Vayeshev 1985

This Torah portion begins with the words "Vayeshev Yaacov Be'eretz Megure Oveev - and Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojourny.“ The rabbis are very hard on Yaacov because it says "Vayeshev - and he sat.“  Jacob wanted to now live a life of tranquility and quiet. He no longer wanted to struggle.  He wanted just to sit and relax. After all, he had struggled enough with his brother, Esau, with his uncle, Laban.  All this was now behind him.  He just wanted to sit back and enjoy life.  The rabbis say that he was punished for this by all the troubles of Joseph and his brothers.  They say that, isn't it enough for the righteous that they have the peace and tranquility of the world to come that they want it also in this world?  In this world there is only struggle.  We in Judaism do not believe that we can have peace and tranquility in this world.  In this world we have to struggle until we die, and sometimes even dying is a struggle.
Judaism does not promise that we will not have problems in life. All it promises is that if we practice our religion G-d will give us the strength to overcome our problems.  We are not to sit back at ease in this world.  There are too many problems to solve.  A person, if he sits back concerned only with his own comfort, will sin not because of sins of commission but because of sins of omission. He will miss seeing the evil around him, and he will miss trying to correct it.  How couldn't Jacob see what was going on in his own family?  Couldn't he see how his own actions were making the brothers jealous of Joseph? After all, what happened to him happened to Joseph. He became hated by his brother because of his mother.  He tricked his father by the skins of a goat, and later he recognized Joseph's coat after it had been dipped in the blood of goats.  Jacob's own inattentativeness to the situation brought it about just like his

own father's inattentiveness to the situation between him and Esau brought the situation about.
Joseph was a brilliant young man.  He was good looking and ambitious and talented.  Why then was he hated so much, and why couldn't he succeed in interpersonal relationships and in life?  The rabbis say that the trouble with Joseph was that he was too insensitive to others. He was only sensitive to himself.  He was so filled with himself, with his own talents, his own abilities, his own good looks that he could not see what he was doing to others.  All he could see was his own dreams.  He could not see the dreams of others.
It is like what happened a few months ago when a young man came to
see me who was very brilliant and talented,  he had married a nice
woman, but he was such a jerk, and he was so conceited that the marriage
could not work.  He came to me completely befuddled because in the
past he had such a wonderful relationships with his in-laws.  Recently
he had gone over to his in-laws house and they seemed cold to him.
He could not understand it.  He thought that all their outpouring
of love in the past was only because of him and had nothing at all
to do with his ex-wife, their daughter.  He was a completely insensitive
individual.
The second thing that prevented Joseph from making something of himself in life was the idea he had that if he would do the right thing, he would always be rewarded.  This is not always true.  In fact, because we teach this in Sunday school, we turn a lot of kids off religion because later as they grow up they realize that this is not true.  Many times you can do the right thing and still suffer. Joseph was a papa's boy.  If he said the right things to his papa

he got rewarded.  He got a coat of many colors.  He was a boy who thought that there was an instant reward for being good.  This is what caused him, too, not to hesitate when his father told him to go see his brothers.  How could anything bad happen to him?  He was following his father's orders.
Later on when Potifar’s wife makes her advances to him, the rabbis tell us that Joseph was about ready to give in but he saw the image of his father, and he stopped.  That's why the musical note used when it says he refused is a very wavering note.  When she grabbed hold of his garment, he did not even take it back because how could it happen that by doing the right thing he would suffer?  But suffer he did.  He was thrown into prison.  Joseph had to learn that you have to do the right thing just because it is the right thing even if you have to suffer.  Doing the right thing does not always bring a reward.  You do the right thing because it is the right thing to do and the only way we can maintain our integrity.  Joseph did not amount to anything until he learned that and he learned to be sensitive to the dreams of others.
This is what he did when he was thrown in prison.  He was able to
listen to the dreams of Pharaoh's butler and baker who were thrown
into prison.  Once he became sensitive to the dreams of others, and
once he realized that you do the right thing because it is right,
not because you want a pat on the back, then he could amount to something.
Then he was no longer the tattletale little boy who was using right
to curry his father's favor.  It is hard to be sensitive to others,
and it is hard to do the right thing just because it is right.  Joseph
had to learn this before he could amount to anything.

I am reminded of the story they tell about a speaker who went on
and on and on and on.  Slowly, one by one, people drifted out of
the auditorium until there was only one person left.  The speaker,
after one and a half hours, finally ended.  He then turned to the
one person who was left and said, "I want to thank you for staying
until I finished my speech."  The fellow said, "You don't have to
thank me.  I had to stay."  The speaker asked, "Why did you have
to stay?"  The man answered, "Because I am the next speaker."  Insensitivity
is a terrible vice.  Nobody can amount to anything if they are insensitive.