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Vayeishev
This week we read the beginning of the Yosef story and the difficulties that the favored son had with his brothers, leading them to almost kill him and then sell him into slavery. Many talk about the lessons we can learn from Yosef's behavior -- lessons of the "what not to do" variety. Tonight I find myself thinking more about his brothers and the lessons we can draw from them.
You can almost understand the brothers' point of view. Here's this kid who gets all the extra goodies from dad, who really does love him best. And what does he do with that position? He tells his brothers how they're all going to bow down to him; he dreamed it so it must be so. He does this more than once. He does other things too, like spread stories about them. He sounds really frustrating to live with.
The brothers respond to this with anger, violence, and ultimately deceit (to their father). They are upset by their brother so they try to get rid of him. This doesn't work out so well for them, and it's not a model we should follow.
We all have Yosefs in our lives -- coworkers, classmates, family members, or others. We can't get rid of them; even if you do manage to drive one away (I hope no one considers murder or slavery an option), another one will be along soon. And you usually can't reform the Yosefs either; if we're very lucky we can strive to set a good example and inspire them to change themselves, but we can't count on that. There will always be Yosefs. So it is far more productive for us to figure out how to cope with our Yosefs instead of trying vainly to make them go away.
How do we do that? Partly by recognizing that we own our feelings and behavior, and are not responsible for others'. I can be mad at the person who got the undeserved-in-my-eyes recognition, or I can make sure that I do my part in recognizing the contributions of those I feel are deserving. I can be mad and have it eat away at me, or I can decide that the Yosefs usually get what's coming to them eventually and I don't need to arrange for that personally. It's hard; these comments are inspired by a Yosef who has recently emerged in my life, and I'm struggling. But it seems the best way to cope, and maybe it will strengthen me in the long run.
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