Yeshiva
Beit Midrash
- Torah Portion and Tanach
- Bereshit
- Vayeshev
The narrative regarding Joseph and his brothers has engaged mankind for millennia. In it is represented all of the personality characteristics of nobility, self-justification, blindness and deception throughout history. The narrative stands by itself and needs no "deeper" exposition or analysis. It is what it is and that is how Jewish tradition has always viewed it.
The tendency to "understand" the characters of the people presented in the Torah narrative leads to all sorts of weird ideas that serve to undermine Jewish values and traditions instead of strengthening them. In all of the narratives that appear in this holy book the unseen hand of Heaven, so to speak, is present and active. And that part of the story is not subject to any psychological or personal analysis or perspective.
Rashi points this out in his opening comment to this week's Torah reading. The plan of Yaakov is to enjoy a leisurely retirement in his later stage of life but Heaven interferes as the story of Yosef and his brothers unfolds. No matter how you will analyze the motivations of the characters in this biblical narrative, we still will not know the entire story. It is always the inscrutable hand of Heaven that governs the story and mocks our pretensions.
One of the great differences between the traditional commentators and the more modern versions of this genre is this God factor. Midrash, Talmud, and the great medieval and later commentators that created the framework for understanding the narrative of the Torah, also delved deeply into the personalities and motives of the people represented in the Torah. They were always careful not only to include but also to emphasize that ultimately it was the will of Heaven that was guiding events towards Divine purposes.
The Bible is not a psychodrama or rebuke of history and psychology. It is a book of fire and holiness and one has to be careful in handling it. But modern commentators – even those who are observant and scholarly – many times insert currently faddish values and interpretations into its eternal words. Keeping this in mind in dealing with the great narrative regarding Joseph and his brothers, one of the key narratives in the entire Torah, we should do so with caution and tradition.
To do otherwise, is a great disservice to the text of the story itself and to the value system that Jewish tradition has assigned to it. The dispute between Joseph and his brothers has heavenly and historic consequences and still hovers over Jewish life today. To treat it as a matter of sibling rivalry is a misunderstanding of the entire purpose of the Torah narrative.
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Various Events FOR WHOM NOT TO VOTE
Rav Zvi Yehuda Kook stressed that Israeli politics is G-dly, so I have no problem answering this common question on a Torani blog. Also, Free-Will is a G-d-given right and obligation, to "destine one's fate" (R. Soloveichik, Kol Dodi Dofek, 67), so I obviously don't tell others how to vote. But once not a few (especially young) have already asked, a couple of personal words from experience and thoughts from chazal & Rav Kook which may be of help to others, mainly for whom NOT to vote.
P'ninat Mishpat Fallout from Failure to Install Elevator – part II
based on ruling 85007 of the Eretz Hemdah-Gazit Rabbinical Courts
