Rabbi 360

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The story of Joseph is one of the great dramas of the Torah filled with family tension, political intrigue, shifting loyalties, deception and disguise, geopolitical maneuvering, and more.

Joseph is the favored son of his father Jacob, who shows him deference and gifts him with an “ornamental tunic.” Joseph also had a penchant for having dreams that seemed to show him rising to prominence above the rest of his family, and he tells of them to his brothers. His brothers grew to hate and resent him.

Once while the brothers were out pasturing their flocks, Jacob sent Joseph to check up on them. When they saw him coming they first had it in mind to kill him. The oldest child Reuben talked them out of it, but suggested they throw him in a pit where he would die naturally (though Reuben’s plan was to rescue Joseph.) While Reuben was away the brothers sold Joseph into slavery and faked his death, covering Joseph’s coat in goat’s blood and presenting it to their father, who assumes Joseph was killed by a wild animal. (Genesis 37)

The midrash (ancient rabbinic commentary) describes the events of this chapter as a period of great mourning: Joseph is mourning his situation as a slave, Reuben is mourning his inability to save his brother, Jacob is mourning the loss of his favored son. But immediately following this episode in the Torah, we have a seemingly tangential story in which the brother Judah goes out in search of a wife. After a convoluted and involved story (for another time), Judah has a son Peretz, who is the ancestor of the future Messiah. So, the midrash teaches, while everyone was mourning, God was making future plans for the “light of the Messiah.” [Genesis Rabbah 85:1]

I recently studied an exquisite teaching on this story and midrash by R. Sholom Noach Berezovsky, a 20th century Hasidic leader, in his work Netivot Shalom. In the section on the week’s portion Vayeshev, he quotes this midrash and poses the question, why does the midrash teach that God was planning for the light of the Messiah while everyone in the story was in a state of grief?

He teaches that before there can be new growth, there must first be a period of decay. He illustrates this with a seed: a seed must first decay leaving only a kusta d’chiyuta—a spark of life. New growth comes from this. If the seed decays completely, then no new growth is possible. We need only to walk in the woods surrounding us to see this at work in nature: just like a new trees that grow from a nurse log, or the body of a spawning salmon that feeds the fry, decay gives way to new life.

Thus too for humans, he teaches, oftentimes we need to go through a difficult situation before we are able produce new life. The spark of life may be hidden, but it is not fully snuffed out. This is the meaning of the midrash, why God creates the light of the Messiah while Jacob and family are in deep despair, to teach us that we too can nurture a spark of life during our difficult times.

And the way we nurture that spark of life is by not giving into our despair. R. Berezovsky teaches that Joseph, Reuben, Jacob and others engaging in active acts of mourning (the midrash describes this using the terms “sackcloth and fasting”) was a sign that they did not accept their current situation. And not accepting one’s current state, by knowing things can be different, we are able nurture that kusta d’chiyuta—the spark of life:

Hope and not accepting provides the power of renewal and regrowth that God plants within even in our lowest state, as it is written in the Book of Micah, “Though I have fallen, I rise again; though I sit in darkness, God is my light. (7:8)” Even in the greatest darkness there is a point of light: a broken heart and the refusal to accept our circumstances. This is the kusta d’chiytua from which new growth begins.

This should remind you of Hanukkah. This year we begin Hanukkah during the week we are reading the Joseph story, and in many ways the celebration of Hanukkah is a demonstration of this idea.

When we light the Hanukkah candles, we are literally creating light during the season of deepest darkness. We tell the story of the Maccabees, who refused to accept their situation and thus were able to bring about liberation and create something new. And the miracle of the oil—in which a small amount of oil lit during the rededication of the Temple burned for much longer than expected—is a reminder that the kusta d’chiyuta, the spark of life, exists in smallest seed, and if we ignite it, even if we don’t think it is enough, it can blaze into great things.

Indeed, as R. Berezovsky writes, “all of the miracles and wonders that were accorded to the Jewish people is because of their not accepting their situation.” We can see this for our own people, and we can expand this notion to all peoples: not accepting our situation can lead to the creation of a new one, a process that oftentimes feels like a miracle.

We are experiencing a dark time right now, with rising authoritarianism here at home, the human tragedy in Israel/Palestine, armed conflicts around the world, climate disaster literally washing us away, and murderous attacks of antisemitism. Add to this our own personal griefs for the losses we face. Things feel overwhelming, it is easy to feel despair.

What the Joseph story, and Hanukkah, teach us is this: yes, we can and must feel despair, and at the same time we can not and must not succumb to it.

We are the nurse log sprouting new seed, we are the salmon feeding the next generation. We are the ones who kindle the flame, we are the ones to resist oppression.

We are the kusta d’chiytua that will bring a new, and different, and redemptive future.