Parasha VaYechi: Words to Keep In Mind When Your Kids Drive You Nuts!

There is a verse from the Psalms (62:12) which states, “One thing G-d has spoken, two things I have heard”. The Talmud explains that this refers to the fact that a Biblical verse can have more than one meaning. This statement itself was expanded upon by later rabbis who declared that each verse of Torah to have seventy meanings – “shivim panim la-Torah”. Each verse of the Torah can contain multiple, and even contrary meanings, and all of them could be true.

Last week I spoke of how Joseph was “too – perfect” a character in the Torah for us to identify with. Joseph succeeds in everything he does. He is his father’s favorite child and has no obvious flaws. Although he is grievously wronged by his brothers who sell him into slavery, he forgives them, protects them, and sustains them for the rest of their adult lives in Egypt. In fact, the sages refer to Joseph as “Yosef HaTsadik” – Joseph the righteous, for his exemplary behavior throughout his life. That at least, is how Joseph has been traditionally portrayed by the rabbis.

Of course, there have been dissenters. The great sage Rashi tells us that Joseph would spend his days before a mirror, making certain every hair on his head was perfect.  Other sages came along to interpret Rashi’s remark.  Rashi, they said, was not implying that Joseph was, heaven forbid, a vain adolescent. Rashi’s words, they contend, were intended to convey the idea that Joseph spent his time correcting his minor moral imperfections.  Looking at himself in the mirror was in fact a metaphor for his recognition that he was not perfect and was concerned with improving himself morally.  Others point to the verse in the Torah that says that Joseph brought bad reports of his brothers to his father.  “How could such a righteous person such as Joseph be a tattletale?” ask Joseph’s defenders.  They answer:  Realizing that his righteous brothers had not reached the level of moral perfection that he had achieved, Joseph only wanted his father to instruct them on how to become better individuals. He did not want to embarrass his brothers by correcting them himself!

In a recent teaching, the contemporary Rabbi Jack Riemer offers another of the seventy faces of this story. Rabbi Riemer maintains that Joseph was far from perfect. Joseph is, in fact, from his description in the Torah, a troubled adolescent. Joseph has an exaggerated sense of self - importance and feelings of grandeur, as evidenced by his dreams of his family bowing down to him. Joseph is preoccupied with his appearance. He not only primps himself before a mirror, but wears his best clothes – that “coat of many colors” – even when going out into the fields to search for his brothers. Who wears their best suit to tend to the sheep? Furthermore Joseph lacks empathy toward his brothers. He relates his dreams to all of his brothers without any sense about how these dreams would make them feel.  He brings bad reports of his brothers to his father, and then, when they won’t even speak to him anymore, he keeps it up! An exaggerated sense of self-importance, dreams of power and domination, lack of empathy toward others -- all point to a diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, declares Rabbi Riemer.

So, asks Rabbi Riemer, how did this crass, self-involved seventeen year old --who would have had a serious psychiatric diagnosis were he to live today -- develop into the caring, compassionate and forgiving man and the wise leader we come to know at the end of the Book of Genesis?

Before I answer the question, I want to tell you a personal story. One of our congregants grew up in the same city, Scranton, Pennsylvania, as I did. This congregant’s cousin was at an appointment with her physician in Pittsburgh and the physician mentioned that he was from Scranton. The patient told the physician that her cousin’s rabbi in Naperville was also from Scranton. “What’s his name?” Dr. Steckel asked. “Rabbi Marc Rudolph,” the patient answered.

The physician’s eyes widened. “He’s a rabbi?” he asked in disbelief. Of course, when I was told the story and I heard the name of the physician, I immediately recognized him as someone with whom I went through school with – “He’s a doctor?” I marveled.

The point is that neither I, nor Dr. Steckel, nor Joseph remained our 17 year old selves – thank goodness! It might have been astounding to someone who knew us at 17 that I would someday become a rabbi, and he a doctor, but we both developed and grew beyond our 17 year old selves.

That’s how Joseph developed from a spoiled and self-involved child into a caring and compassionate brother and son as an adult. Joseph’s father, Jacob, and his mother, Rachel, were able to implant within him seeds of kindness, compassion, and forgiveness when he was growing up – qualities that were hardly apparent when he was a child and adolescent. That should be a source of solace to all of us who are teachers or parents and despair sometimes about whether our students or children have learned anything at all from us. We try to teach them values and provide them with ideals, but sometimes it seems that we are not getting through to them. We wonder whether they have any interest at all in what we have to offer! The most any of us can do, writes Rabbi Riemer, is to plant seeds within them which may sprout and blossom sometime in the future. We can strive to give our children positive experiences which they can remember and draw upon as they grow older. Of course there are no guarantees, and some children reject the gifts that they are given. Some even grow in an opposite direction from which we hope.  But sometimes, not always, but sometimes, those seeds that we plant germinate and develop.

So if there was hope for me, and there was hope for Dr. Steckel, and there was hope for Joseph – there is hope for our children and grandchildren as well. Think about that, next time they drive you crazy!

Shabbat Shalom