Community Torah Corner, December 10, 2021

In this week’s Parsha, Vayigash, we read about a beguiling interaction between Joseph and his brothers. After being sold by his brothers as a slave, and being wrongly imprisoned for twelve years, Joseph is finally reunited with his brothers. After revealing his identity, to assuage their fear of retribution, Joseph consoles them by saying, “Indeed, you intended evil against me, but G-d designed it for good.”

 

Seemingly this is a strange reaction; is this how we measure justice? As long as the outcome turns out well, should we just forgive those who have “intended evil against us”?

 

In general, is Judaism encouraging a form of fatalism - that we should exhibit blind acceptance of all that is - or a form of self-determination - that we are responsible for our actions?

 

To quote the late Lord Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks, “Judaism is an ethic of guilt”, as opposed to most other systems, which are ethics of shame. One of the fundamental differences between them is that shame attaches to the person. Guilt attaches to the act. Shame cultures when a person does wrong, he or she is … stained.  Guilt cultures what is wrong, it is not the doer but the deed, not the sinner but the sin. The person retains their fundamental worth (“the soul you gave me is pure,” as we say in our prayers).

 

My beloved, late father-in-law, Rabbi Israel Teitelbaum would always remind his children of the Pasuk from Mishlei (27: 19), “Ka’mayim hapanim la’panim kein leiv ha’adam la’adam — As water reflects a face back to a face, so one’s heart is reflected back to him by another.” As Rashi elucidates, just as one sees his reflection in the water, and the face he shows the water is the face the water shows him, to the extent that a man knows that his friend loves him, so will he show him his face — and his love.

 

Forgiveness is a form of radical self-determination. Joseph didn’t pretend that his brothers didn’t do wrong, but rather that was a reflection of what they did, not who they are. We are all, always, capable to change the way we act towards others and the way we react to one another.

 

With warmest wishes for a Shabbat Shalom to all.