Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for 24 Kislev, 5784
Parsha Va-Yeshev (Genesis 37:1 – 40:23)
Fifth Portion: Genesis 39:1 – 39:6

Good morning!  As the sun rises this morning on the last light before Hanukah, now is a good time to reflect on the past season – that began in the month of Elul, and brought us to the end of last year’s cycle. We set inents going into Rosh Hashanah. Sealed them at Yom Kippur and celebrated as Sukkot.  Today we prepare to take all we have learned and light the Hanukah candles in the darkness.  The darkest part of the year.  Winter is coming (it is already here).  And we light what we have learned.

Hanukah is not about gifts. And. It is about gifts.  Not material gifts per se- but the gift of us. We are the gift. We are the creation. And. Tonight? We are ALSO the creator. We create the light. We co-create light with other Jews around the world. We create light in our lives for others to see so they too can shine bright!  With this frame, let’s dig into today’s portion!

1Now Joseph had been brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar, Pharaoh’s chamberlain, chief of the slaughterers, an Egyptian man, purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there.

Ok. Hold up. “Chief of the slaughterers?”  Purchasing from the Ishmaelites?

A few things I am reflecting on.

First – Joseph was sold by his uncles. His cousins. His brothers. Because Ishmael is the brother of Isaac.

Ishmael’s (the brother of Isaac’s) children purchased Joseph from his brothers (Jacob’s sons. Isaac’s grandchildren).  Just chew on that family tree for a minute.

Your dad’s dad has a brother (ok half brother – but you have half brothers so you understand this concept and accept it) who has kids. They buy you from your brothers. And then sell you to Potiphar.

Potiphar is the Pharoah’s chamberlain.  What is a chamberlain?

Oxford dictionary says a chamberlain is “an officer who manages the house of a noble or monarch.”

Okay. Potiphar was important. One step from Pharoah.  And Joseph was sold to him.

Potiphar is also “chief of slaughterers.”  Now – before we get all Charles Manson here – it is MOST likely Potiphar was a butcher.

My question is now – why is the Torah so adamant here?  The Torah is establishing CLEARLY that we “aren’t in Kansas anymore.”  Why? Potiphar. The officer who manages the house of Pharaoh. A butcher. And EGYPTIAN man. That is who purchased Joseph.

My takeaway? The Torah wants us to know – Joseph’s family sold him into a foreign people disconnected from their own. Joseph was completely out of his element. Joseph went from freedom with his family to slavery in a foreign country.

In America – that story sounds a little too familiar, doesn’t it? How many of us see ourselves in America as Egypt in this story? Or do we colonize (assume) we are meant to put ourselves in Joseph’s shoes here?

What if the takeaway is both/and? We are meant to put ourselves into the story as BOTH Egypt AND Joseph? How often do we explore these divergent realities?

Let’s keep going.

2The Lord was with Joseph, and he was a successful man, and he was in the house of his Egyptian master.

3And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and whatever he (Joseph) did the Lord made prosper in his hand.

Hashem blessed Joseph.  Even in slavery – he was successful.  If the story ended here – we could see Joseph was fulfilling his purpose, even in slavery: Joseph’s light shone so that “his master saw that the Lord was with him.”

Let’s stop here for a minute.  For those of us stuck.  Who feel like we are enslaved and can’t break free.  Why? What is the purpose of being stuck? What if it is about our attitude?

Because I imagine Joseph had a choice when being sold to the “chief of slaughterers.” He could have been MISERABLE and sabotaged Potiphar out of anger and bitterness over being betrayed by his ENTIRE family.

Instead, it would appear he made the choice to be in the moment. Potiphar had done nothing “wrong.”  He purchased a slave which was a common practice at the time.  If Joseph turned his anger towards Potiphar, it would be misplaced.

Joseph was free (at least it seems) already.  His family did not live “rent free” inside his head. Because I don’t read verse 2 here as “Joseph was MISERABLE and despite his misery, Hashem blessed him and made him successful.”

Joseph seemed to understand in the moment he had a choice of how he navigated the moment. And he understood his purpose. Shine so that others would see Hashem was in him and with him.  That’s his purpose.

This seems to reinforce what we learned previously:

The path to slavery is holding onto the past trauma as a shield and weapon. Not allowing ourselves a moment to consider a different reality than our own. This is how we end up enslaved in Egypt.

Joseph takes this lesson one step further. Even WHEN we end up enslaved in Egypt, we have a choice.  Let those who we believe put us here live rent free in our head, resisting the current reality for ourselves and refusing to be in the moment.

Or.

Accept the current reality – let go of the past trauma. Consider that the current reality IS our own reality – and we have a choice to accept and receive it; or resist and fight it. Joseph chose to accept it. And Potiphar saw Hashem with Joseph in that moment.  Let’s keep going:

4And Joseph found favor in his eyes, and he (Joseph) served him, and he (Potiphar) appointed him over his house, and all he had he gave into his hand.

5Now it came to pass that since he had appointed him over his house and over all that he had, the Lord blessed the house of the Egyptian for Joseph’s sake, and the blessing of the Lord was in all that he had, in the house and in the field.

That is an interesting close to the portion.  Joseph found favor – because he let go of the past. Jsoeph served Potiphar. And. Potiphar made Joseph the Chamberlain of the Chamberlain of Pharoah. C squared. Joseph accepted the current reality and it was working towards his freedom.

And.

6So he left all that he had in Joseph’s hand, and he knew nothing about what was with him except the bread that he ate; and Joseph had handsome features and a beautiful complexion.

That is an interesting last line isn’t it? It feels a little “foreboding.”

I read; Potiphar blindly trusted Joseph. He didn’t “know” Joseph as a human.  Joseph was a household tool. And the Torah tells us that Joseph was GORGEOUS!  I wonder why? Hmmmmm. Interesting. (Sarcasm intended here).

I imagine Potiphar’s reality being a little different than Joseph’s.  Joseph was trying to be in a moment. He let go of the past. Potiphar seemed to be focused on the future – not grounded in the current reality.  He left Joseph to take care of the moment – and jumped into the future.

So we get Joseph’s brothers and family (Joseph’s past) bringing Joseph to the moment of slavery. Joseph’s master left Joseph in the moment and jumped into future endeavors and let Joseph just take care of the house in the moment.

And here is Joseph just being Joseph.

I am thinking we have a new lesson here. Maybe even a new chapter?  Let’s review what we’ve learned in the Torah so far:

The lessons of Genesis from Simchat Torah to Hanukkah have been about AVOIDING slavery and moving towards (keeping?) ascension – Spiritual Liberation and Freedom:

• The Path of Ascension begins with curiosity and not judgement
• If someone’s curiosity causes doubt and defensiveness, be curious about our own doubt and defensiveness and NOT their motives for curiosity.
• The tree of life is within us. Choose life within with curiosity and not judgment
• Learn to balance the comfort of stumbling, with the challenge of pushing ourselves towards spiritual growth.
• Let go of a stable life. Freedom is accepting “what is” as a blessing. We can’t control what happens. We can only navigate it with bitterness or flow.
• Freedom requires balance – emotions vs intellect, humility vs confidence, thinking as an individual while staying meaningfully connected to others.
• Freedom comes from expansion and not contraction – but contraction is important to the process of expansion
• To live free, we must circumcise the foreskin of past trauma and feel the pain of healing so that our higher selves can appear to us, and we can co-create miraculous NEW life for us and others.
• To be free, we must understand what love requires vs the world around us. 10%.  Just start there. Freedom is seeing the 10% and moving to 11%. Not being trapped by the daunting 90% we feel guilt and shame about.  The 90% is slavery. The 10% is freedom.
• Receive the Universe. Don’t Resist it. This is the path to freedom and liberation.
• We must be vulnerable and ask for the Universe to provide. And. We don’t need to ask because the Universe knows. This is freedom.
• We must accept and receive our role in co-creating moments with Hashem.
• As we experience wells of living water in our life – the path to slavery is arguing and harassment. Make space. For ourselves and others. This is spiritual liberation and freedom.  Allowing and making space.  Spreading out.   Not contraction.
• When we take in stories and data – we need to be careful not to bring our own bias and trauma into how the data gets stored into our hearts and minds. Those who are “not us” are part of the human experience and have their own experiences. Be curious about what we are INFERRING versus what we believe the other person is INSINUATING. This is the path to freedom – especially in communication!
• The path to freedom involves free choice as to what we desire and will focus on. What are we working towards? Be mindful of our wages. This is the path to freedom and will impact how we communicate – both as a sender of communication and receiver of communication. We will infer and insinuate based on our wages.
• The path to freedom involves grief. Allowing ourselves to feel sadness – maybe other feelings we’ve judged as negative? Avoiding and repressing our feelings leads to war and conflict. Being aware of our feelings leads to freedom and joy. This is the path to spiritual liberation. We can receive Isaac’s blessing and grieve to take the yoke off our back.
• The path to freedom is not rejecting sincerity for accuracy. Accuracy can be a safe harbor – but it can also be a prison. Remain curious and work towards sincere feeling and honest seeing. THIS is the harmony of Kislev (in my opinion).
• Fear is potentially the avoidance of grief. It’s holding onto something in the past and not moving forward. As long as the yoke of fear is on our neck and we do not allow ourselves to grieve? We cannot be free or liberated. Grieving takes power away from fear.
• The path to ascension, spiritual liberation, and freedom is to tend to our own welfare. We do this by being curious and drawing our “evil perspective” (how we talk against ourselves and others) closer to the universe (God, Hashem, Nature, whatever your “source” of universe is) and then turning around and seeking out opportunities to provide for our happiness, welfare, and the welfare of others.
• The path to slavery is holding onto the past trauma as a shield and weapon. Not allowing ourselves a moment to consider a different reality than our own. This is how we end up enslaved in Egypt.

However, it feels like we have turned to a new chapter. Now that we are living in slavery, how do we live while slaves?  When we feel like we have no choice. When we feel stuck. The lessons above are still important – but slavery brings with it new lessons:

1. When feeling stuck or enslaved we must remember we have freedom and choice
   1. We can choose to dwell in the past and let those (we believe) who brought us to this place of being stuck live rent free within our heads (or consciousness). Or.
   2. We can accept the moment we are in; receive the next 30-60 seconds and decide what our purpose is. Are we safe? Are we secure? What is our mission? What are our values?
2. It feels antithetical – but to be spiritually free while enslaved? We must remain grounded in the moment. In our current reality. We can fight the current reality all we like – but all that will do is remind us we are slaves. We can make different choices to focus on our freedom.

 This is the story of Hanukkah.  The Maccabees lived in the moment. They were enslaved and stuck. They decided to see the moment for what it was – and a great miracle happened – because they kept their focus on Hashem and how things were unfolding.  They didn’t judge the moment.

Just some thoughts as we enter Hanukkah.

Where are we stuck?

Where can we accept the current reality and not resist it?

What choice do we have? Can we just light a candle even if we don’t “feel like it?” Do we have that freedom?

What light in this moment can we bring to others? Can we reach out and check in on friends who may not have heard from us in a while? Can we light a menorah in our soul?

Homework for all of us.

For Hanukkah – light one candle tonight. Let go of guilt and shame. Close our eyes. Take a breath. Who is the first person we haven’t spoke to in a while that comes to mind? Text them. Email them. Light their candle. We are free.

Tomorrow night? Do the same thing. But with two people. People you have avoided contacting because you feel guilty and ashamed for losing contact.

And each night/day add more people!  Until on the LAST night/day of Hanukkah you’ve reached out to 8+7+6+5+4+3+2+1 (8 factorial for us math folks: 8/2 x (8+1) = 4 x 9. 36 people Whose lives you can light up in the next 8 days.

This is the gift of Hannukah we are free and liberated to do – no matter HOW stuck we feel!

Here are my thoughts from the past two years:

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for Kislev 21, 5783

Such an interesting read; not only the Torah portion but where I was a year ago. It was thanksgiving and I was just starting a new job. Fortunes seemed to be changing – but like Yosef, it was the beginning of the journey. He was pampering himself. And because of all of this, Hashem incited Potiphar’s wife against him.

So we see a short version of the spiritual liberation story. Yoseph was thrown into a pit, sold to slavery. Becomes free of “his own measures” with Potiphar – being given the entire house because Hashem was doing the work to bless Potiphar’s house because of Yoseph.

In turn Yosef was pampering himself, and Hashem wanted to to show Yosef that this was the path to spiritual slavery.

So does pampering ourself when given abundance take us to spiritual slavery?

I don’t think that’s the lesson here.

I wonder; with the physical blessings being given to Yosef, whether he lost track of his grounding in Hashem. Did he fail to focus on Hashem being the source of the blessings? Instead of using the blessings given for good, he used them for himself. And this leads to him being imprisoned – once again a symbol of spiritual bondage.

But in our story, this has to happen, so did Yosef really do anything wrong? Because all of this had to happen so Yosef was in a good position to save his family. He had a lot when living with Potiphar, but he was going to be given MORE with pharaoh.

Sometimes we think we have abundance. But we don’t realize how much more we can have with Hashem’s blessing. Our eyes are limited; our Neshama, connected to Hashem sees so much more for us. So even if we do something that seems “wrong” it could be for a higher purpose.

These are some good lessons to take away from todays portion, in my opinion!

What about you? What are your thoughts?

Tyler’s Torah Thoughts for Kislev 21, 5782

So yesterday’s portion was a little off the path as we focused on Judah before following up with what happened with Joseph.

Todays portion brings us back to Joseph; who is brought down to Egypt, and Potiphar – who was an officer – “chief of the butchers” and a native Egyptian purchased Joseph from the Arabs who brought him down there.

Rashi writes about this particular verse some clarity as to why we just spent time dealing with Judah and Tamar; “Scripture juxtaposed the incident of Potiphar’s wife with the incident of Aramark, to teach us that just as Tamar’s intentions were for the sake of Heaven, Potiphar’s wife’s intentions were also for the sake of heaven. She saw through astrology that she was destined to raise children from Joseph, but she did not know whether they would be from her or from her daughter.”

That is something interesting I am chewing on as I engage with this text, as previously I had seen Potiphar’s wife as a villain in this story; not considering her actions had an intention and purpose here. I really appreciate Rashi’s thoughts!

The portion continues: God was with Joseph and he became a successful person while In the house of Potiphar. Potiphar saw that God was always on Joseph’s lips and whatever Joseph put his hands to, God made successful.

Some really important writings for me personally this morning as our family fortunes have shifted with my new job beginning;

1. Rabbi Simchah Bunsen Sofer writes “it is easy for a man to attribute his success to hard work and effort and only when he is not successful to acknowledge God’s role. Joseph, however, recognized and publicized that all of his accomplishments and successes were through God’s help.
2. Rabbi Moses ha-Levi Pollak doubles down on this and writes; “there are those who serve God diligently as a pauper, only to reject the commandments once their fortune changes. The opposite also can happen. Joseph, however, remained consistent in his loyalty to God, both when “he became a successful person,” and as a slave “in the house of his Egyptian master.”

I am really taking this to heart; especially on this day of Thanksgiving. I am grateful for the journey that has come before, and it is also important to keep the connection with Hashem with me as I journey forward; regardless of outcome.

The portion continues where Joseph finds favor in Potiphar’s eyes. Potiphar appoints Joseph over his house, and he gave everything he had into Joseph’s hand. That is a lot of trust!

When Potiphar did this, God blessed the house of Potiphar because of Joseph. As Joseph came to power, the Torah mentions here he had “handsome features and a beautiful complexion.” The ancient writings add here; “God said. ‘You are pampering yourself while your father mourns! I will incite Potiphar’s wife against you!’“

So something I am reflecting on here; first, even Joseph struggled with some vanity (maybe?). God disciplines Joseph, but not to the point Joseph (or his family) is harmed in the end. God’s discipline can be trusted – he doesn’t bring us to harm; but it can hurt.

Lots of good nuggets today!!! What are your thoughts?