itself as the biggest piece when it is really a corner tile. The secret is, it’s all significant.

The two secrets of mosaics are:

1. Each piece (us + our small actions) is far more powerful and meaningful than we know, and
2. Each piece (we) need each other far more than we realize.

When we are able to step back from thinking our own broken, unfinished pieces are not enough, and start to see how all the other little pieces glistening alongside us start to form eyes and ears and abstract beauty and landscapes and symbols and more, we realize that just because we didn’t see the big picture at first doesn’t mean we weren’t part of one.

So just do the small thing - for yourself and others. Choose your actions with humility, love, and enthusiasm. It means more than you know, and the world thanks you for it.

Gregg Drinkwater, 'Joseph's Fabulous Technicolor Dreamcoat,' in Torah Queeries, p. 56-57

Having been thrown in a pit and left for dead by his brothers is the ultimate familial rupture, creating a new dividing point in Joseph’s life: before this moment and after. Such a narrative of rupture and transition clearly resonates with LGBT individuals who create new identities and new families of choice when rejected by their families of origin. As is clear later in the story, Joseph, like similarly rejected LGBT people, remains scarred by the event and must undergo a personal and familial trial before reconciliation is even possible. In the end, his dream-inspired vision of triumph over his brothers does indeed come to pass. But as he sits in the pit, alone, hungry, and bereft of fraternal compassion, he must understand himself as the ultimate outsider, the ultimate Other, aggressively struck down by men so threatened by his difference that they are unable even to speak to him.

Ruth Rabbah, 5:6

Rabbi Yitzḥak bar Maryon said: The verse comes to teach you that if a person performs a mitzva he should perform it wholeheartedly, as had Reuben known that the Holy One blessed be He was dictating in his regard: “Reuben heard and he rescued him from their hands” (Genesis 37:21), he would have taken him to his father on his shoulder.

Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, p. 399, Kindle Edition

God spake, saying: "Over a meal did ye sell your brother, and thus shall Ahasuerus sell your descendants to Haman over a meal, and because ye have sold Joseph to be a slave, therefore shall ye say year after year, Slaves were we unto Pharaoh in Egypt."

Bereshit Rabbah 84:13

Rabbi Tanchuma in the name of Rabbi Berachia: he behaved towards [his father] with the appropriate respect: "And he answered him: 'here I am'. Rabbi Chama bar Chanina: Yaakov remembered these words and his internal organs would feel like they were being chopped up: you knew that your brothers hated you, and still you said to me 'here I am.'"

RA & USCJ, Etz Chayim, Torah & Commentary, p. 232

v. 35 ...The Hebrew word translated as 'to be comforted' (l'hitnahem) is reflexive; he refused to comfort himself. We can never truly comfort a mourner, even when we have known a similar loss. we can only surround the mourners with a sense of being cared about, in the hope that this will bring them to the point of comforting themselves (Hirsch).

Bereshit Rabbah 85: 2

(2) “It was at that time” – the verse should have said only: “Joseph was taken down to Egypt” (Genesis 39:1).6This verse, describing the sale of Joseph to Potifar in Egypt, is the direct continuation of chapter 37, which concludes with Joseph being brought down to Egypt. This narrative is interrupted by the story of Judah in chapter 38. Why, then, did it juxtapose this portion to that one? Rabbi Elazar and Rabbi Yoḥanan: Rabbi Elazar said: In order to juxtapose descent to descent.7The story of Judah’s descent is embedded within the story of Joseph’s descent to imply that Judah lost stature among his brothers due to the sale of Joseph, when they saw how much pain it caused their father (Yefe To’ar). Rabbi Yoḥanan said: In order to juxtapose “identify” (Genesis 37:32) to “identify” (Genesis 38:25).8Because Judah was responsible for the sale of Joseph, in which the brothers asked Jacob to identify Joseph’s tunic, he experienced the embarrassment of having to admit his error when Tamar asked him to identify the possessions he had left with her (Etz Yosef).

Rabbi David Kasher, ParshaNut, p. 60-61

Judah, however, truly sees things as they are. He not only recognizes the items placed before him, he also recognizes that he is in the wrong, and that Tamar must be set free. His recognition is a profound one, for it causes him to see himself differently, and to redirect his actions based on new information. He gains control of his fate, in this moment, by discovering humility. This same humility will allow him to take responsibility for his role in the sale of Joseph, and to finally reconcile with the brother who was to be his adversary. Judah’s moment of recognition, then, is the beginning of a process that will rescue his whole family from a tragic fate, unify the embittered siblings and welcome all of their descendants into the covenant.

RA & USCJ, Etz Hayim: Torah & Commentary, p. 242

v. 5 each dream with its own meaning Literally, 'each according to the interpretation of his dream.' The Hebrew can be taken to mean that the interpretation turned out to be appropriate to the content or that each dreamed as if his dream were a prediction.

Berakhot 55b, 11

The Gemara relates: Ameimar and Mar Zutra and Rav Ashi were sitting together. They said: Let each and every one of us say something that the other has not heard. One of them began and said: One who saw a dream and does not know what he saw should stand before the priests when they lift their hands during the Priestly Blessing and say the following:

Master of the Universe, I am Yours and my dreams are Yours,

I dreamed a dream and I do not know what it is.

whether I have dreamed of myself, whether my friends have dreamed of me or

whether I have dreamed of others,
if the dreams are good, strengthen them and reinforce them like the dreams of Joseph.

And if the dreams require healing,

heal them like the bitter waters of Mara by Moses our teacher, and like Miriam from

her leprosy,

and like Hezekiah from his illness, and like the bitter waters of Jericho by Elisha.

And just as You transformed the curse of Balaam the wicked into a blessing,

so transform all of my dreams for me for the best.

And he should complete his prayer together with the priests so the congregation

responds amen both to the blessing of the priests and to his individual request. And if

he is not able to recite this entire formula, he should say:

Majestic One on high, Who dwells in power,

You are peace and Your name is peace.

May it be Your will that You bestow upon us peace.

Nachman Levine, 'What Do The Dreams of Yosef Really Mean,' at https://library.yctorah.org/files/2016/09/What-Do-Yosefs-Dreams-Really-Mean.pdf

I do not mean this in the sense of the Midrash (Berakhot 55b) that dreams are determined by their interpretation; rather that here the initiative of interpretation causes them to be fulfilled and that comes to be self-referentially their true content.

Rabbi Shai Held, The Heart of Torah, Vol. 1., location 2007

To know our own gifts and abilities is not arrogance; it is self-awareness. Arrogance is the illusion that we are the sole authors of our talents and that they are therefore our exclusive possession. Spiritual maturity, in contrast, is the understanding that we do not own our gifts. When we acknowledge how much has been done for us rather than achieved by us, we, like Joseph, grow ready to serve.

Rabbi Mark Borowitz, Finding Recovery and Yourself in Torah, p. 63

Joseph had to learn the lesson of humility by going back into a pit. This pit was jail in Egypt. To his credit, he did learn this lesson. He found God in the darkest part of his life. This is also, unfortunately, a recurring theme in the world. Many of us have to go all the way down into a pit to find God and learn/relearn how to use our gifts to help others, rather than lord over them.

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire, loc 6175, Kindle edition

In the early days of his captivity in Potiphar’s house, Joseph goes about repeating (whispering) the Torah he learned in his father’s house. This is his strenuous attempt to “re-member” his identity and culture, to keep “God with him.” Since small domestic miracles constantly happen to him (such as the instantly boiling water), Potiphar assumes that he is muttering spells—hence, his aphorism about bringing witchcraft to Egypt. Eventually, it seems, Potiphar does recognize the heroic subjectivity of Joseph, as he strives to remember God, Torah, and himself. But in the end, the midrash begins—as though this end to heroic memorizing were inevitable—Joseph forgot. The problems of remembering and forgetting inform the whole narrative.

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire, location 6277

Only in the future will the yearning for ve-shav Ya’akov, for intellectual and aesthetic integration, be fully satisfied. In this world, what is most needed is not fear, which deprives man of initiative beneath the sleepless eyes of God, but love—the capacity to act in a world where absolute clarity is not obtainable.

Dr. Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Beginning of Desire, location 5783, Kindle edition

“It is possible to be in a plot and not understand it,” writes Thomas Mann of the “God-story.”12 More than possible, one might add: it is of the very nature of life inside an alilah, inside a plot, that one does not understand its whole structure.