Parashat Vayeshev - Choices and Regrets (5 min read)

רפואה מן התורה

Healing from the Torah

     This week’s parasha, Vayeshev from Genesis 37:1-40:23, is again about Jacob’s story but with a twist.  In fact, outside of a few critical sections that deal with Jacob, this parasha is really about Joseph and his brothers.  But do not get that wrong, the children are a part of Jacob’s legacy, and therefore a part of Jacob’s story.  Also in this parasha there is more than one story line; from Joseph’s two dreams, to the hate of his brothers that sold him into slavery, the brother’s deception of their father as well Judah and Tamar, concluding with Joseph who is imprisoned at the word of Potiphar and while in jail interprets other dreams of two other men who were also incarcerated.  Here, we will continue to look at the life of Jacob from the first part of Vayeshev.
     Joseph has 2 dreams about ruling over his family.  His brothers are upset and hate him, whereas his father - who was also a little dismayed – but, ואביו שמר את הדבר, “and his father kept the matter” in mind (cf. Gen. 37:11).  Jacob was a dreamer if we recall, so perhaps he identified with Joseph and therefore could not dismiss his dreams out of hand.  Even more so, given the importance of Jacob’s dream world, did he ever impart that to the rest of his family?  Regardless, after the dreams, aside from Joseph and Benjamin the rest of the brothers are sent out to shepherd sheep.  Jacob sends Joseph (with his cloak given to him by his father) to check on his brother’s well being.  When Joseph’s brothers see him they immediately devise a plot to throw him into a pit and leave him to die.  Then Reuven stands up and says, brothers “we are not those type of men” (could not resist the Bob Dylan lyrics), and they sell him to a bunch of passing by nomads who then sell Joseph to the Egyptians as a slave.  Then, in one of the more disturbing narratives in the Bible (right up there with Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac), Jacob’s sons tell their father that Joseph was killed by wild beats and they hand their father Joseph’s cloak with the animals blood all over it.  In response, Jacob rents his cloths and rejects the comfort that his children seek to give him and he swears to mourn for the rest of his days.  Now, Rashi justifies these actions.  First, the 22 years between the time Jacob last saw his son and will see his son again (see. Gen. 45:26ff) reflect the 22 years that Jacob did not show honor to his mother and father.  And second; Jacob did not accept the comfort from his children for mourning because he did not believe that his son was really dead, itself a view that Rashi took from the Midrash (cf. Genesis R. 84:21).
     Turning back to Jacob, then, lets ask the following, what did it mean for Jacob to settle (וישב) in Cannon?  It seems like an innocuous statement, but maybe not.  Keep in mind that in Toldot after Jacob had his dream regarding the angels and the ladders, God makes promises to Jacob who then replies by saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and clothing to put on ..."  So maybe when Jacob “settled” he believed that it was prophetic on some level, thus God was with him and a new day after a rough 20 years was beginning.  A trio of medieval Rabbis comment on what it meant for Jacob to settle in the land of his fathers. Rashi suggests that after 20 years of wondering and hardships Jacob wanted to settle in the land promised to his fathers in peace (also see Targum Yonathan).  The Rashbam teaches that Jacob claimed the reward (the land) of the birthright he manipulated from his brother, whereas the Ramban writes that Jacob preferred the promised real-estate as opposed to a foreign land like his brother Esau chose (cf. Rashi, Rashbam and the Rambam on Gen. 37:1).  Maybe when Jacob settled his “expectation” was that everything would be better than before and his own wisdom became compromised?  In other words, where was Jacob's wisdom when he sent his son to check on his brothers given how his brothers felt about Joseph?  Of course Jacob could have not imagined what they would do, but still, what was Jacob thinking?  In the past Jacob made impulsive and/or unwise choices, but this one meant the loss of his son Joseph.
     So in a Midrash (Yalkut Shimoni) it is taught that Jacob’s 20 years he sojourned with Laban is compared to the 400 years of Israel’s slavery.  Therefore, when Jacob and his sons “settled” in the land it signified that there was “no more slavery,” thus in Jacob’s “mind” he and his family were now settled.  If that is so can we wonder the following; did Jacob have any inclinations that his older son’s hated Joseph, or did Jacob’s sense of arrival in a place of peace cause him to turn a blind eye to his own family dynamics?  That should not be read as a criticism of Jacob, he clearly loved his family, but it is an observation of what happens when a person’s expectations of how they want things to be can be blindsided by how things really are.  Is it fair to ask that if Jacob had a different mindset he would have not sent Joseph to check on his brothers?  Yeah I think it is fair, and as Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg writes, the “plot” that happened with Joseph “arouses Jacob from his aesthetic composure.” The loss of Joseph jarred Jacob, who wanted to settle in the peace of the promised land, by reopening his eyes and spirit to a world that had not been healed yet.  Rabbi Nachman of Breslev is to have said, “Worldly riches are like nuts; many a tooth is broke in cracking them, but never is the stomach filled with eating them.”  For us, the riches of the world and the sweetness it can add is not the point, more so than getting to comfortable with the wrong things. Jacob got to comfortable and forgot that the world around him, including his own family, still needed to be repaired.  The wisdom of Torah reminds us of such a need.