The story related in this week's Torah portion of Vayeshev (B'reshit 37-40) regarding Yosef's dreams that so angered his brothers is well-known. Already at age 17, he was attached to his half-brothers from Bilhah and Zilpah, but was somewhat estranged from his half-brothers from Leah, who scorned him. Their father Yaakov didn't see what was going on; he saw only his special love for Yosef, his older son from his late beloved wife Rachel. He gave a special striped coat to Yosef, seemingly not realizing that this display of favoritism would bring about sharp feelings of brotherly hatred towards Yosef. "They hated him and could not speak to him in peace" (B'reshit 37,4).

Yosef dreamt a dream, and before he could even tell them what it was, "they hated him all the more." Yaakov did not notice.

Yosef then told them the dream, in which he saw himself and his brothers binding sheaves – and suddenly his own sheaf stood up tall, and the brothers' sheaves bowed down to it! This display of dominion over them, and the fact that he related it to them in such detail, led them to hate him all the more. And Yaakov? He saw nothing.

Yosef then told him his next dream, in which the sun, moon and eleven stars actually bowed down to him. Yosef went even further this time, repeating it to his father as his brothers stood aside and listened (as Rashi explains). Yaakov sees their angry faces, and realizes that he must calm them down. He scolds Yosef in front of them – but still does not realize the extent of his sons' hatred towards him. "His brothers were very jealous of him; his father suspended judgement" (verse 11). He waited to see what would happen, focused only on his great love for Yosef without seeing the impending danger. 

Not only is he unaware of the incendiary relations between them, Yaakov even sends Yosef to check how his brothers are doing in the grazing fields of Sh'chem. He dispatches his beloved son into the jaws of the tiger, not only to his brothers, but to the very place of danger for Yaakov's family, where his daughter was raped and tortured.

The brothers then sold Yosef to passing merchants, and tried to fool Yaakov into believing that he had been mauled to death by a wild animal. They showed him the blood-stained striped coat, and he immediately concluded that Yosef was dead. Even though "all his sons and daughters arose to comfort him, he refused to be consoled, saying, 'I will go down to the grave mourning for my son'" (verse 35). He loved his son Yosef more than he loved all his sons and daughters.

The Talmud draws an important lesson from this tragic story: "One must never favorably single out one of his children from the others – for because of two measures of fine wool that Yaakov gave Yosef and not to the other brothers, they became jealous of him, ultimately leading to the descent of our forefathers to Egypt" (Shabbat 10b). This does not mean that the Sages judged Yaakov Avinu, the choicest of our Patriarchs: "If the earlier ones are the sons of angels, then we are sons of humans, and if they were sons of humans, then we are like donkeys…" (Shabbat 112b). All the more so do we not have the foggiest notion of the greatness of our holy Patriarchs. However – our Torah is a "Torah of Life," and did not come just to tell us stories of what happened, but wants us to learn how to act. The Sages want us to learn from the straightforward meaning of the verses what happened and how we should not act: We must never show such favoritism to one son at the expense of the others, for this causes jealousy that could ultimately lead to a catastrophe.

And in truth, it is very strange: How can we understand that Yaakov behaved so blindly, without realizing a simple notion such as not singling out one son from the others? How could he not then see all the warning signs along the way?

The answer is that his extraordinary love for his son blinded him to the facts: "For bribery will blind the eyes of wise men and will distort the words of the righteous" (D'varim 16,19).

There were several reasons for Yaakov to love Yosef: Yosef was born to Rachel, and it was when Yaakov was already old, and Yaakov taught him everything he learned in the Yeshiva of Shem and Ever, and Yosef looked like him. His love was so intense that he simply could not see what was going on around him. This is the danger of any blinding love; when one is blinded, he is as if bribed into believing falsehoods, even in the face of clear signs of dangers ahead.

Given that this is true, we are in big trouble! For how can one ever know if he is blinded or not? How he can make a good decision without knowing whether he might not be truly aware of the consequences? How can we know if we are seeing clearly, or are actually unaware?

The mussar-master Rabbi Eliyahu Dessler, author of Michtav Me'Eliyahu, explains that this is a key point of the study and implementation of ethical behavior. We must always be striving hard to ascertain whether we can trust our intellect and logic to arrive at true conclusions. We must know that our brains can come to correct ethical conclusions only to the extent that our hearts are free and clean of personal motivations and conflicts of interest. Only if our hearts are then full with strong and burning aspirations for integrity and truth can we be sure of ourselves.

Rabbi Dessler continues: "Can it be then that one who has not yet completely purified his heart, has no chance of making correct ethical decisions?" The answer is yes, he can never be completely sure! However, there is a test that one can conduct in order to ascertain whether his decision is good and true: If he sees that the decision he made came to him easily, without a struggle, he must be suspicious. He must then search his heart to see where his decision jives with his personal interests. Only a decision that was made with difficulty, and after great efforts to reach the truth, and amidst a war against his personal instincts – only such decisions leave room for hope that he might be on the right path. 

We thus learn that we must always be on the alert, in any relationship and in every circumstance, to make sure we are striving for truth without being blinded by our own interests, or by the interests of those we love. Only in this way will we have a chance to protect ourselves from the great dangers of "blinding love."

Translated by Hillel Fendel