Weekly Parashah- Miketz
This week I celebrate 32 years of Recovery and I am so grateful to all of you for participating in and supporting my recovery.
The story of Joseph continues in this story as does the story of his brothers and father. Joseph rises to the top of the hierarchy in Egypt, becoming Pharaoh’s number 2 person. Having had a Spiritual Awakening in last week’s Parashah and continuing it at the beginning of this week’s Parashah-knowing that God is the interpreter of dreams and Joseph just speaks God’s words he is humble enough to advise Pharaoh and speak to him in a way that Pharaoh can understand. This is a very important principle/value/concept in our tradition. Proverbs teaches: “train each child according to their understanding”. Living this value forces me to be connected to you and pay attention to ensure that you are understanding me. If not, I have to find a different way to speak to you. Over the years, I have found this to be a useful tool in order to make and keep connections with people. My brother said to me, when I was newly sober, let's have a dialogue with each other rather than a monologue or talking at each other. I loved the idea then and have practiced this in my recovery and in my Rabbinate. Some days more than others:) Doing this means I don’t have to be right and I am not in competition to show how smart I am. It does not diminish my worth, my position and/or my path/way of seeing life. On the contrary, it helps me grow in every area of my living because I am in a state of being a learner.
To paraphrase Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, from his interview with Carl Stern in 1972, a day without learning is not worth living. We all learn something new each day and, in our Parashah, Pharaoh takes note of the learning and puts it into practice. I am realizing how I have done this and when/how I haven’t. In fact, as I reflect back, every time I have gotten myself ‘into trouble’ is because of my arrogance to take what I have learned and put it into practice. While I am not interested in perfection, I do realize in this reflection, most of my troubles in my life come from not putting the learning I have done into practice. Pharaoh was able to discern the earnestness and wisdom of Joseph as well as his ability to be loyal to Pharaoh. I think back and see how often I learned whom to trust and not trust and, again, in my arrogance, thought “they won’t do that to me”. How foolish and tragic on my part, I hurt me, those around me and the person that I foolishly trusted. As a person I have helped says, “when someone tells you who they are, believe them.” Pharaoh had the ability to get a message from God and hear the truthful interpretation and then discern the character of the person in front of him. Torah is telling us, I believe, that we all have this ability and our challenge is to use it wisely and in service of a greater good not just our own good. The power of T’Shuvah is to see how to learn from our past, fail forward and not repeat the same exact behavior. Yes, I will always be a little louder than the next person, I get upset over what I see as evil behaviors and I will still erupt at times, this is my nature and my refusal to give into the evil that I gave into and participated in prior to my recovery. I know this as do others. Yet, the strengths of this behavior have become outweighed by the weakness and, I didn’t use the learning that people will use your vulnerabilities against you when it suits them because winning is all that matters. This being in direct conflict to what my brother said to me in my early recovery. We see this same behaviors in our Political discourse today. Who do you want to be, the Pharaoh of Joseph or the Pharaoh of Exodus? Do you want to be Jacob who makes deals with God or Joseph who surrenders to God? Both have their plusses and minus’. I testify and am a witness that being the Pharaoh of Joseph and being the Joseph who surrenders is much better for your soul and the people around you.
This is both an improbable story and a story of spiritual uplift. How badly did Pharaoh want his dream interpreted is powerful. We have people today who help another interpret their dreams,, hopefully for the sake of the person and not for their own financial gain. I am a person who rarely remembers his dreams and when I do, I search for meaning and God’s direction from the dream. In our Parashah, the likelihood of a lowly Hebrew prisoner becoming Pharaoh’s 2nd in command is very improbable and could have happened. We tend to dismiss things because we think they are improbable or impossible and in doing so, we miss so many beautiful experiences. IVF was improbable and impossible years ago and today, there are many beautiful souls making the world better because science believed in the worth of the idea and kept learning how to make the idea a reality. Donald Trump and Joe Biden being elected President in 2016 and 2020 respectively, was both improbable and impossible to many, yet it has happened because a lot of people believed it could and worked to make it happen. The Jewish people surviving Antiquity ( the only group to survive intact) was improbable and impossible, enemies have been trying to kill us off forever, and here we are, adding to the knowledge of the world, helping move life forward in service of God. Recovery from addictions and people changing was/is considered impossible and improbable, yet it happens each and every day. Recovery has lifted many of us from the pits of despair to the heights of ecstasy. It has given short shrift to “leopards don’t change their spots” and proven that the only constant is change. Recovery has given individuals and families new leases on life and created community, empathy, compassion and forgiveness. These are all proofs that show improbable leads to great spiritual uplift. I have had this experience many times in my recovery and I pray that you recognize the times you have and take notice of the ones to come. Shabbat Shalom, Rabbi Mark