Joseph had everything going for him.
At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah.
He was following the family tradition of being a shepherd. He fitted into the mould, alongside his brothers. However, not all is well as we told in the same verse:
And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.
You would expect the Torah to tells us that Jacob admonishes Joseph for talebearing. Wouldn't that be the logical follow-on to this episode? However, strangely, the next verse tells us that:
(3) Now Israel loved Joseph best of all his sons, for he was the child of his old age; and he had made him an coat of many colours.
Chizkuni, a 13th Century French commentator explains that:
(The word פסים can be seen) as a “compensation,” for being a half orphan, not having a mother anymore. Yaakov tried to compensate him by having a costly garment made for him.
If we join the dots, we have a petulant teenager, the apple of his father's eye, who despite his behaviour, is given a wonderful gift. Notice the order of the information provided. Joseph badmouths his brothers and yet, Jacob's response is to seemingly ignore his behaviour and to add insult to injury, reward him with a beautiful coat.
Rashi tells us that:
פסים is a term for raiment of fine wool (Shabbat 10b). Similar is (Ester 1:6) כרפס “Fine linen and blue”.
The next verse underscores the family dynamic by stating:
Can you imagine the table conversations that took place at meal times. Jacob looking at his beloved son with dreamy eyes, all the while his brothers complaining bitterly about how unfair it all was. Why should Joseph be given preferential treatment over them? How could their father reward his poor behaviour?
In their eyes, this was a travesty of justice and it wasn't helped by the following verses which describe his dreams!
It is very easy to view the narrative in the Bible as being removed from the present day. These people lived in a time that seems so different to our own. Yet, as a parent and teacher, I find that they don't seem so removed from the kind of people we are. How many of us realise the mistakes we made, either following Joseph's example or making the same mistakes as Jacob.
It is all too easy to let our emotions guide us into the wrong territory. Why didn't Jacob discipline his son? Why did he choose him at the expense of the obvious hurt caused to the brothers. It's easy to view the disastrous result from the luxury of hindsight - but that is what makes Jacob, Joseph and his brothers so very human in our eyes.
Rabbi Sacks in Covenant and Conversation (2017) explains:
"Our failures, seen in retrospect many years later, turn out to have been our deepest learning experiences. Our hindsight is always more perceptive than our foresight. We live life facing the future, but we understand life only when it has become our past."
Nowhere is this set out more clearly than in the story of Joseph in this week's parsha.
It begins on a high note: "Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was a son of his old age and he made him a richly embroiderer robe." But with dramatic speed, that love and that gift turn out to be Joseph's undoing. His brothers began hating him. When he told them his dream, they hated him even more. His second dream offended even his father. Later, when he went to see his brothers tending their flocks, they first plotted to kill him, and eventually sold him as a slave".
And that is just the start of his woes. By the end of the parsha, he has even been forgotten by the Royal butler and is languishing in an Egyptian Jail. How the mighty have fallen!
As a parent and teacher, I can see the result of the mistakes we make when we bring up our children. Mistakes that could have been so easily avoided in hindsight.
I regret the times when I should have acted differently towards my own children and the those when I should not. Yet, as I look at the wonderful young adults my own daughters have developed into, I realise that maybe the mistakes I made were beneficial in helping them to avoid their own when they Please Gd become parents.
Like Jacob, I have all too human failings but not to the extent that my children have sold their sibling into captivity!
As a teacher, we have limited control over the children we instruct. We try our best to instil in them the right way to behave towards one another and adults in general and at the end of the day, we aspire to send them into the world with the values that we cherish - in terms of being responsible contributors to the societies they inhabit.
Perhaps, we can take note from the lessons that the Torah is teaching us with regard to Jacob, Joseph and his brothers. The domino effect that Rachel's passing had on the family cannot be underestimated - yet, at the same time, with a little more thought and foresight, perhaps the situation could have turned out differently.
I think that Rabbi Sacks' comment about 'our failures, seen in retrospect many years later, turn out to have been our deepest learning experiences' resonates more, the older we become.
If I have learned anything from my experience as a parent and teacher, it is that the lessons I have internalised will hopefully help the next generation to avoid the same pitfalls.
May we all be blessed with the ability to continue learning from our mistakes - and maybe, even the foresight to avoid making them in the first place!
Shabbat Shalom.