Vayeshev 1994

The rabbis teach us that from the very first word in the Torah portion Vayeshev we learn a very important concept and that is that there is no such thing as peace of mind in Judaism. Judaism does not recognize peace of mind or tranquility or serenity as a religious value.  In fact, Judaism says that those people who look for tranquility and serenity and peace of mind are actually not fulfilling G-d's command. They are passively basking in the glory of past achievements but they are not fulfilling what G-d wants each of us to do. The rabbis say that the word Vayeshev means "and Jacob sat". Jacob had just finished with two terrible confrontations. He had escaped from Laban and he met up with his brother Esau and he, Ho and behold, had become reconciled with his brother Esau, and at this particular time he thought that his problems were over, that he did not have to struggle anymore in life, that his struggles were over. He did not go directly to his father, but he went to the city of Schem and there he found out, lo and behold, that his daughter Dena was raped and two of his sons took a terrible vengeance upon the whole city of the rapists wiping that city out. Jacob never forgave Shimon and Levi for their act, but he quickly learned that he had to return to the values of his father. When Jacob returned to the land of Israel he did not go directly  to his father Yitzchak.  Instead he went to the city of Schem, but after he found out how Shimon and Levi acted he quickly made peace with his father, too, from whom he had been estranged. After all, his father did not want originally to give him the blessing and perhaps he thought that his father was too passive a man.
This is similar today to what is going on in Israel where by and large Israelis are much more religiously observant than the Jews of America. However, the elite, the intellectual elite is estranged from Judaism. For some reason they revile it and they hold it in contempt and they think that the Jews in the Middle Ages acted too passively, that Judaism really has nothing to teach the modern world.  In ac certain sense they were like Jacob when Jacob returned to the land. However, Jacob became reconciled to his father Yitzchak, too, and saw that there was much beauty

and truth and wisdom in his father's interpretation of Judaism, too. We hope and pray that the intellectual elite in Israel will reconcile to the Jewish tradition can there be a bright future for the Jews in Israel, religiously and intellectually and spiritually because without a past you really cannot have a religious and spiritual revival in the land of Israel among the intellectual elite.
Jacob now was at rest, at ease. He sat. He thought his troubles were over, that now he no longer had to struggle, no longer had to be Israel. He could be Yaacov. All he had to do was sit and enjoy what he had done in the past, but this was not to be. As Rashi points out, this is when the troubles of Yosef and the brothers burst upon him because in this life there is no such thing as tranquility and serenity and peace of mind. This is a false religious ideal.; In this life we are called upon to help G-d perfect the world, to be G-d's partners in creation and this requires that we be active, that we do things, not that we be passive. It is true that we have one of the week, Shabbos, in which we are told to be man the appreciator, in which we are passive so we gather our energies for the rest of the week to go on and to help create and make this world a better place.
One of the main themes of this Torah portion is dreams. Joseph had dreams at the beginning of this Torah portion and at the end of the Torah portion he interpreted the dreams of the baker and the butler. Judaism teaches us that it is man's job to effectuate dreams in this world, not to be content with his status quo, that no matter how great our achievements in the past we cannot rest on our laurels but we have to go forward. This means that there is going to be a lot of aggravation. We are going to have a lot of stress, but so what? That is what we are called upon to do.  In fact, if we lead lives of no stress we. are going to lead lives of great mental illness. Any psychiatrist will tell you that a person who has no stress, who has no goals in life is a person who is prone to alcoholism and drugs and ennui and even suicide. It is important in life that we have goals and that we clearly

state these goals and that we try to achieve these dreams. Unless we do this our mental health will be impaired.
In fact, if we look at the dreams of the butler and the baker we can see this clearly.
Why was it that Joseph interpreted one positively and the other negatively? If
we look at the dreams of the butler we see that it says, "In my dream behold a vine
was before me and in the vine were 3 branches and as it was budding its blossoms
shot forth and the brought forth ripe grapes and Pharaoh's cup was in my hand and
I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's hand and I gave the cup into Pharaoh's
hand." This was the butler's dream that Joseph interpreted positively. Then there
was the dream of the baker, and what was the dream of the baker? "I also saw in
my dream behold 3 baskets of white bread were on my head and in the uppermost basket
there was all manner of baked food for Pharaoh and the birds did eat them out of
the basket upon my head." If you will notice there is a basic difference between
the dream of the butler, which Joseph interpreted positively, and the dream of the
baker, which Joseph interpreted negatively.  In the dream of the butler he was doing
something. In the dream of the butler he had taken the grapes and pressed them
into Pharaoh's cup and gave the cup into Pharaoh's hand. He had actively pursued
an endeavor in this world where, on the other hand, the baker had done nothing.
He had 3 baskets of bread on his head and the birds were eating from the baskets.
He did nothing and because he was passive and did nothing he, therefore, was hung
at the end of 3 days at Pharaoh's birthday while the butler was restored to his
position.
In life we must go forward. In life we must constantly strive to effectuate our dreams. Joseph learned something, too, in this sedra. He had dreams but he was ineffectual in putting these dreams into practice until he learned at the end of this Torah portion to listen to the dreams of others. Only when he could listen to the dreams of others could he implement his own dreams. This, of course, is

very essential. Joseph, when he had dreams, he dreamed of this earth and he also
dreamed of the heavens. He dreamed of the sheaves and he dreamed of the stars and
the moon and the sun. Joseph's dreams were to improve the world, to make this a
better place. That, of course, is why it is so important that we have dreams because
it is only through having dreams and goals that we can effectuate what G-d wants
us to effectuate in this world. Why is it here in this era that so many people
take drugs? Why are so many people looking for serenity and tranquility and if
drugs will give it to them then they are willing to take it? The answer to my mind
is because 100 years ago society was a great deal different than it is today. In
the olden days if a person wanted to have 3 children to survive he had to have at
least 6, 7, 8, 9 children because so many children died from childhood diseases.
In those days 15-20% of the women died in childbirth. That is why we read so often
about people having more than one wife successively. Of course, today we have divorce,
which is fulfilling the same role.  In the olden days people had to work physically
hard from dawn to dusk, terribly hard hours. Nobody could transverse this globe
like we can today in jet airplanes; • To send a letter to Europe would take weeks.
There was an altogether different view of life. Life was stressful and hard. Therefore,
if a person had a moment of serenity or tranquility he was grateful for it but he
did not expect it to be the norm.  In today's life,, on the other hand, almost all
our children live to adulthood. Very few women die in childbirth. We are not afflicted
by all these types of diseases. The average person lives to about 80 and 100 years
ago they lived to about 40. We know that we can travel all. over the world. Within
24 hours we can be almost anyplace on the globe. There is instant communications.
Therefore, we look forward to a society which does not have all that stress. We
do not work from dawn to dusk. Therefore, we expect that our life should be without
stress and when we have any stress we immediately want to alleviate it and many
people want to alleviate it by taking drugs. People have asked me, wouldn't you
have liked to have lived in the time of Rabbi Akiva when all those great rabbis

were alive 1800 years ago? I tell them, no, I wouldn't not like to have. They
ask why not since I could have engaged in those debates and shaped the canon of
the Bible even.  I say, no, I would not have liked to live in those days. They
say, "But you could have been one of the shapers and molders of the Mishnah and
the Talmud." I say I am not interested. They ask why, and I say, "I do not want
to have half my children die. I do not want to live in a society in which there
is such pain and suffering." There still is pain and suffering in our society,
too, but it is not as pronounced and it is not the norm. Terrible things happen
in our society, too, to which there are no answers. One of our members was just
crushed to death in a senseless accident. This person gave so much to our community
and had so much still to give to our community. She died much before her time.
We do not know the answers why. We have faith that at the end of days we will understand
that G-d will tell us, but now we do not understand.. But in our day and age, by
and large, we do not have these terrible tragedies. Half of our children do not
die. Twenty percent of our wives do not die in childbirth. We live longer than
40 years. We do not have the terrible stress that they had in those days.  In those
days they took stress to be the normal condition of man. Incur day we seem to
think it the abnormal condition of man, but that is not so. We all live with a
certain amount of stress. Of course, too much stress is destructive but no stress
at all is also destructive. We do live with stress and Judaism says openly that
tranquility is no good for the religious life, that man has to have stress. He
had to have an ambition, a goal. He has to be willing to work for the goal and
this may well bring aggravation and problems, but this is what is necessary for
us in order to fulfill ourselves and achieve the inner happiness that we all desire,
and inner happiness has nothing to do with peace of mind or tranquility or serenity.
It has to do with knowing that we are fulfilling the purpose for which we were created
and that is that we are created to further the laws of morality and to fulfill G-d's
purposes on this earth.

That's, too, why many times the nations of the world hate the Jews because the Jewish
people by their presence tell them that their societies are not conforming to the
Ten Commandments, that their societies are not as just as they should be, that they
are not as good as they should be and many societies resent this. Where is it,
though, that Joseph got the power and strength to fulfill his dreams? After all,
he was a young man who was hated by his brothers, who they intended to kill but
at the last moment sold into slavery. He was sold into slavery in Potifar's house
and then for no reason at all he was imprisoned because the wife of Potifar cast
her eyes upon him and framed him because he would not go to bed with her, although
he was tempted and. almost gave in. He is a man who had all these problems and yet
he never lost his bearings. Why was that? The answer the rabbis give is because
when his father sent him to see the homeless of his brothers, to stop picking on
his brothers. After all, it is easy to pick a person apart. It does not take any
brain power at all to pick at a person's faults. None of us are perfect, and it
is easy to see the faults and even if somebody is 90-95-98% perfect you can always
spot his faults and make fun of him and try to bring a person down. Jacob told
Joseph not to do that, to look at the homeless, look at how much good your brothers
are doing, and so when he went looking for brothers it said, and the rabbis say
this was the angel Gabriel, "and a man found him and, behold, he was wandering the field, and the man asked him, 'What is it that you want?'" If a person knows
what he wants in life, if a person has a goal even though trying to achieve that
goal is stressful, even if trying to achieve that goal will cause him aggravation
that person will have the moral strength to overcome all obstacles. He will be
able to maintain his own sense of morality, too. Joseph said, "It is my brothers
that I am seeking." Joseph knew what his goal was and that essentially to live in
harmony with his brothers and to bring the teachings of the Torah to the world the
best way that he could. Therefore, he had the inner strength to withstand the blandishments
and the temptations and the tzores and personal hardship that came upon him. This,

of course, is something that we should all learn and know, and that is that if we are to achieve our goals, if we are to achieve our dreams we have to learn, as Yosef had to learn, to listen to the dreams of others, too, to listen to their dreams and help them with their dreams so that we may achieve our dreams, too. Secondly, that we also have to know what our goals are and if we know clearly what our goals are we can withstand the blandishments and tzores and temptations about us. That is, of course, is why Joseph is known as Yosef HaTzadek, as Joseph the righteous person because Joseph never gave up. Despite the stress, despite the problems he knew what his goals were and he eventually achieved them. He was reconciled with his brothers and he was able to implement many Jewish principles in the life of Egypt.
I am reminded of the story they tell which illustrates how people today do not look for stress but look for ease, about a man who was in a river fishing. All of a sudden his boat capsized. This is, of course, what a teacher was telling a class. The teacher was telling a class trying to a class logic, and he turned to one little girl and he said, "I am going to give you an illustration. What happens if your father was fishing in a boat in the middle of a river and the boat capsized and he fell in the river and he could not swim and he started to yell out? Why would your mother run to the bank?" The little girl,, without hesitation, said, "To draw out all the savings." This, of course, illustrates the point that people are more concerned about making sure that they are financially secure, making sure that they do not have any stressful living problems rather than trying to live by a moral code. We know that ultimately that will fail. Money actually will not prevent a person from having stress. What we all need in this life is not tranquility and m peace of mind. What we need are goals that are worthwhile, and even if these goals cause us stress they will also cause us happiness because we know that we are fulfilling our true nature by trying to fulfill these goals. Let us all hope and pray that we will all fulfill our goals so the Mashiach will come quickly in our day. Amen.