This Shabbos we discussed Parsha Vayeishev, including commentary from Rav Yeager. It was a special Shabbos, as my father’s yeirzeit followed on the 26th of Kislev. It’s interesting that my father’s name is Joseph Ben Abraham, Joseph being the main character in the week’s parsha. We also heard and interesting dvar Torah from Rabbi Safier, following our early minyan davening.
Rabbi Dovid Safier, from the Memphis Kollel, gave a dvar Torah concerning what is known as the “3 cardinal sins”. These are the 3 sins we are not allowed to carry out, even if it means giving up our life. These sins include taking someone else’s life, sexual immorality, and idolatry. Rabbi Safier talked about how these sins are interpreted broadly. For example, we are not allowed to take medicine that saves our life, if the medicine somehow comes from, or represents idolatry. As usual, one should check with one’s Rabbi on how to interpret all this. This is a very serious decision to not take a medicine that saves our lives.
My father, Joseph Ben Abraham, was also named Joseph. Unlike Joseph’s brothers in the parsha, his brothers (my uncles) did not have envy and hatred of him. However, like Joseph in the parsha, my father always wanted to help others, and my Dad did like to interpret dreams and would write down his own. My father was a very intelligent man who was more interested in enjoying life and helping others, than enriching himself in physicality.
Four years ago about this time, I started writing these notes, in order to provide my family a spiritual message during our time of mourning. Thus, this is the four year anniversary of the notes, and today I would like them to be for everyone, not just me and my family. I would like to include everyone's simchas and yeirzeits, so please let me know if anything comes up, even if you do not attend our kiddush.
Norm talked about the brothers of Joseph, and how Judah, in particular, took responsibility for what was going on. Judah decided it was better to sell Joseph, than risk him being killed by the other drivers. Reuben, also had a plan to save Joseph’s life. Norm spoke about how this is a lesson to all of us that we must take responsibility for things, and how we realize consequences for the decisions we make. Norm spoke about how there was some maturity amongst Joseph’s brothers, amongst all the immaturity.
Yaki spoke about the apparent conflict between destiny and free will that seems to exist in our lives today, as well as during the time of the parsha. If Hashem’s plans are pre-determined, how can we have free will? Rob brought up the idea known as the “law of large numbers”, that eventually every possibility takes place - given enough trials. Rob shared an example that eventually a bunch of monkey’s would write Shakespare, if an astronomical number of opportunities existed to randomly type out letters.
Yaki shared his thoughts that there is a predetermined destiny however Jews have the ability to alter nature. Even though from the Jew’s perspective we have free will, from Hashem’s perspective, he is the ruler and determines the overall, whereas from the individual Jews perspective they have the ability to alter nature.
By altering nature, we can determine the details of how Hashem’s plan gets carried out using our free will, while Hashem is aware of and controlling the broad picture. It was our destiny to go to Egypt, but from the brother’s perspective, they used their free will to sell Joseph into slavery, and were thus guilty of a sin. One lesson we can learn, is that even when bad things happen, these may end up bringing about Hashem’s will, which turns out to be blessings for us. The loss of my father is sad, but maybe it can be used to inspire me to bring about Hashem's broader plans.
We discussed, from Rav Yeager, how Jacob returned to Israel believing that everything would now be fine. Jacob believed that what Abraham was told by Hashem and the prophets – that we would be dispersed, but later return – had just occurred with him. But as we know, everything was not now fine for Jacob, who ended up having to deal with the apparent loss of his son Joseph.
We discussed how Jacob favored Joseph, because he was the oldest son from his beloved Rachel. We discussed how Joseph was to continue the conflict with Jacob’s brother Esau.
This is a summary of what we discussed. No halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
Norm talked about the brothers of Joseph, and how Judah, in particular, took responsibility for what was going on. Judah decided it was better to sell Joseph, than risk him being killed by the other drivers. Reuben, also had a plan to save Joseph’s life. Norm spoke about how this is a lesson to all of us that we must take responsibility for things, and how we realize consequences for the decisions we make. Norm spoke about how there was some maturity amongst Joseph’s brothers, amongst all the immaturity.
Yaki spoke about the apparent conflict between destiny and free will that seems to exist in our lives today, as well as during the time of the parsha. If Hashem’s plans are pre-determined, how can we have free will? Rob brought up the idea known as the “law of large numbers”, that eventually every possibility takes place - given enough trials. Rob shared an example that eventually a bunch of monkey’s would write Shakespare, if an astronomical number of opportunities existed to randomly type out letters.
Yaki shared his thoughts that there is a predetermined destiny however Jews have the ability to alter nature. Even though from the Jew’s perspective we have free will, from Hashem’s perspective, he is the ruler and determines the overall, whereas from the individual Jews perspective they have the ability to alter nature.
By altering nature, we can determine the details of how Hashem’s plan gets carried out using our free will, while Hashem is aware of and controlling the broad picture. It was our destiny to go to Egypt, but from the brother’s perspective, they used their free will to sell Joseph into slavery, and were thus guilty of a sin. One lesson we can learn, is that even when bad things happen, these may end up bringing about Hashem’s will, which turns out to be blessings for us. The loss of my father is sad, but maybe it can be used to inspire me to bring about Hashem's broader plans.
We discussed, from Rav Yeager, how Jacob returned to Israel believing that everything would now be fine. Jacob believed that what Abraham was told by Hashem and the prophets – that we would be dispersed, but later return – had just occurred with him. But as we know, everything was not now fine for Jacob, who ended up having to deal with the apparent loss of his son Joseph.
We discussed how Jacob favored Joseph, because he was the oldest son from his beloved Rachel. We discussed how Joseph was to continue the conflict with Jacob’s brother Esau.
This is a summary of what we discussed. No halachic rulings are intended or should be inferred.
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