Some folks love to sit around and blog about their cool new Sony Vaio or something. For me? It’s all about the Torah and Messiah Yeshua. Here’s my VaYeshev commentary. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Today’s parashah is Va Yeshev, or, “And he settled.” It covers Genesis chapters 37:1 through 40:23. It is in this parashah that we begin the story of one of my favorite characters in all of Genesis. I’m speaking, of course, about Joseph. Of course, there is no “J” sound in Hebrew, so his name was actually Yosef.
In chapter 37, we are introduced to Yosef as a brash teenager. While he possesses all the talents and gifts from God that will serve him well later in life, Yosef at this time lacks the wisdom that comes with experience. Although gifted by God with both the ability to dream prophetically and the ability to interpret those dreams, the seventeen-year-old Yosef is always eager to share his visions with his family, not realizing how his visions might affect this brothers.
We read that Yosef had two dreams, which symbolically show him as a ruler and his entire family bowing down to him. While Jacob – now renamed Israel by the L-RD – rebukes Yosef for sharing a dream that seems to place him over his brothers and even his parents, Israel takes time to ponder the meaning of Yosef’s dream, according to the Torah.
But this was not the case with his brothers. In fact, between Yosef’s apparent ego, and their father’s favoritism of his youngest son, the result is far from ordinary sibling rivalry; what develops between the rest of the brothers toward Yosef is a murderous intent.
Can we really be surprised by the evil intentions of Yosef’s brothers? I suggest that the answer is no. Remember, in last week’s reading, we saw that the sons of Israel, especially Simeon and Levi, were allowed to deal falsely with Shechem and Hamor, and ended up destroying an entire settlement over the sin of one man – Shechem. So the sons of Israel at this point are not living up to the righteousness of their father. They are men capable of murder – even wholesale slaughter of dozens – and who have suffered no real consequence for their actions.
Now, when people are allowed to sin without consequence, do you think they are more likely, or less likely, to sin again? We don’t have to wonder. We can read about the sad results as the sons of Israel once again indulge in an out-of-proportion response to an offense.
Genesis 37:18-20 (NLT)
18 When Joseph’s brothers saw him coming, they recognized him in the distance and made plans to kill him. 19 “Here comes that dreamer!” they exclaimed. 20 “Come on, let’s kill him and throw him into a deep pit. We can tell our father that a wild animal has eaten him. Then we’ll see what becomes of all his dreams!”
So here they are, the sons of Israel, presented with … what? A temptation. And that is the theme I found in my study of this week’s Torah portion: a series of temptations, and different responses to those temptations.
This episode is the first such time of temptation to sin and what the parashah shows us is when you have someone – or in this case, a group of someones – who have sinned in the past and never really suffered for it, it becomes even easier the next time you are tempted to sin, to give in to that temptation.
That is the case here with Yosef’s brothers, the sons of Israel. All of them have reasons to hate Yosef. First, Yosef is the favorite son of their common father, born by their father’s favorite wife. When a parent shows partiality to one child over another, it always breeds trouble between siblings and the sons of Jacob are no exception.
The special coat Israel gives Yosef is a symbol, for the brothers, of that favoritism. And in his youthful exuberance over this prophetic gift, Yosef only makes matters worse by sharing dreams that place him above not only his brothers, but even his father and mother. And of course, we are told early in this week’s reading that Yosef would often report to his father about the affairs of his older brothers. So, not only is Yosef daddy’s favorite, given special gifts no one else receives, and is constantly going on about being better than them, but in schoolyard language, he’s a big tattle-tale, too! My oh my, could anyone but a parent like, let alone love, this brash, seventeen-year-old known as Yosef?
Certainly he is not popular with his brothers, and they are faced with a temptation: there, in Dothan, far away from the protective eye of their father, Israel, the brothers who never really suffered for slaughtering a whole village allow their thoughts to turn again to murder.
Only Reuben comes to Yosef’s rescue.
Genesis 37:21-22
But Reuben came to Joseph’s rescue. “Let’s not kill him,” he said. “Why should we shed his blood? Let’s just throw him alive into this pit here. That way he will die without our having to touch him.” Reuben was secretly planning to help Joseph escape, and then he would bring him back to his father.
Of course, we know the rest of the story. As they sit down to eat to consider their next step, slave-traders headed toward Egypt happen by and they decide rather than murder Yosef, to simply sell him to the traders. This way, there is no blood on their hands, but they rid themselves of this brother they simply can’t stand being around.
Now, Yosef is saved here from death by the quick words of Reuben. Of the eleven sons of Israel aside from Yosef, all of them would have been happy, initially, to kill their own brother. And in fact, even though they don’t actually kill him, we see that they take Yosef’s special robe, smear it with animal blood, and deceive their father into thinking his favorite son is dead. In effect, they have killed him.
And we see that the lack of consequences for their sins extends not only to murder, but to dealing deceitfully with others; now, their sin has gone unchecked so long that rather than deceiving outsiders, they feel no hesitation in deceiving even their own father. So this helps us to see the importance of consequences to sin; without them, sin does not go away by itself; it continues to grow and worsen and spread. It becomes normal behavior as we become insensitive to it.
Paul warns us about this in:
Ephesians 4:17-19
Therefore, I say this – indeed, in union with the L-RD, I insist on it: do not live any longer as the pagans live, with their sterile ways of thinking. Their intelligence has been shrouded in darkness, and they are estranged from the life of God, because of the ignorance in them, which in turn comes from resisting God’s will. They have lost all feeling, so they have abandoned themselves to sensuality, practicing any kind of impurity and always greedy for more!
We all know that we will be tested, that we will be tempted in this life to do not what we ought to do, not what God wants us to do, but to satisfy our own wants, needs and desires above all else. When Paul speaks here of sensuality, he’s not using it in the modern, sexual sense, but in its more classic meaning of indulging the desires of the flesh – or, put in more modern terms – doing whatever you want to, because you feel like doing it!
So we can see that even among the earliest descendants of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, the children of Israel may be the chosen people of God, but it is not because they are, in and of themselves especially holy. In fact, they are as prone to sin as anyone else.
So then, what hope is there for us? Does this parashah ultimately teach us that none of us can steer clear of sin, that resisting temptation is something only the Messiah Yeshua is capable of? Not at all.
You see, the Torah portion isn’t over yet, and as we read on, we see another situation of temptation. This one is the temptation laid before Yosef in the house of his Egyptian master, Potipher.
Now, if anyone had reason to feel abandoned by God and, therefore, just cause to do whatever he felt like doing, instead of submitting to God’s will, it had to be Yosef. After all, from his perspective, he had to have felt unjustly treated. That special coat? He wore it because his father gave it to him; it was not Yosef who made only one such coat and deprived the other eleven brothers. And when he shared those dreams, it was only because he was so amazed that God was communicating with him in such a unique way; they were God’s messages, not his! He was not the source of offense. And yet he was nearly murdered, then sold into slavery in Egypt. Surely, one could understand if Yosef had abandoned God the same way he felt abandoned by God, and simply taken up a completely Egyptian lifestyle. Certainly he had enough emotional baggage that if he’d slept with his master’s wife, the lawyers of today’s society could have painted him as the hapless victim.
But Yosef’s response to temptation is not the same as that of his older brothers.
Genesis 39:8-10
8 But Joseph refused. “Look,” he told her, “my master trusts me with everything in his entire household. 9 No one here has more authority than I do! He has held back nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How could I ever do such a wicked thing? It would be a great sin against God.” 10 She kept putting pressure on him day after day, but he refused to sleep with her, and he kept out of her way as much as possible.
Most of us who are familiar with the story of Yosef recognize that in many ways, Yosef is a shadow of the Messiah Yeshua. This is one of the key comparisons between the two. Just as Messiah Yeshua was tempted by the Adversary of God in the wilderness, and resisted temptation, so too is Yosef tempted by Potipher’s wife to give in to the lusts of the flesh, and, like Yeshua, Yosef resists the temptation.
But I think we can learn even more, not just by the fact of his resistance, but how he resists. Yosef doesn’t “just say no,” to Potipher’s wife and then go about his normal duties. He also makes sure not to leave himself alone with her, and when her advances become too strong, rather than surrender, he flees from her! Now, men, especially you single men… how often do you think men today resist the temptation of the company of an attractive woman so completely? It’s so easy to rationalize and say, “Well, I won’t sleep with her, but I can hang out with her, talk to her… just as long as I don’t cross the line.” And yet, by even doing that much, not only are we crossing a line, but we are setting the stage to give in to sin later on. Yosef was not being especially strong here; he was being especially obedient, not allowing temptation to catch him in a weak moment by making sure not to provide an opportunity for one.
Whatever our personal temptations are, we can learn a lot from Yosef here. While Yosef is a shadow of the Messiah, he is not a Messiah, so Yosef’s story is proof that we can not only keep the Torah, but live above the Torah’s minimum standard, just as Yeshua did.
As I mentioned earlier, we are all tested by life, by the Adversary, in our lives and walks as believers. The question this week’s reading ought to pose to us is, which model will we follow? Will we be like most of Israel’s sons, giving into our desire to do whatever we want, whenever the mood strikes us? Or will we be more like Yosef? Will we be a shadow of the Messiah, following his standard of righteousness and not only say no to temptation, but flee from it when it presents itself?
That is our food for thought this week. May we all choose the path of Yosef, which ultimately is the path of our Messiah Yeshua. May we resist the temptation to sin – whatever our personal temptations might be – when the hour of our testing is at hand. May we rise above the minimum standard of Torah observance and live a life far above that level, a life that reflects the perfect standard of our Messiah Yeshua. If Yosef could do it over 1500 years before Yeshua, surely we can do it now.
Shabbat Shalom.
My Miketz Commentary
Monday, December 29th, 2008
There’s no need to search for door hardware here; we don’t have it. We’re all about Torah and our Messiah Yeshua. Here’s my commentary for the parashah of Miketz. Or listen to it!
Shabbat Shalom.
Our parashah for today is Miketz, or, “at the end of.” It covers Genesis chapters 41:1 through 44:17, and the underlying theme I found running throughout today’s reading is honesty. Honesty is a unique quality in this way: everyone claims to possess it, and yet few truly practice it.
Honesty has been a problem since the fall of man. What causes us to abandon honesty and turn toward deception? At its most basic level, it is fear. And fear is the opposite of faith.
Adam tells The L-RD he hid himself after eating the forbidden fruit because, “I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself.” He was afraid, so he hid. And really, that’s the reason for most deception, isn’t it? Perhaps we lie because we fear judgment. Perhaps we lie out of ego, to make ourselves look better than we are because we fear rejection if we’re truthful. Perhaps we lie because we hold a grudge against someone and fear the L-RD’s vengeance won’t happen because we can’t see it.
Whatever our motivations, honesty is one of the first qualities of the L-RD to flee from us when we allow sin to take control of our lives and decision-making, rather than the Ruach haKodesh. Honesty is one of the qualities of God, one of the qualities of our Messiah Yeshua, and one of the expectations the L-RD requires of us if we want to obey his mitzvoth.
The desire for honesty is so deeply ingrained, and the lack of honesty so obvious in fallen human nature, even the world at large can recognize it. Most of us over thirty will probably recognize this chorus:
But if you search for truthfulness
You might just as well be blind
It always seems to be so hard to give
Honesty is such a lonely word
Everyone is so untrue
Honesty is hardly ever heard
And mostly what I need from you.
Even though popular culture recognizes the need for honesty, their view of what honesty is, is skewed by their own fallenness. For example, in the Jim Carrey movie, Liar Liar, Carrey plays a lawyer who has made dishonesty a way of life; when his son makes a birthday wish that forces his dad to tell only the truth, the adventures that follow are not an exercise in genuine honesty, but an excuse for rudeness.
Does popular culture have it right? Is honesty nothing more than abandoning good manners and a regard for the feelings of others to say whatever pops into your head? Or is it something more?
Of course it’s something more! Honesty is not just a matter of what we say or don’t say to others. It is a pattern of living one’s life, and can even be a protection.
So honesty is a path for our lives to follow; either we remain on it and within the will of the L-RD, or we veer off of it and stray outside the will of the L-RD. By staying on the path of honesty, we ultimately become a living testimony to the L-RD and his character, and we protect our own reputations.
But does living an honest life always reap rewards immediately and obviously? Unfortunately, no. As we saw in last week’s reading, Yosef lived his life honestly even when no one was around to “catch him.” Instead of sleeping with Potipher’s wife, he not only refused her, but he went out of his way to avoid having her catch him in a weak moment when he might give in.
That is honesty as a way of life! It is living the same way in the workplace, or at the mall, or on the Interstate, as you do in the synagogue on Shabbat.
Yet did Yosef’s honesty get rewarded? No. For a time, the dishonesty of Potipher’s wife landed Yosef in prison. Yet instead of complaining that his honesty wasn’t rewarded, Yosef, kept living it out and he was given authority over the other prisoners. Ultimately, in this week’s reading, it is Yosef’s continued honesty that earns his freedom and ultimately lands him in a position second only to Pharoah.
Why do I say it is Yosef’s honesty that lands him there, rather than his gift of interpreting dreams? Let’s think about it. Pharaoh had many advisors, and Yosef was not the first one he turned to. Yet none of his mystics or astrologers could give him an honest interpretation of his dreams.
After the cup-bearer remembers Yosef, Pharaoh sends for him, searching for an honest interpretation. Yet Yosef does not even claim credit for his gift himself:
Yosef tells Pharaoh the dreams mean there will be seven years of plenty, followed by seven years of a famine so severe, it could mean the death of all who live in the region; also that Pharaoh dreamed it twice because God was saying it would begin soon, so preparations ought to be made right away.
It’s not a very nice message, is it? It’s a message of events extreme enough to spark a revolt of the people against its government. Yet Yosef does not tell Pharaoh what he thinks Pharaoh wants to hear, but offers him an honest interpretation.
Because of his wise and honest answer, an answer that allowed the L-RD to speak to Pharaoh through Yosef, Yosef is made second only in authority and power in Egypt to Pharaoh.
Notice a pattern here? Wherever Yosef goes, his honesty and integrity earn him unparalleled trust. He was in second-in-command of everything in the house of Potipher, in jail, and now in the entire kingdom of Egypt.
Was this Yosef’s own doing? No, it was the L-RD blessing Yosef for following the path of honest living, even when doing so did not lead to immediate rewards and recognition.
And it is this new position of authority that allows Yosef to be reunited with his family, and allows the dreams the L-RD originally sent him about his brothers and mother and father bowing down to him to be fulfilled.
But as we get deeper into the parashah, some question Yosef’s honesty, as it relates to how he deals with his brothers. After all, some Torah scholars argue, if Yosef were truly honest, wouldn’t he have revealed himself to his family immediately, rather than playing mind games with them? Wouldn’t an honest man just say, “Hey guys, it’s me, Yosef!” right away?
Let’s consider this. At the time he reunites with his brothers, Yosef is nearing the end of his thirties. The Torah tells us Yosef was freed and put in charge of Egypt’s affairs at the age of thirty, right around the time the seven years of plenty began. So when the seven years of famine begin, Yosef would have been at least thirty seven, maybe going on thirty-eight.
Also, it might have taken a year or two for the famine to become bad enough that Israel’s family would consider going to Egypt to buy grain, so Yosef may have been close to forty by the time his brothers come before him to buy grain.
Think of how long he has been gone from their lives! Yosef was a young man of only seventeen the last time they had seen him. Now he is at the prime of his life, a man of forty. No wonder they didn’t recognize him on sight!
Although it isn’t mentioned in the text, I don’t believe Yosef was still carrying a grudge around some twenty-plus years after his betrayal by his brothers. The reason I say this is, I don’t think one could live as honestly before the L-RD and before others as did Yosef, and still be carrying around old grudges or desires for revenge. Yosef knew the L-RD had healed and changed him. So in the actions that follow, I don’t believe what we’re seeing here is some kind of revenge-taking by Yosef.
You see, early on, Yosef accuses his brothers of being spies. Most people write this off as part of some game, or even part of some payback plan by Yosef.
But remember, Yosef was there when his brothers responded to the rape of Dinah; he saw his older brothers deal dishonestly with Shechem and Hamor, setting them up to be helpless and then slaughtering their entire village. Was Yosef’s accusation a game, or was he checking to see if his brothers had changed as much as he had?
By Yosef’s choice of words, I think his concern here is genuine. He has seen his brothers wipe out the village ruled by Shechem and Hamor, he saw them take advantage of such vulnerabilities, and he genuinely wants to see if they are still the same people, or if time has made them regret their actions.
I think the brothers’ choice of words is also revealing. The irony in their claim – We are honest men! – must have been obvious to Yosef. Did it also ring hollow in their own ears? They had deceived their own father for over twenty years, and throughout the Torah portion, there is no evidence they had ever come clean and admitted the truth to their father, Israel.
So, Yosef’s demands on them are tests, but they are not tests to play games with his brothers, or “mess with them,” as my office co-worker Julie put it. Yosef is genuinely testing his brothers to see if they have changed or not.
Think about the so-called “tricks” he plays on them. Returning their money to their bags? A good son would not want to charge his own family for food if he could give it to them for free, yet it also tests their honesty: will they admit they got their money back?
Demanding they bring Binyamin? I’m sure Yosef genuinely wanted to see his closest brother, but it also tested if they were willing to serve their father’s desires over their own.
Demanding one brother be kept prisoner in their absence? It tells Yosef whether they were still willing to abandon another brother to serve their own selfish needs, or if they would return for him, having learned from their earlier mistakes.
This week’s reading ends with a cliffhanger. Yosef still has not revealed himself to his brothers; but has he abandoned the path of honesty that the L-RD expects us to stay on? No.
As I pointed out last week, Yosef is not the Messiah, but he is a shadow of the Messiah Yeshua. Although Yosef had flaws and his own sins to struggle against, such as the pride and brashness so evident in his youth, to this point he has done well remaining on the path of honesty. It’s a path the L-RD would have all of us travel in our lives. Let’s pray:
“L-RD, we know how difficult the path of honesty can be. We know it is not always rewarded immediately. But we ask, L-RD, that you would drive out all fear, drive out all bitterness, drive out all hesitation, and enable us to live our lives fully on the path of honesty, veering off neither to the left nor to the right, by the power and grace given us by the Messiah, Yeshua. Let us be a people of honesty, a people called out by You to shine Your light into the darkness around us, so that your name may be glorified. Amen.”
Shabbat Shalom.
Tags: door hardware, messiah Yeshua, Miketz, Torah commentary
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