Rebbetzen Tziporah

 Dear friends,

How much do you like vacations? It’s a tricky question. Needing to take a break, breathe in so that you can continue breathing out, and enrich your inner vocabulary are all real needs for most of us. For the real tzadikim, a vacation is always towards more, not a secret whisper that says, “Less”.

More what? Delight in doing what’s real and meaningful, and feeling the result – having a touch of Olam Haba, the future life, while still here on terra firma. When Yaakov wanted to finally feel that he can serve Hashem with tranquility and serenity, the answer he received from Above was a resounding no. Simchah yes. Tranquility, no.

More growth (make no mistake, dveikus in Hashem doesn’t have a roof — He is infinite), greater giving, and a deeper understanding of what serving Hashem from a place of concealment means. The deepest brand of concealment is the darkness that hides in the human heart. 

Yaakov had to confront this, as we see both here in VaYeishev, and in the rest of his story which continues until the end of Berashis.

There are three distinct ways in which the great Chassidic leaders of the past confronted this kind of darkness:

1 - The path of the Bardichever Rebbe. He would have been able to see that the brother’s jealousy of Yosef came from their desire to see unity in what would later be the Jewish People. He would probably have said, “Even when they are jealous, it is for Your sake to protect our people's future.”

2 - The path of Rebbe Elimelech of Lizhensk. He would have trained his inner eye to see good with such almost supernatural acuity that all he would see would have been the intention rather than the deed.

3 - The path of the Baal Shem Tov, who would have been able to say to himself, “they have fallen into a terrible pit, there is hatred there and envy and it is covered with the veneer of the need to be committed to preserving our people.

So what? If you see someone fall, your job is to help them get up.

I recently read about the divergence of these 3 paths in an article written by Rav Yitzchak Dovid Grossman, a person who lives all three of them.   

The worst moment was when the sale was over. Yosef was gone. They sat down for a meal. If they were aware of the gravity of the tragic moment, they couldn’t possibly have eaten a meal, even if they genuinely believed that this is what had to be done.  If a limb has to be amputated out of medical necessity no one throws a party.

The end of the story is that Yaakov blesses Yosef’s two sons, Menashe and Efraim. They were born in Egypt, and reached the level of any of the other tribes. Am Yisrael ultimately was enriched by the tragic circumstances that brought Yosef to Egypt, a place in which the challenges that he faced turned him into being a person we habitually refer to as “Yosef HaTzadik”, not just plain ordinary Yosef.

There is a price to pay for the revelation of hidden goodness. Facing challenges doesn’t always lead to success, and by its nature doesn’t lead to immediate success, but at the end of the story there may not be tranquility but there is great, great joy.

Happy Chanukah!

The Chanukah story took place in Eretz Yisrael, when we were deep in the Grecian exile. It was absolute light in the midst of the greatest darkness, darkness of the heart and of the mind. Eretz Yisrael gives you what no other place gives you, but it is a place so challenging that you need to affirm its value to you every so often. 

You need to take a vacation to be able to breathe out. My daughter Devora organized one of her trips to kivrei tzadikim. If you are here, and would like a spiritual break, here are the details.

 

Love,

Tziporah