Yosef and Divine Providence
By: Chaya Mushka and Nechama Dina Krimmer
In this week's parsha, we delve into the rivalry between Yosef and his brothers, which was exacerbated by several factors. Firstly, prior to the birth of Binyomin, Yosef was the only child of Yaakov's beloved wife, Rochel, born after many years of childlessness.
Yosef was physically beautiful like his mother and had a shining holy spark that Yaakov could see. Yaakov held a special place in his heart for Yosef and he taught Yosef the wisdom he had learned from his father and grandfather. The attention Yaakov showered on Yosef, along with being the son of Yaakov's favored wife, fueled the jealousy and anger of his brothers.
Yosef had dreams that intimated that his brothers would one day bow down to him. Regardless if his brothers saw Yosef's dreams as prophetic or not, they still were angered that Yosef spoke of these dreams out loud and especially to their father. They would never bow to Yosef! Why couldn't he just keep his far-fetched dreams to himself?
Yosef also represented a different avoda, a means of service to Hashem, than those practiced by his brothers. While his brothers were satisfied being shepherds, closing themselves off from the world to engage solely in the world of Torah and mitzvos, Yosef believed that he must interact with the outside world, bringing Torah and mitzvos to others to share and inspire them.
There is a famous story from the Chassidic Master, Rabbi Mendel of Kotzk, which demonstrates the greatness of Yosef's avoda. Reb Mendel coined the term "ah tzaddik in peltz" translated as a righteous man in a fur coat. When the weather is cold, there are two solutions. Put on a fur coat and warm oneself or build a fire that warms all who draw close to it. Yosef was not "ah tzaddik in peltz". He was one who would go out in the world and fan the flames of Torah in the hearts of others.
When the anger of Yosef's brothers came to a crescendo, his brothers conjured up the unthinkable; they planned to gather together and kill Yosef. Ultimately, they decided to throw him in a pit where he would either die or be "rescued" by travellers and sold into slavery. Secretly, the eldest of the brothers, Reuvan, planned to rescue Yosef later in the day but when he got to the well, Yosef was already gone.
The Torah writes that the pit the brothers threw Yosef in held no water. "And they took him and cast him into the pit; now the pit was empty. There was no water in it". Breishis 37:24.
Rashi, the famous commentator on the Torah, explains that the pit was devoid of water but was teeming with snakes and scorpions.
The Torah, itself, is frequently compared to water, that essential nourishing and life-sustaining nectar. Water flows downward from the highest mountaintops to the lowest canyons, yet contains its highest purity and vitality at all elevations.
Being a part of G‑d’s essence, the Torah too flows from supernal heights down to this lowly earthly plane. It is filtered through, and dressed in layer after layer in a way almost impossible to comprehend, yet the Torah remains in its purity, holding the same strength of life-sustaining power and vitality in the physical worlds as it does in the supernal heights.
Because Yosef found himself in a place devoid of water, it comes as no surprise that the pit was full of snakes and scorpions. If our minds, for example, are not filled with positivity, with goals to achieve, and with hopes and dreams to work for, a space can easily open for negative thoughts to seep in.
A vital concept in Torah is that of Hashgocha Protis, or Divine Providence, which relates to our story of Yosef and his brothers, as we will see in a moment.
Hashgocha Protis is the belief that G‑d has a plan for us, and for the world at large, that is much bigger than we could ever practically perceive with our human intellect. We see the back of the tapestry with strings hanging in all directions, and bizarre asymmetrical patterns with a rugged and perhaps unsettling visage. Only G‑d sees the beautiful tapestry emerging, and G‑d willingly, it will be revealed to all us in the Messianic Era.
When Yosef was thrown into the pit, the needles of the tapestry of Hashogocha Protis began to stitch together. Yosef was sold and ended up in Egypt as a slave to Potiphar, one of the King's ministers. G‑d blessed Yosef in all he did and soon Potiphar selected Yosef to take care of his personal affairs. Yosef experienced many ups and downs in Egypt but his connection to the King's minister began a chain of events that ultimately led to the redemption of Yosef's family, which we will read about in future Torah portions.
But what can we learn from this to apply to our own lives? Our Sages say that a leaf doesn't turn in the wind unless G‑d wills it to. If this is true for a leaf, for more leaves than we could possibly count, how much more so the events in our own lives.
We all suffer and we toil. We experience great joy and great sadness. Minor annoyances like slow drivers or small triumphs like getting the perfect macchiato. And I don't need to recount the tragedies and the heart break, which no words can possibly console, the parts of the tapestry we may never see put together in our lifetimes.
But we can start to see Hashgocha Protis in small, perhaps less emotionally charged, ways. We think of a friend and they call. We randomly go through a box in the attic during spring cleaning and find an item we've been desperately searching for. We annoyingly can't find our car keys and find out there was an accident at the location we may have been at had we not lost them.
All it takes is just to look around and see G‑d's hands directing our lives.
