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| From the American Rose Theatre production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat |
A Cause for
Grievance…an Opportunity for Reconciliation
A Drash for
Friday, 7 December 2012
Was there
something that your mother or father said or did habitually when you were a
child, which bugged you at the time? If
your answer is truly no, that makes you quite exceptional! Because most of us, no matter how many years
have transpired, keenly remember something their parents did that frustrated
them. Here’s an example:
Child: “Why does it have to be that way?”
Mother: “Because I’m the Mum,
and I say so.”
Tell me you never heard that
from your Mum! If you’re like most of us
in this room tonight, you heard it many times.
And it bugged you. And if you’re
like most of the rest of us, you’ve also in turn said it to your children…and
they didn’t like it either!
Look, far be it for me to stand
up here and try to stir up old flash-points between parents and children! I’ve spoken enough about the difficulty of
such relationships that you know that’s not what I’m about. But if we’re honest – and we aught to be so –
we have a way to repeating behaviours that we found objectionable when on the
receiving end.
Take our Torah portion this
week.
Jacob was the ‘victim’ of his
father, Isaac’s, preference for his twin brother Esau. He felt aggrieved over the preference, and so
did his mother, Rivka. So much so, that
the two of them plotted successfully to get blind old Isaac to give Esau’s
blessing to Jacob. This sent Jacob
scurrying into exile, in fear of his life, from Esau.
Now, with 12 sons of his own,
Jacob is doing the same thing. He is
showing preference for one son, Joseph over the others. And the other 11 sons, predictably don’t like
it one bit. We do not know for sure that
Esau chased his brother out of Canaan in a murderous rage; we only know from
the text that Jacob feared it. But our narrative does tell us what Joseph’s brothers do about their grievance. They toss him into a pit, and then sell him
to a passing band of Ishmaelite slave traders.
It could have been worse. All
except Reuben were ready to actually murder Joseph and tell their father that
he’d been torn by wild beasts.
I don’t know about you, but I
find being a parent quite challenging at times.
It’s surely the hardest job in the world. As I said recently, children don’t come with
an instruction manual. There are no
university or TAFE courses to complete, that will make one a competent
parent. Much of parenting is like flying
by the seat of one’s pants. Sometimes
you get where you want to go. Sometimes,
you get completely lost in the fog.
The good news is this. Iff we’re truly trying to do our best,
and if we remember that our children are our most precious possessions, and if
we treat them with that in mind…then chances are, everything will work out in
the end. The times when we were
frustrated to give an explanation to a child’s demand, and we said ‘because I’m
the parent’ will be the subject for laughter someday. We’re human and therefore liable to favour
one child over another. But if we’re
intentional about how we approach our children, we might be able to transcend
that preference or at least minimise the extent to which we let it guide our
actions.
And the other good news is that
children are resilient, and often forgiving.
Someday, when our children are grown, they’ll laugh about how arbitrary
we were at times when laying down the law.
And they’ll make us laugh, too.
Siblings, many years later often laugh at how a parent favoured one over
the other. So all the little foibles we
manifest in raising our children are, thankfully, not fatal. Chances are, our children will forgive
us. And we’ll be able to forgive them,
in turn, for the way they’ve tested us along the way.
Want proof? Look at Joseph and his brothers. Their actions in this week’s reading, lead to
a chain of unfortunate events. How
Joseph suffered! Sold into slavery. Then denounced by his owner’s wife. Thrown into the dungeon to rot for the rest
of his miserable life. Whatever
grievances we might have against our parents or our siblings, how could we
possibly match that? The most aggrieved of
our lot cannot even come close.
And yet…when Joseph eventually
finds himself face-to-face with his brothers, a lifetime later, his anger
relents and his reconciles with them.
Because the love of brother for brother is a powerful bond. It can weather and transcend many awful
offences and grievances. This week’s
Torah reading only sets the stage. It
will be several weeks before we see this actually play out. But don’t mind the preview. After all, when you see a trailer, it doesn’t
ruin the movie for you!
I know that conflicts –
sometimes seeming to be intractable – exist between some of you, and your
parents or siblings, or your children, or all of the above. And my advice is simple…lay it to rest! Just as Joseph and his brother were able to
lay aside their conflict, so to can we lay aside our infinitely less
intractable ones. That, I believe is the
Torah’s message through the Joseph story.
The potential for good from repaired relationships, is far more
significant than the gain from allowing family conflicts to fester.
May the rest we allow ourselves
on this Shabbat, give us the strength to heal our conflicts and restore our
most important relationships. Shabbat
shalom.
A Drash for
Saturday, 8 December 2012
The
narrative in this morning’s Torah reading is probably one of the most appalling
in the entire Five Books of Moses. In
it, Joseph’s 11 brothers react to the favour shown to Joseph by their
father. In it, Joseph’s 11 brothers
react to Joseph’s sense of entitlement over them. In it, Joseph’s 11 brothers react to Joseph’s
sense of superiority to his brothers.
They react by setting upon him in the wilderness where nobody else can
see what is happening. They strip Joseph
of the many-coloured tunic that is the symbol of Jacob’s favour. They cast him into a pit. While Joseph lies in the pit and the brothers
are eating, a caravan of Ishmaelite slave traders comes by. The brothers sell Joseph to the traders. Then they go home and tell their father that
Joseph has been killed by wild beasts.
Jacob, their father is inconsolable.
It’s an appalling story
indeed. And it opens what is, for me the
most delightful section of the Torah.
As I’ve said before, I find the
Torah to be an incredible repository of wisdom for us, in our age. No other text that purports to be a morality
play, can match the raw drama that the Torah presents to us. No other text that purports to provide
insights into the real life of human beings, can match the depth of the
insights that this text provides.
I identify with Joseph, more
than with any other personality in the Torah.
Joseph suffered terribly because of his father’s mistakes and his
inability to rise above them. He
suffered unspeakable misery. And yet he
was somehow blessed with a resilience far beyond any that most of us will have
to employ in our lives. This incredible
resilience enabled him to arise from his dungeon, listen sympathetically to the
Pharaoh, and process the Pharaoh’s dreams against his keen insight. Then he went on to manage the affairs of
Egypt during difficult times. Finally,
face to face with his brothers who had treated him so cruelly, he found it
within himself to reconcile with them.
Joseph had some incredible skills, and deep flaws. But in the end, what shines through is his
humanity.
This appeals to me, because deep
in the gut I believe that our task on earth is to be, as they say, a mensch. To be human.
To look and reach outward, and do good for others. This is what makes life, with all its
unpleasantness, worthwhile. This is what
brings us happiness and ultimate meaning.
Joseph modelled this to us for all time, if we would but take the time
to read and process his story.
Do you think of this book we
call the Torah as a quaint holdover? Do
you read it and wonder what’s the point?
Does its occasional opaqueness frustrate you? If so, I recommend to you the section that
opens with this week’s reading and continues to the end of the book of
Genesis. Read it slowly and
thoughtfully. Try to put yourself into
the shoes of any of the principle characters.
Joseph. Jacob. The brothers.
Anyone else. But do think about
Joseph in particular. Think about the
prissy, favoured child whom we see in this week’s reading. And see the kind of man that he becomes.
If you’re going through life
trying to do good things for others, it’s easy to feel aggrieved and
cheated. It’s easy to get into a snit
about some slight, real or imagined. It’s
easy to feel the ‘superiority’ of the martyr.
Joseph could have gone down that road, but he didn’t. Instead, he reached deep within himself for
the wellspring of talent to meet the unique challenges life had dealt him.
I identify with Joseph, not
because I feel I aught to be the prime minister of Egypt. Rather, I identify with him because I’ve
faced, and continue to face, my own unique set of challenges. It’s easy to get discouraged at times. But if we reflect on Joseph’s life, we can
take heart and face our own challenges.
We can rise above the lot handed us by our brothers. Or whomever.
And when later faced with our tormentors, we can meet them in
forgiveness. We can counter hatred with
magnanimity. We can continue a cycle of
tit-for-tat. Or we can, like Joseph, see
the good that has come out of the situation.
And we can rejoice.
In Mishnah Avot we’re told: Who is
rich? He that rejoices in his lot. Joseph, perhaps more than any other
personality in the Torah, epitomises this spirit. Again and again he lifts himself out of the
pit and goes on to achieve. And he forgives
those who have wronged him.
Like Joseph, we can decide to
transcend any grievance we feel towards others.
We can take the lemons life has handed us, and make lemonade. We can put the past behind us, and go on to
ever greater things.
May this be the lesson that we
learn from the readings from Today to the end of the Book of Genesis. May this be the lesson that serves as our
prime operating principle for the rest of our lives. Shabbat shalom.
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