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| Guido Reni, Joseph and Potiphar's Wife |
I think that
I have revealed this to you before, but I really like the character of
Joseph, son of Jacob. He comes to us as
a very capable person, but one who must fight and overcome a variety of demons
before he can achieve greatness. In that
sense, I think that most of us can relate to him. Most of us truly believe that greatness is within
us. Isn’t that true? Most of us will in our lifetimes only achieve
a fraction of that, of which we’re capable.
But almost nobody sees himself as being mediocre. No, most of us see ourselves as having almost
limitless potential. And most of us
spend much of our lives in a degree of frustration at our seeming inability to reach
that potential.
And when we ascribe to ourselves the
potential for greatness but see ourselves not achieving it, we generally have
two choices. We can grouse about how
others have denied us the attainment of greatness. In other words, we can see ourselves as
victims. Or, we can look deep within
ourselves and understand that we, ourselves are the biggest impediment
to our achieving greatness. If we take
this latter course, that means that we have taken responsibility for our own
destinies. And that is a big responsibility. But it also means that we have limitless
opportunities. Because if we
aspire to greatness, and if we recognize that achieving it is in our own
hands, then that means that we have the opportunity to achieve it, and nobody
can deny it to us. But that’s a big jump
from me-as-victim.
Joseph made that jump, and he
therefore achieved greatness. He was
born with profound gifts of ability. But
also of vision. His early dreams
show us that he had the vision of himself that achieving greatness
requires. That vision, and that
incredible self-confidence, of course, grated on his brothers. They saw him as a spoiled little,
self-centered brat. Their father’s ‘pet.’ The one who, because he was their father’s
favourite, would achieve greatness at their, his brothers’,
expense. On the other hand, almost
everybody who has ever achieved greatness, has evoked in some others that
spirit of jealousy. Just watch how
people react to a successful man. There
are always those who believe that success or greatness is only achieved at the
expense of someone else. I’ve addressed
this mindset before. It’s called ‘zero
sum’ thought, and it is very popular.
But it is patently false. If you’re
curious about this phenomenon, I invite you to look back at the archives on my
blog, to Yom Kippur morning this year, where I wrote about it.
Joseph experienced many setbacks in
life. He experienced setbacks that would
have set many of us to wondering how we could check out of life. But Joseph did not react in that way. Instead, he took his knocks and learned
important lessons from each of his setbacks.
And each time, he arose stronger and greater than before.
In today’s Torah reading, from the 39th
chapter of Genesis, Joseph has been elevated to the head of Potiphar’s
household. Potiphar, as we remember, is
the man who bought Joseph from the slavers, to whom Joseph was sold by his
brothers. For a slave to attain the
position that Joseph did in Potiphar’s house, was quite an achievement. It was a position of great trust and
responsibility. And Joseph discharged it
well.
But Potiphar’s wife, Zuleikha, took a
shine to Joseph. We are not told whether
Joseph encouraged her obsession in any way. She is most probably a neglected wife. She repeated begs Joseph to sleep with her. But Joseph refuses.
A lesser man than Joseph might have
succumbed to Zuleikha’s advances. And
might have managed to keep the dalliances hidden without apparent consequence. But Joseph resists his owner’s wife to the
end. Whether he does so out of fear of
his master, or on principle, we do not know for sure. But I like to think that Joseph’s stand is
principled more than anything else. Because
through all his tribulations, Joseph offers us a picture of a principled man.
In any case Zuleikha, angry over being
turned down sexually by her husband’s slave, denounces Joseph to Potiphar and
sees Joseph thrown into prison, ostensibly to rot for the rest of his life. Since we know the story, we know that that’s
not exactly how things turned out in the end.
I therefore suggest that we look to
that end that we know, for the moral to the story. It would be easy to draw a simple conclusion
about avoiding unnecessary contact with a neglected woman. It’s probably a very good lesson to avoid any
hint of behavior that might be construed as welcoming sexual advances. There is certainly danger enough out there in
that area. But instead I’d like to use
our prior knowledge of the story’s outcome, and draw a lesson about learning
from life’s disappointments and rising above them.
Joseph repeatedly made mistakes, and
we can probably safely assume that he erred somehow in attracting the attention
of his master’s wife. And the reason I
make that assumption, is that it did not send Joseph deep into despair. Instead of wallowing in his misery for being victimized,
he seems to have accepted his setback with equanimity. He keeps his wits about him and is therefore
ready to help the baker and cup bearer when they present him with their dreams
in prison. And to respond to the Pharaoh
himself when he asks Joseph to interpret his troubling dreams.
Take from this narrative a message
about avoiding possibly compromising sexual situations. But even better, take from it a message about
seeing your greatness as being in your own hands. Not in somebody else’s that they have the
power to keep you from achieving it. This
clear vision, of seeing yourself being in control of your own destiny, is
surely what separated Joseph from those who surrounded him. What separates him from those not-quite-great
of our own age. It wasn’t that Joseph
was any smarter, or more capable than you or me. Rather that, more than the rest of us, he had
the gift of accepting responsibility for his own fate. Shabbat shalom.
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