VaYeshev

Have you ever been jealous of your brothers or sisters? Maybe they got new clothes and you didn’t. Or Maybe they got to see a movie that you didn’t get to see. If you have, you’re definitely not alone. Even if you haven’t been jealous of your siblings (or don’t have siblings to be jealous of), I’m sure that at one point or another, we’ve all been jealous of another person. Of course, I’m not saying that it’s okay to be jealous of someone else. It’s even mentioned in the Ten Commandments as something we should not do. But, if you do find yourself being jealous of someone else, you’re in good company. This problem of jealousy has been around a long, long time.

This week’s Torah portion will probably sound very familiar to most-if not all-of you. It’s the story of Joseph and his brothers found in Genesis 37. As you’ll remember from a couple of week’s ago, Jacob had twelve sons whom I’m sure he loved very much. But the son he loved the most was Joseph the firstborn son of his wife Rachel. This fact was made painfully clear to his other sons when he made an elaborate coat for Joseph. Although, Jacob had probably given gifts to Joseph in the past, the coat was definitely the last straw. Any time he wore it, it was as if he was saying “I’m the favorite son and you guys aren’t.” To make matters worse, he also began telling him about dreams he’d been having in which they bowed to him. In one dream, the twelve of them were out gathering wheat when suddenly Joseph’s bundle stood up straight and the other eleven bundles bowed to it. In the other dream, The sun, moon, and stars (eleven of them) bowed to him. His brothers, who were already jealous and angry now began to hate him, so much in fact, that they plotted revenge.

I feel like I should throw in a little side note here. Although the brothers were certainly guilty of envy and hatred toward Joseph, Joseph was not completely innocent either. What was he exhibiting when he told his brothers about his dreams and paraded in front of them in the coat their father had given to him? That’s right, pride. Sometimes you can’t help it if other people are jealous of you, but you don’t have to make it worse by throwing it in their faces.

Anyway, back to our story. At first, the brothers plan on killing Joseph, but Reuban convinces them not to. As much as he disliked Joseph, he knew that killing him would not be a good idea. Instead, he had them throw Joseph in an empty well from which he planned to rescue him later. Although his plan backfired later when his brothers ended up selling Joseph into slavery in Egypt, his heart was still in the right place. I wonder what I would have done if I had been there. Would I have been one of the ones plotting murder, or would I have been the one to stand up and say “No, we can’t do this. This is wrong.” What would you have done?

Life really isn’t fair, is it? If it were, Jacob would have treated all of his sons equally, and Joseph would not have had to go through what he did. But there is another way to think about it. If life were fair, everyone would get what he or she deserves, right? As a fallen people, a people who continually sin, what do we deserve? In the book of Romans, we read that the wages (the price) of sin is death. But because God sent His son Yeshua to die for sins that he did not commit, we don’t have to die. Instead, we will get to live in heaven forever with Him. Isn’t it good that life isn’t fair?