Having the courage to face and correct our mistakes

The current flurry of diplomatic endeavors on both the Palestinian (what or who is a “Palestinian”?) and Iranian fronts leave one wondering: how do hundreds of millions of Muslims continue to deny what is so obviously historical fact — that an ancient Jewish State exists in what is today the State of Israel?

This question is not limited to any one particular ethnicity, religion or theology. How do hundreds of thousands of people still believe the Holocaust never happened? And how are there still people in the world who believe that Stalin was a savior to the poor people of the world?

This week’s portion, Miketz, and its place in the story of Joseph and his brothers, present a fascinating perspective on this question.

Sold by his brothers into slavery some 20 years earlier, Joseph, who has now taken the Egyptian name Tzofnat-Paneach, has, by Divine design, been elevated to the grand position of Viceroy of Egypt, the second most powerful position in the most powerful empire the world had ever known.

In the midst of a devastating famine caused by drought, the entire region has become dependant on the Nile-river based Egyptian economy, and the only food to be found is being controlled and doled out by Joseph himself.

Eventually, the brothers are forced to come to Egypt in search of grain, and soon find themselves accused of being spies, standing before the Viceroy, who unbeknownst to them is the same Joseph they mercilessly sold into slavery.

Joseph is presented with an incredible opportunity: the chance for a most delicious payback. But revenge does not seem to be on his mind (else he would have had them all thrown into a pit) and instead he orchestrates a series of puzzling events that allow the brothers to relive the opportunity they failed to seize when Joseph was in the pit, the chance to put their younger brother, who was seemingly more favored by their father Ya’acov, before them.

Taking one of the brothers (Shimon) hostage, Joseph orchestrates the descent of Binyamin (his only full brother) to Egypt, plants a silver goblet in his pack, and threatens to keep him in Egypt forever. And yet, they never recognize Joseph, nor even wonder whether he might have something to do with their continuous chain of seemingly terrible calamities.

Recall that while Yaakov assumes his long lost son Joseph is dead, the brothers know he was sold and have every reason to assume he might well be alive, and even advising or serving someone who might be connected to the bizarre series of events that surround their foray to Egypt. Why does it never occur to the brothers that Joseph might be connected to the events at hand? Tens of thousands of people are coming to Egypt for food, yet these ten brothers find themselves brought before no less than the Viceroy himself!

And how is it that when they are brought before Joseph none of them recognize their own brother whose face must still haunt their dreams?

And why is this Viceroy so interested in their father Ya’acov, constantly asking if he is still alive;nwhy does this not arouse the brothers’ curiosity?

And then there is the astounding similarity of events to the cause of the selling of Joseph in the first place? All those years ago, Joseph tells the family of his dream that the brothers’ bushels are bowing to his, and that the moon, the sun and the stars are bowing before him, and this so outrages the brothers, it pushes them over the edge, causing them to nearly kill (and actually sell as a slave) their brother. Is this not a moment one would expect to be carried in their collective consciousness?

And yet, here they are, bowing down together before a ruler they ought never to have met, and they do not even question whether Joseph might be involved?

And as if this is not enough, why would an Egyptian ruler who represents the ancient equivalent of a Nazi ReichsFuhrer accuse them of espionage, a charge with almost no basis, and then essentially let them go, simply to bring their brother back?

How is it that this Egyptian ruler who commands such a high position in the world center of pagan idolatry would say nonetheless: “Et ha’Elokim ani yareh” (“I fear G-d”) (42: 15-20)?

To top it all off, when the brothers return to Egypt with Binyamin, and are invited to the Viceroy’s home for a feast (Genesis chap. 43), they are inexplicably seated in the precise order of their birth which, while causing the brothers to “wonder” (42: 33), incredibly does not cause any of them to think Joseph might have something to do with it!

Yet, despite all of these indications, the brothers just go on about their business never questioning all of these events!

Finally, despite all these clues, the brothers are still speechless with shock when Joseph finally reveals himself to them. Why is this so shocking? Why did not a single one of them see this coming at all?

A long time ago they made an assumption, that Joseph’s motivations were impure, that he was simply after the birthright, and that perhaps ego and greed were coloring his actions and flavoring his dreams.

The result of that assumption was the righteous indignation that led to their selling of their own brother as a slave. Incredibly, 20 years later, in suggesting that perhaps all these terrible events were occurring to them because ve’lo shamanu’ eilav be’hitchaneno’ eileinu” (“we did not hear [listen to] him when he beseeched us”).

The brothers never suggest they were actually wrong to sell him, but merely are pained they were not more moved by their brother’s pain — espite it all, they still think they were justified in selling him! It is still a legitimate course of action in their eyes, because to accept that Joseph was actually a tzaddik (righteous and correct), means that their entire lives have been a lie and that everything they did was wrong. And that is a very difficult thing to do.

To actually recognize that the assumption which forms the core of a person’s entire life journey could be completely mistaken and that one’s entire life might be built on false premises takes an enormous amount of strength and great inner resolve, not to mention character.

Rare is the individual who is prepared to make such an admission, but this perhaps, is the level the Torah wants us to aspire to reach, in unraveling before us the human drama that is the story of Joseph and his brothers.

Indeed, 4,000 years later, Adlerian psychology will base its theories of self correction on the discovery of a basic flaw which is essentially an assumption often arrived at early in life, usually as the result of some form of trauma, that is the root of all the mistakes a person struggles with in his or her life.

Despite all the obvious signs, the brothers simply cannot see the obvious solution to the mystery that confronts them. To do so is to admit that the dream has come true, and that would mean they were wrong, and their lives have been based on a completely flawed assumption.

We need look no farther than today’s newspapers to find this lesson all around us.

If Oslo was a failure, because we had no real partners, then that would mean all the death and violence since then was the result of that failure and we need to completely change directions, and that is a very hard pill to swallow. Far easier to keep trying the same experiment, no matter how strange that may seem, than admit such far-reaching errors.

And on the individual level, if I am miserable as a lawyer because I chose the field for the wrong reasons then I might need to accept twenty years of mistakes, in order to make life better. And if the fellow or relative I am angry at actually had a point, then I might need to accept that I have been walking a path of behavior based on a completely mistaken assumption.

This may be one reason why this portion of Miketz always falls on the Shabbat of Chanukah: because this is the essence of what Chanukah was all about.

Too many Jews were living lives based on Greek assumptions that from a Jewish perception were completely flawed. And that may be why the festival of Chanukah is all about lighting the Menorah, because the solution to correcting flawed assumptions, is to hold them up to the light of impartial analysis, the light of objective truth, which from a Jewish perspective is the ancient and ever beautiful light of Torah.

Indeed, on Chanukah the Temple was not destroyed and rebuilt, it had simply become polluted by Greek idolatry and paganism. So the Macabees cleaned up and re-dedicated it; hence the name Chanukah, related to the word chen, or inner beauty. Chanukah is about looking deep inside us to rediscover the inner beauty that was always there; the beauty that shone forth before our mistaken assumptions clouded them over and hid them away.

This year, may we have the wisdom to discover our mistakes, the strength to correct them and the courage to change our ways and paths, opinions and perspectives, to live up to those new assumptions.