The Midrash, the allegorical level of interpretation of the Torah, adds some revealing details about Joseph’s action in his short visit to the land of his birth. According to Midrash Tanhuma, at the conclusion of the burial ceremonies, Joseph goes to Shekhem to visit the pit into which he was thrown by his brothers before they sold him as a slave to the Ishmaelite merchants.

Imagine what must have come up in his mind when he saw the pit. This is the location where an act of great injustice—a major betrayal—was performed against him by his own flesh and blood, his older brothers who were supposed to care for him and protect him. They threw him into the pit with the intention of eventually killing him. Think of the shock, fear, despair, helplessness and anger that Joseph must have felt at the time of the event, and how all these emotions would have flooded him upon visiting the site of the atrocity.

We would expect that the midrash would report how Joseph expressed some of those emotions at the site. But Joseph was no ordinary man. He is the archetype of the ideal tzaddik, the perfectly righteous man. His response was as big-hearted as can be. The midrash tells us, that upon reaching the pit, Joseph recited a blessing, the one that one is supposed to recite when a miracle occurs: “Blessed is He who has caused a miracle to occur for me in this location.”

How could he do this? How could he have avoided all those floods of memories and emotions? Was he disconnected from his feelings, a kind of a robot? Hardly so. The Torah tells us of a few instances where Joseph could not hold his tears back while speaking with his brothers. He was a softy, when it came to his emotions. Yet as a tzaddik, he did not respond to his emotions blindly. He took the whole situation into account.

For starters, he was aware of how nervous and anxious his brothers were. As the Torah tells us, after Jacob’s death they were afraid that in the absence of their father, Joseph would take revenge. Furthermore, as he had already told them when he first revealed his identity to them, had it not been for their betrayal, he would not have become Pharaoh’s viceroy, his family would not have been saved and the race of the People of Israel, promised by God, would not have become a reality. Being thrown into the pit enabled something miraculous to happen; hence he uttered the blessings.

There is a fantastic lesson here: the midrash tells us that a true tzaddik, someone who is truly connected to God, always strives to maintain the most positive outlook, the most big-hearted perspective, even when overcome by enormous challenges and difficulties. Said differently: a tzaddik is someone whose consciousness is very wide, who maintains the highest perspective without contracting.

As the book of proverbs says:

כִּי שֶׁבַע יִפּוֹל צַדִּיק וָקָם וּרְשָׁעִים יִכָּשְׁלוּ בְרָעָה.

The tzaddik, though he fall seven times, will rise again; but the wicked are overthrown by calamity. (Proverbs 24:16)

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Almost everyone is familiar with the picture of the three monkeys: one covers his mouth, the second covers his eyes, the third covers his ears. In Buddhism they are referred to as “The Three Sage Monkeys”, because they speak no evil, see no evil, and hear no evil. For the spiritual aspirant, this is an ideal to strive for and a spiritual practice to apply. Only beings with a very high level of attainment can actually display it in their lives, and in their example inspire others.

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the famous guru who founded Transcendental Meditation, used to tell a story in this regard. One Indian saint was known for his insistence on only seeing the positive in every situation. Some youngsters decided to test him by asking him to accompany them thorough a street where a dead corpse of a cat who has just been run over by a car lay on the road: a gory and highly unpleasant site.

“Look at that cat!” said one of the boys. “What a ghastly sight!”

“Look at the beautiful, pearly white teeth of the cat” responded the saint.

Indeed, as Shakespeare pointed out:

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

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“Evolution shaped the human brain to be acutely aware of all potential dangers,” says Abundance authors Peter H. Diamandis and Steven Kotler. In addition, in the process of our cultural evolution and the increase individuation, we have also become acutely aware of all the wrong that has been done to us as well as to others.

But Joseph’s generosity and magnanimity towards his brothers, and his wide, saintly perspective expressed in the Midrash story, is giving us a powerful message: that part of our spiritual striving, which includes our commitment to tikkun olam, the repair of the world, is the commitment to favor that part of ourselves that sees beyond those biologically and culturally conditioned modes of perception and interpretation. It is enjoined upon us to strive to cultivate a vision that sees everything, good or bad, coming from God, or, indeed, as God in action. As the Breslov Hassids put it—

הכל מכל עצם זיו חיות אלוקותו יתברך ממש

Anything and everything is, in actuality, the very essence of the radiance of the liveliness of Him, the Holy Blessed One.

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Note: in this regard, here are a few questions that are often asked:

1. Is it possible?
2. Is it practical?
3. Is it desirable?

It is definitely possible. In every generation there are saintly people of all cultures who have demonstrated this ability to focus on the highest, “keep their eyes on the prize”, and ignore the enormous suffering that they have to undergo in order to get there. Nelson Mandela is one obvious example. Like Joseph, he had to undergo tremendous suffering, including being incarcerated under severe conditions. And when he emerged, he maintained the highest possible perspective and harbored no bitterness.

It’s definitely practical. It does mean transcending narcissism and victimization—a tall order in a post-modern, self-absorbed culture of me that we all live in. It is not easy, but it’s definitely achievable.

As the great Indian teacher Paramahansa Yogananda, speaking about the difference between a saint and a sinner, said: “A saint is a sinner who never gave up.” It’s not about being perfect, it’s about persistence and commitment.

One of the most effective means of cultivating some distance from, and perspective over, one’s emotional experience is meditation. In meditation we assume no relationship to the content of our consciousness—thoughts, emotions, memories, etc. A regular practice of meditation allows one to have more objectivity in moments of great turmoil and upheaval. But meditation is most effective in this regard if one also couples it with a commitment to a cause higher than oneself. In fact, that in itself is a kind of meditation, because it remove the focus from one’s petty concerns and self-absorption to a goal much larger than oneself.

As for whether or not it is desirable, one can only look at history and realize, that every great advancement in the history of our civilization occurred because of people who had a vision that transcended their difficulties, even if those included intense personal suffering on their behalf.

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)

In last week’s Torah portion, Joseph’s brothers, who had previously sold him to slavery and were not yet aware of his rise to power, came to Egypt to collect grain to save themselves from the great famine that took over the region. They were sent to Egypt by their father, Jacob, who kept the youngest of his sons, Benjamin, with him at Canaan. Still traumatized by the loss of Joseph, whom he thought for dead, Jacob did not want to risk the life of Benjamin.

But Benjamin was precisely whom Joseph was most eager to see. He and Benjamin were the only sons born of Jacob’s favorite wife, Rachel. Benjamin was still a child when Joseph’s other brothers betrayed him, thus he was not part of the conspiracy. Without revealing his identity, Joseph manipulated the situation so that the brothers had to bring Benjamin down from Canaan to Egypt. He then proceeded to frame Benjamin for a fictitious theft, insisting, to the great distress of the brothers, that Benjamin must become his slave to atone for the crime.

This parashah starts at the dramatic moment when Judah approaches Joseph. Not knowing that he is talking to his own brother, he addresses him as the king’s viceroy, and in a desperate attempt to reason with him, tries to get Benjamin freed in order to bring him back to Jacob, even at the price of his (Judah’s) own freedom.

The parashah opens with the words:

וַיִּגַּשׁ אֵלָיו יְהוּדָה, וַיֹּאמֶר בִּי אֲדֹנִי, יְדַבֶּר-נָא עַבְדְּךָ דָבָר בְּאָזְנֵי אֲדֹנִי, וְאַל-יִחַר אַפְּךָ בְּעַבְדֶּךָ: כִּי כָמוֹךָ, כְּפַרְעֹה.

Then Judah approached him and said, “Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ears, and do not be angry with your servant; for you are like Pharaoh himself. (Genesis 44:18)

The obvious meaning of the first few words, “Then Judah approached him,” is that Judah approached Joseph. However, a number of Hassidic rabbis, including Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk, take the “him” to refer to God. Which means that the words “Then Judah approached him” actually refer to prayer.

In this context, Judah’s first two words are highly significant. He says: bi adoni (בִּי אֲדֹנִי). The idiom is translated as “please, my lord”, but it literally means “my lord is within me.” Significantly, the Hebrew word adoni, “my lord”, is spelled in exactly the same way as the Hebrew word adonay, the most commonly used name of God.

So how does Judah “approach God” (i.e., prays)? He first recognizes that adonay, i.e., God, is bi (בִּי), i.e., within himself. And given that Judah is the progenitor of the tribe of Judah, i.e. the forefather of all the Jews, we are being told something fundamental about Jewish prayer.*

This point is further highlighted in this week’s haftarah** reading. The haftarah ends with the words,

…בִּהְיוֹת מִקְדָּשִׁי בְּתוֹכָם, לְעוֹלָם.

…when my sanctuary is among them forevermore. (Ezekiel 37:28)

The words “among them” are a translation of the Hebrew word betokham (בתוכם), which also means “inside them” or “within them.” It indicates that the house of worship, the temple, is not a structure of bricks and mortar but rather a structure within the self, within one’s awareness, at the deepest level of one’s consciousness.

These two passages together give us a profound message, one that is found in the mystic traditions of all great religions: that the one who prays, the act of praying, the hall of prayer (the sanctuary) and the object of prayer are ultimately all one. The self does the praying, the self is the prayer, the self is the place where the prayer takes place and the self is also the object of the prayer.

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As the saying goes, “the Torah has seventy faces.” That is to say, each passage in the Torah can be interpreted in myriad of ways. We have derived an important lesson from Rabbi Elimelech’s commentary that the word “him” in the expression “Then Judah approached him” refers to God. Another profound lesson can be derived from the text if one assumes that indeed the “him” refers to Joseph, as the literal context would suggest.

Judah approaches Joseph and says, bi adoni, “my lord, you are within me.” Here the Torah teaches us the fundamental lesson of human relationship, i.e., that the highest form of communication is the recognition that one is not separate from the other, that the consciousness of both is one and therefore, fundamentally, the two are one.

Judah alludes to this truth of relationship a few verses down, as he continues his plea for the release of Benjamin, offering himself as a slave in his stead. The reason? Their old father, says Judah, loves his youngest son very deeply and the separation from him would be unbearable. The expression that Judah uses is “his soul is bound with his soul”, venafsho kshurah benafsho (וְנַפְשׁוֹ קְשׁוּרָה בְנַפְשׁוֹ:) (Genesis 44:30). Another way of translating it is “their souls are intertwined.” That is the most profound form of relationship: the connection is so deep that the two see their souls as one soul.

This is a fundamental lesson in Judaism, one what will be encountered later in the Torah in the famous dictum “Love your neighbor as yourself”, veahavta lere’akha kamocha (וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ כָּמוֹךָ) (Leviticus 19:18). One must love one’s neighbor as oneself because the neighbor is oneself. In the 20^th century, the Jewish German philosopher and noted Hassidic scholar Martin Buber applied this principle in his teaching about the highest form of communication and dialogue, which he referred to as the principle of “I-Thou.”

Buber observed that normally our communication with each other is what he called an “I-it” communication: I am the subject, while the other is an object, an “it”, whose “role” is to fulfill a need of mine. By its very nature, this mode of communication is based on separation and is confrontational, however civilized. But in “I-Thou” communication, there is no such separation because both parties are grounded in the realization that nafsho ksuhrah benafsho, their souls are intertwined and it is impossible to tell where one ends and the other starts. This higher form of communication is inherently free from conflict: when there is unity, there is no conflict. Communication then becomes a sacred act.

This may be the highest contribution of the Torah to life in the 21^st century: inspiring a different mode human interaction where the act of communication itself is the highest form of worship, of “approaching God” in the other. This theme will surely be visited in future posts on this blog.

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* As in the commentary on vayetze, here too one could show that this point can be found in all major traditions: from “The Kingdom of God is within you” in the New Testament (Luke 17:21) to the declaration of immediate closeness of God in the Qur’an “We are nearer to him [man] than his jugular vein” (Surah 50:16), through the Confucian quote”what the undeveloped man seeks is outside, what the advanced man seeks is within himself.”

** The recitation of scripture at the synagogue on Shabbat morning includes not only a parashah, a weekly Torah portion, but also a haftarah, a portion from the prophets section of the Hebrew Bible, generally one which has some thematic resemblance to that of the parashah.

Copyright © 2014 Igal Harmelin-Moria
(Copyright does not pertain to illustrations)