Vayeishev – Rising Above Down and Out

The Torah is quite clear about the reality of life: it is not easy; it is not fair. However, confronted by life’s struggles and challenges, with faith and vision we have the potential to overcome them, recalibrate and move forward. We may carry our wounds and hurts, but they don’t define us. Our ancestral name Israel teaches us just that. Last week we read the story of the third of our patriarchs, Jacob, being renamed Israel, a name which according to the Torah means, “one who has struggled with beings Divine and human and overcome.”

We, his descendants, know his story as our own – life will be filled with struggles, with ups and downs and ups again. Even when we are down, we can rise up again. That lesson is the subject of the epic story of Joseph, the favourite son of Jacob/Israel, which begins in Parashat VaYeshev and continues through the end of the Book of Genesis.

Joseph is a dreamer, a man with a vision, which he understands as a gift from God. His dream seems to indicate that in a future time he will rule over his father and his siblings, something that concerns his father and angers his brothers. When the opportunity arises, the brothers throw Joseph down an empty well. They debate whether or not to kill him, but when the opportunity arises, they sell him as a slave to a nomadic tribe heading to Egypt.

Here Joseph has some luck, rising to the position of running the household for a wealthy and powerful man, until this man’s wife falsely accuses Joseph of attempting to rape her. Once again, he falls from his high position, imprisoned in the Pharaoh’s dungeon. The depths to which Joseph descends are deep indeed.

Yet in all this, Joseph never gives up on his dream or his vision. He understands, just like his father before him, that things are not delivered to us on a silver platter. Life presents each of us with different opportunities and different challenges – and in the journey of our lives we will certainly have struggles; circumstances will take us down. Even in the depths, Joseph maintains his faith that he has a purpose and role to play; at the end of his life, he indeed is providing protection for the rest of his family.

We as a people are facing a time of incredible challenge. Israel has become more isolated and antisemitism more openly expressed. It may be that there are not more antisemites than before, but that the antisemites among us are now more brazen and open in their expression of such hate through the anonymity and algorithms of social media.

As a minority group (0.2% of world population), most likely we will always face racism from others, especially given thousands of years antisemitic tropes embedded in human consciousness. This reality can drag us down, especially with a challenged Israel as “the state of the Jews” further drawing negative attention toward world Jewry.

We must recall that despite the hardships and oppression we Jews have suffered over thousands of years, we have held on to our faith and vision from Jacob’s wrestling to Joseph’s dreaming – to serve the mystery of life by making it better for others with justice, equity, truth and compassion.

Shabbat Shalom

Rabbi Jeffrey Kamins OAM