This week’s Torah reading, Vayechi, discusses Jacob’s final years. Shortly before his passing, Jacob blesses Joseph’s children as well as his own. A massive funeral procession escorts Jacob’s body to Canaan. The reading, and the Book of Genesis, concludes with Joseph’s death.
Please stand with me as I read from the parsha:
Gen 50:15 When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and pay us back for all the evil that we did to him.”
Gen 50:16 So they sent a message to Joseph, saying, “Your father gave this command before he died,
Gen 50:17 ‘Say to Joseph, Please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.’ And now, please forgive the transgression of the servants of the God of your father.” Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
Gen 50:18 His brothers also came and fell down before him and said, “Behold, we are your servants.”
Gen 50:19 But Joseph said to them, “Do not fear, for am I in the place of God?
Gen 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.
Gen 50:21 So do not fear; I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.
The commentary is based on the writings of Rabbi Ben A. Rabbi Ben A. is the most famous anonymous rabbi. Using his pen name, Ben A. draws from his personal experience in recovery to incorporate unique chassidic philosophy into the practice of the 12 Steps.
In the final portion of the Book of Genesis, Jacob passes away, leaving his sons to fear that with their father gone their brother, Joseph, will take vengeance upon them. They feared he will be revengeful for the wrong they did him many years ago when they kidnapped him and sold him into slavery. The brothers approach Joseph and beg him to do them no harm. Joseph is taken aback. “Am I instead of God?” he asks rhetorically, “You intended evil for me but God meant it for good.“
The words with which Joseph reassures his brothers are quite telling. Certainly, he could have said something to the effect that “two wrongs don’t make a right.” But Joseph communicated a message far more profound than that. Not only did he have no desire for revenge, he would not even concede that his brothers had actually succeeded in doing anything to him for which he should feel wronged. He allows that they had intended evil for him – for which they are presumably accountable before God – but that is none of his concern anyhow, as he says, “Am I instead of God?” As far as what they actually did to him, Joseph completely dismisses any grounds for feeling ill will.
In other words, he explains the reason for his lack of resentment: God was in control all along and his brothers had done nothing to him outside of God’s plan. To be sure, the day his brothers sold him as a slave, Joseph’s life was changed forever. But God had a plan for him to come to Egypt, to become Pharaoh’s viceroy and to save his brothers in time of famine. That was not what his brothers had in mind, but for Joseph that was irrelevant. Life, as he saw it, was not a result of anything that any human being could ever have done to him, but rather, the culmination of God’s amazing plan.
The recovering addict knows that “resentment is the number one offender.” In our Fourth Step, when we take stock of our lives, we endeavor to confront any resentment we may still hold toward anyone in our lives, past or present, and to let the hurt go. Our spiritual journey is best traveled lightly and we can scarcely afford to be weighed down by such useless, heavy baggage.
But getting over our resentments is not just a matter of unburdening ourselves of emotional pain. It is also how we get in touch with God’s purpose and plan for our lives. When we attribute to the actions of others any power to define our lives, then we submit ourselves to the tyranny of people, places and things rather than surrendering to the loving care of God. Even when there have been people in our lives who have intended us harm, our faith tells us that none of that could have ever derailed our lives from God’s plan. Even those who have genuinely wronged us have been no more than unwitting players in a show that is constantly being written and directed by God. To state it succinctly, to carry a resentment is to grant power to a created being; to truly let go of resentment means to grant power only to God.
This, we learn from Joseph.
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