Parsha Perspectives (Vayeishev, 5782) - Just Want to Belong

okay good morning boca tov welcome back to partial perspectives for today we have the privilege this week of studying pashas vaishev and we know that myself was similar bonham all of save for boracious is not just studying ancient history we're not just learning and reviewing what happened long ago but we're actually reading what is meant to be our filter to be able to interpret what's happening today there are partial perspectives for today and as much as the world has changed so much has stayed the same particularly in our passion we see the animosity the enmity we see the tension the strife among brothers that we tragically continue to still suffer from there's so much to learn from this parish i want to thank our generous sponsors of the series for the year becky navi cats and family in memory of david grossman becky's father our learning should be also this morning is sponsored by karina ben smee and cone tour learning in memory of her father david smith passed away the 19th of kiss like 20 years ago and by ben and dina isaacs and howard stricker and loving memory of howard's parents evelyn dr eugene stricker thank you to all of our generous sponsors our dear friends we thank you for your support and your partnership page 198 in the arts growth stone hamish i hope you all have a humish so great to see everybody live together back in person and i'm so glad that you are here thank you it means so much to me yaakov settled this is in contrast by the way to last week's pasha where the passion begins with yaakov sending a message to his brother aesop through malachim through agents he tells them he doesn't say in love on yashafi he says aguer is a stranger i was passing through i was an outsider it's true for 20 years i was with love on 20 years is a long time ago think about where you were 20 years ago 20 years is a very long time so yes jakob says i was with love on 20 years it's a long time but do you know the entire time i was there i was an outsider i participated i contributed i benefited i immersed myself in what was the best of being there but i was able to be mindful at the same time that i was an outsider i was aguer here vaishav yaakov it doesn't say garthy it says which is a resident i took up residency this was part of my identity i was fully there barrett's magurey aviv beretskanan back home back in the land of a father back where he belonged and we know rashi tells us that bk shack of leicester yaakov just wanted some peace and quiet he just wanted some peace and quiet who doesn't want peace and quiet who doesn't want tranquility and serenity who doesn't want to just sit by the pool under the palm tree sipping the pina colada learning some parshas some torah and relaxing the bonus you'll never find a rocking chair on a factory floor unless they're producing rocking chairs i guess but you won't find a rocking chair on a factory floor why because it's very clear that the factory floor is a place to work that's why you're there you're not there to sip a pina colada you're not there to kick back and sit back and relax the reason you're on the factory floor is to work so there is no recliner there's no leather recliner on the factory floor that's up in the executive's office overlooking the factory floor but on the factory floor you're there to work sashem says look around this world you're there for the blink of an eye we're barely here if we're lucky 80 90 100 years 120 years and the span of eternity that's nothing it's nothing it's a blip on the screen so why are we here we're here to work cover this is the factory floor we're meant to make a difference it doesn't matter what stage of life it doesn't matter whether professionally you are retired or still working but in life we're all we have work to do the candle's still burning the light is still on the factory's still pumping and therefore yaakov he thought but yaakov was lazy was lazy akov is the quintessential of our patriarchs he wasn't lazy he wasn't looking for a way out to cop out yaakov thought how do i serve hashem if i just have some calm some stability if i can just have some peace and quiet then i can really serve hashem hashem said that's not how you serve me you serve me when you're agitated the pearl the oyster produces the pearl through agitation you serve me when you are challenged we serve when we're tested we serve when we are pushed we serve when we recognize that we have work to do we have effort to make life doesn't come simple and it's the result of that effort where we have growth where we're able to break through ella told us 17 years old he's a shepherd all of our great patriarchs were shepherd our great leaders first needed to do an internship as a shepherd we spoke about and studied about this in the past and the notion of his bone to this being comfortable in our own skin being okay with alone time the shepherd didn't have a phone shepard couldn't text or watch or listen to podcasts the shepherd wasn't facetiming the shepherd was alone but he wasn't alone the shepherd was with hashem shepherd was with nature the shepherd is with himself learning about himself and being a shepherd is a prerequisite to being a spiritual shepherd of a holy flock of people we don't do that today and why you smile it should be a requirement you have to go out and be a shepherd i don't feel like a day maybe i don't know if we can last much longer than that get the cool staff and where the i don't know how you own your shepherd a day a week a month imagine you tell your parents imagine your grandchildren came home i decided what i wanted to accounting no law no pre-med no i want to be a shepherd i want to follow in the footsteps of me it's like in yaakov i want to be like moshe i want to be like yosef i want to be a shepherd but you see that the zion rome the zoar calls the great leaders the seven guests that we welcome to our sukkah the tsar calls them the seven holy shepherds they're not the seven computer programmers seven doctors and lawyers they're the seven shepherds to be a shepherd to be a shepherd is a prerequisite to be able to shepherd hashem's children our flock so yosemit is a holy shepherd he's the holy shepherd who now has been abilities we're not going to review the beginning of the passion in this sense you could listen last year the year before where we focused a lot on the tension between yosef and his brothers we focused on what created that tension where is the breakdown when there's not even communication conversation when we focus on our differences rather than our similarities how does that come to be that animosity the envy that leads to the fracture and the divisiveness that we continue to suffer from until this very day the hatred the criticism the judgment that we continue to suffer from until this very day the problem was already depicted in our parsha and the solution is already in the torah we just haven't learned the lesson for 2000 years we just refused to learn the lesson we'd rather be adding to other throats we'd rather fight and judge than find solutions so jose has these dreams we're moving right along yosef has these dreams and he tells his brother's dreams why is he telling his brother's dreams does jose guilty for precipitating this what does the other day think exactly is going to happen here he has these dreams that he's got these big brothers and in his dreams and both of the versions of the dreams these big brothers bow down to him they defer to him they concede before him so he says hey guys listen to this dream i had so interesting i had such an interesting dream what exactly did he think they were gonna say oh that's fantastic why don't we just do it right now we'll bow down to you right now little brother why should it just be a dream let's bring it into reality without what did he think was going to happen so i saw a commentary that says you know what he thought was going to happen what he thought was going to happen was he's the youngest of the brothers tilbun yaman so he's saying to them is in in the dream god gave me this divine inspiration i had this vision where even though i am the youngest the least developed the least mature the least accomplished look who i could become and if that's true for me the youngest all the more so for you yaakov said even with that good intention probably shouldn't share those dreams even though you think that's the message inside that's your vision of the message your version probably still not a good idea to share those dreams but nevertheless even though the dreams are not meant to be shared yosef actually yosef triggered this jealousy this envy among his brothers somewhat understandably the brother's reaction but you know who was not triggered you know who actually saw some prophecy in those dreams held on to them believed they were going to come true thought they were foreboding page 200. the brothers became jealous of the yak of held on aviv what does that mean the word shaman means the safeguard to vigilantly safeguard and protect to shemar so what does it mean his father shall marry misspoke last week and i applied these words of later but they're here now with the dreams shalom sat and waited and wondered when will they come true yosef had these dreams and yaakov didn't dismiss them yaakov didn't just criticize and reject them and say still don't tell anyone don't post it don't blog about it don't vlog about it don't anything about it keep those dreams to yourself yaakov said whoa there's something here and i can't wait to see what's going to be god was giving yosef and through yosef me and us a glimpse and an insight a vision of what's going to be he held on and he waited he longed to see what would be to see what would be famously i say it all the time though if you saw the after of says that's what it means to be a shame of shabbos is not to observe shabbos on shabbos to be ashamed of shamanism is to long forward to wait to anticipate to get ready for it to prepare to be ashamed of shabbos is sunday through friday that's show me shabbat shamara to prepare to wait too long to get ready to get excited wait till you hear tomorrow what's today tuesday tomorrow night's interview author of machus the husband of the late rabbits and machlas they host 200 people of shabbos at their home their apartment their tiny little apartment in yerushalayim in the home overflowing out of the home throughout the courtyard 200 people so i'm behind the beam we'll talk to him how do you prepare how do you shop how do you get ready 200 portions of chicken soup 200 pieces of kugel 200 plates and forks and that how do you do that how do you do that how do you run a meal with 200 people at the meal when in a week do you need to start getting ready how do you look forward to anticipating shabbos it's unbelievable so shamar said there are show more shabbos so if destler has a comment yaakov was holding on listen to the sir dessler it's he says the following the way of the righteous is not to experience something in life something meaningful something that should give you pause something that should make you reflect something that you should record and write down and hold on to the righteous don't just live it in a fleeting temporal fashion drop it and move on the righteous grab it and hold on they grab it and hold on the magistrate here writes because know when yosef came and reported that dream you know what yaakov did he took out his pen and he took out his pad today he took out his phone and took out his ipad took out his laptop he took out his keyboard you know what yaakov did when jose said something to him that he thought ad divine significance that he thought was significant and meaningful he recorded it for posterity he didn't let it be fleeting he didn't let it pass him by varus with divine inspiration he realized don't let this go don't move on don't simply drop it it took more than 22 years josef sold yaakov is alone he's waiting he's longing he's wondering he refused to be consoled he's inconsolable and it took 22 years to understand what these dreams meant but you know what happened when he did he took out his little pincus he took out his little notebook he opened his little word document his file and he said i knew that day it was on tuesday it was on your test kisle your test case hey look at kislyak don't forget to come to the big fight bring it tomorrow night and it was tuesday you'd test kiss slave and it was at 9 44 that yosef told me this dream and this is nothing to forget i want to hold on to this question you know if you're wicked if you're evil if you feel if you feel the world is filled with randomness and chance then there's nothing worth holding on to you live life in super speed and you just let go and you move on and you never pause and you never experience and you never record for posterity and you never review and you never try to understand the meaningful things that are going on in life adjacent to the story of miriam we're supposed to learn but we didn't learn life's experiences are supposed to teach the greatest classroom is life itself and the curriculum is coming from the almighty every day and all around us when we stop and we pause and we reflect and we learn and we write and we record and we review we become students of life and when you're simply just moving on then you don't experience life at all some people are constantly racing to the next thing they're moving on to the next experience we're not experiencing life we're not recording it and i thought that was such an interesting insight over destler that the aviv shamar yaakov had a notebook for each child we have a good friend who lives in the community six beautiful children each one has their own notebook since they were a little baby and when they'd say something cute or adorable you'd write it down in their notebook at each of their bat mitzvah bar mitzvahs father in a speech would take out their notebook and read a few cute things when they were three when they were six when they were nine when they're 12 i don't know if he's still doing that they're married please god can have children i don't know if he's still recording him but but if you care how many of us have i remember they once said something cute i don't remember who where when which child what they said but once they were cute we lost out on the opportunity i remember once i was in a place and i had an insight and a breakthrough and i saw something that changed me but i don't remember where or when or what it was or how i was changed but imagine if we took out a notebook a journal and we journal our life that's that's this week's passion says dessler do we care enough to record to journal what happens in life to be able to continue to learn from it paragraph italian possibility chapter 37 verse 11 the same possibility sorry we just read that moving on matavakesh paraglia so what happens what happens the brothers go out in order to check on the sheep they go check on the sheep are they really checking on the sheep look at the word s top of page 202 paragraph 9 verse they go to see what s what's over the word s two dots you know why there were there are two dots over the word s were they really going to check on the sheep who are they going to check on the shepherd they they posed as if they were going to check on the sheep le rose says but they weren't going to check on the sheep they were going to find the shepherd israel and now yaakov tells yosef your brothers they want to go look for your brothers are out there we say every year there's a theory of yo benue and others have that the reason yosef doesn't ultimately get in touch with his father even after he sold his slavery and after he rises to a position that he could easily get in touch because yosef assumed was based on this possum that just like avraham kicked ishmael out of the house and just like yitzhak ultimately rejects asuf so i guess i'm the reject yosef assumes when my father sent me out and when i went out i ended up in the bottom of a pit and ended up in a foreign land and my father's the one who started that my father's the one who sent me to go see my brothers where i found my brothers and they put me in the bottom of a pit i guess i'm the reject of this generation so why reach out and get in touch with my father i guess i'm the reject i guess i'm the reject another shameless plug will talk to of bachelors in the book about his wife hani machas allah unbelievable book they have four i believe with 14 children and one of them went off to derek at one point was not living in observant life and there's a whole chapter written by that daughter of how her mother interacted with her in that period of her life and the way her mother loved her and did the opposite of making her feel like a reject when her other children were around but someone was there she'd call over the daughter who was off the door and say come did you meet my daughter isn't she beautiful isn't she amazing i'm so proud of her i love her so much she writes in the book about how her mother treated her not when she was at her best but when she was living a life that should have most disappointed her mother so yosef says every generation has the reject i guess i'm the reject of this generation my father just sent me out of the house i ended up on the bottom of a pit i ended up in the back of a 18-wheeler truck on my way being sold down to egypt i guess i'm the reject i guess i'm the reject so he goes like in sayawish and he runs into a man who is this ish last week we had an ish last week's parachute we had an ishiakov wrestled with a niche the whole night this week we have a niche last week's ish was the devil this week's ish is an angel this week's ish is the malaka of rio who yosef's lost we have another name for the malek of real we call her ways yosef's lost he says i can't find my brothers but what does the angel say amal gavriel look at this pasuk i love this void you ready verse 15. this angel asks what are you looking for now we would translate as matavakesh means what are you looking for means you're lost you don't have waze you don't have a gps you don't have google maps you don't even have map quest oliver show him you're lost remember when mapquest was the coolest thing that ever happened remember that you're like it's so cool you could print that out and it gives you directions there's even a little icon a left arrow and a right arrow it's amazing until the first wrong turn then you might as well crumple it up and throw it out the window because it was useless so matava case you look lost you have no idea how to get where you're going the angel the mouth gabriel says no how can i help you how can i help you by omar it's i'm looking for my brothers ah this parish is so unbelievable he doesn't say i'm looking for two two two three four holly hawk he doesn't say i'm looking for the carvel in the corner of the dunkin donuts he says i'm looking for my brothers i'm looking for my brothers so there's like in all of torah and in our passion in particular there's the surface of what we're reading and then there's the conversation beneath the surface there's the penemius there's the depth of what we're reading so what was the molecule of real what was this angel saying matavakesh he wasn't saying what's the address what are the coordinates what are you looking for what was he saying mata vacation listen to the khatsuka oh hey look at me i love this angel if the angel last week that yaakov wrestled with the whole night is his alter ego if the angel last week is the worst part of him his alter ego the voice of self-sabotage then the angel this week is that angel the good voice the angel that brings out and encourages us and pushes us to be the best version of ourself and the angel says you know how you become the best version of yourself yosef you need to ask yourself and always ask yourself and come back and again ask yourself matavakesh what are you mavakish what are you mavakish what are you looking for what are you longing for in what way are you omavakish so that's the cutscore katsuka very succinct the kotzker's teachings and torah he didn't write his own because the khatskar i've shared before felt i'm going to ride a safer so a jew on a friday night we'll lie on the couch and we'll fall asleep and my safer will end up on the floor in a puddle of drool for that i should ride a safer that's what he famously said to cutscore so he didn't but his students and his tamida men that came from him did record and they record his teachings in other ways right he says she is this angel is telling him this angel is saying yo safe you're coming from the helico home of your father yaakov you grew up in the basement of yaakov avinu you came from the greatest rosh hashida living example and you're on your way down to the worst most corrupt most morally depraved you're going into the worst place the den of iniquity how are you going to survive how are you going to more than survive how are you going to thrive how do you come out of the protection the cocoon the pure-based majority of yaakov and how are you going to make it in a place of corruption moral decay in a place of temptation desire how are you going to make it and the answer was matavakesh you gotta ask yourself over and over are you a mavakesh and what are you mavakesh what are your aspirations what are your goals what are your uranus what do you long for what do you want what do you want this is recorded is you know what you should be asking so the simple understanding is matavakish what are you akish in what way are you what are you mavakish what do you want a nicer car a nicer house mata mabakesh what do you want less wrinkles what's your mo what's your bakasha what is your longing there's nothing wrong with fewer wrinkles there's nothing wrong with having fewer wrinkles there's nothing wrong with having a nice car but if you get to ask for one thing the angel taps you on the shoulder and says one wish i know we should all answer that i can have all the wishes in the world but one wish and the angel let's say knows that trick and he says one wish for real what is your bakasha is it nachos from your children and grandchildren is it more you're a shamayim is it to make a difference is it to fulfill the reason you're created what's your bakasha matavakesh you live your life what are you living your life for dr pelkovitz the great dr pelkovitz likes to put it what's the bumper sticker on the back of your minivan used to stay station wagon what's the bumper sticker on the back of your minivan is it ivy league or bust is it you're a shamayim is it having the best midos is it doing the most is it being a mention what's the what's the children who grew up in your home when they graduate if they said what was the most important thing to my parents what would give my parents the greatest nachas what would their answer be that's the katskar the good angel the malach of rio when he finds yosef and yosef is in this transition point yosef is in this pivotal moment joseph is on his way down from the basement of yaakov down shuto he's going down into the din of iniquity to the place of moral corruption he's going into the place of the greatest temptation he can easily lose himself and the angel says your moral compass is always asking yourself over and over again mata malakis what is your bakasha are you a mavakish what are you looking for what are you longing for what are you longing for and you know what the answer is it's in the pasuk it's in the past except the basis you know what the answer is you know what you should be servant looking for ma what's ma my mother's here ma i'm looking for you mom so happy you're here this week what's the ma we're looking for ma m a that's what jews call them others when they're whining it's ma matavakesh what's the math that we're looking for so listen to what the business is all said and what's the ma later in safer dvd says what does hashem want from you simply to have more yire shamayim so what are you marvakesh you should be mavakesh the ma the mash that should be what your mavakish what is the what is your safe answer look at this look at this magnificent conversation what is the answer you know what i want i want some actus i'm just looking for my brothers i want to feel like a brother i want to be accepted i want to be loved i have a different mother than the rest they're only half brothers and they remind me of that every day when they shove me in the locker or when they call me a name or when they they don't include me because i have a different mother even though we have the same father and you know what i want you know what my bakasha you know what i'm a vakesh you know what i long for is i just want to fit in i just want actus i just want i just want my brothers i just want my brothers so ma says the good angel amalek gavriel wherever you're going whatever you do and wherever you'll be you will stay grounded you'll have an anchor and a compass if you ask what's your are you a mavakish are you a searcher are you longing or are you settled in are you apathetic and complacent or are you marvakish are you mavakish pasik says both until him and devraya yamam we say in our psuche de zimmer every let the hearts of those who seek hashem be happy you know normally normally when you look for something you're only happy when you find it if you lost something and you're looking for it you don't say well it was a fun search i didn't find it but at least i had fun while i was looking said nobody ever in history if you're looking for it the success is measured by whether you found it if you're looking for more wealth you invest you're entrepreneurial and you have business ideas and you fail you don't say well it was fun while we went bankrupt we had a good time on the way down to poverty to failure you say if i failed i failed but when you're looking for hashem hashem's promise is that if you're looking for me the whole journey itself is rewarding yes the satisfaction the joy the happiness the pleasure of the search itself is incredibly rewarding even if you didn't find even if you're struggling to still find just the journey is in fact just the journey is in fact incredibly rewarding the divre israel the majority says the debris israel the majority says the following the surah taub he says says that the word is an illusion as a reference to torah why would i noki be an illusion to torah no we got a live audience here we've got some live ones i think because the assays begin says you could reduce in fact the whole assertion the ten commandments you could reduce to one the whole 6 13 can be reduced to 10 and the 10 can be reduced to 1 and the 1 can be reduced to the opening word all of torah can be condensed into the word hashem says hi i'm here that's it the rest is commentary i'm here and therefore i want a relationship therefore i'm in charge therefore i love you support you guide you therefore there's meaning and purpose to life therefore i have a mission i mandate for you everything else is commentary but it all begins with anoki hi says god i'm here notice me look for me seek for me seek me so anoki is high no torah says the majority the isa and when you're learning torah it can't be that torah divides torah cannot be a weapon torah cannot be a weapon to clog others over the head torah is not a weapon to criticize and judge torah is not a weapon to divide torah should be the ultimate uniter torah should be the ultimate platform to bring jews together and unite says the muslims of the devotees one of the 48 ways the torah is acquired in islam bryce in the sixth chapter of pirkei elvas one of the 48 ways the torah is acquired is dibuk khawrem you can't learn torah if you go live on an island by yourself you can't learn torah if you're in a room that you hate everybody there and you call them a name and you reject every idea that they raise a prerequisite to torah learning is dee bokhoderim you have to have a good hebrew you have to have a good javascript you have to have good friends you have to connect the torus my brothers that's what that's my bakasha said yaakov back said yosef back to this angel the malaka of real you know what i'm looking for i'm looking for my brothers i just want some actus i just want to fit in i just want to be together and feel that we are together that's what i'm looking for but the monster the base of sorrow takes a step further and says you know what the torah's the torah wants us to be together the torah wants us to feel together that is what the torah is about here's the second shot that much of the division means what's the truth i don't mean in israel the lower so you could sleep in the dark out shades what are trees in our shields they protect i guess like the trees protects but the uh the trees and are shields so why are tamita called the guardians of the shields sort of cook says in his commentary on the egotic sections of talmud such a beautiful chat he says in the torah when the basement are going at it they're going at it and you think you're far and i say my swarm you're as far as ridiculous and here's why i poke a hole in it near my swarm i can so the attitude of the time of the base madrish is not that i take my weapon and i destroy you it's that i hold up a shield and i protect what i believe my goal is not to destroy you my goal is to stand for what i believe they're not called the guardians of the bow and arrow the guardian of the sword the guardian of the of the uzi or the rifle they're called the guardian of the shield because don't go on the attack doesn't go on the attack because torah is supposed to bring us together and torah is supposed to unite us and torah is meant to be the glue that holds us together so we don't go on the attack rather we protect what we believe and we protect what we stand for okay paragliding is moving along the brothers now see yosef they see him from a distance and the brothers approach them they conspire against him and what do they want to do to him they want to kill him they want to kill him they could ask a very simple question these brothers want to kill him first of all there's an amazing sofa in our parsha it's impressive but it applies here he wants to know the brothers see and they want to kill him when yosef is about to sin in our pasha with the wife of potiphar a beautiful seductress a beautiful temptress over and over relentlessly pursues yosef yosef has nothing to lose he's far from his family he has no reputation he has nothing to lose to give in to this temptation he's a single man he's a handsome man who women peer over the wall they throw themselves at him and yosef has nothing to lose where does he muster the strength the courage to resist her temptation we all know the ghazal what gives him the strength to musl of if he sees the image of his father maybe he looked in the mirror and he saw he was the spinning image of his father so he looked in the mirror but he saw his father and he said that it's beneath you it's been easy yosef don't do it you got this we'll talk about that more another time so the sofa wants to know how come the brothers are about to kill yosef they conspired to kill him remember at first they're going to kill him they let him live in the end and thank god for that but they're ready to kill him why didn't the image of their father pop into their head did you ever think about that question me neither some silver did thank god why didn't they have the most aleve why didn't they think why didn't they see the image of their father like yosef does why didn't it save them you know for answers he says there are a lot of yet saharas that we face a lot of urges that we have we spoke in the shabby shop with russia it feels like a lifetime ago we spoke about the pause between the urge and the action that the way to live a healthier life the way to overcome that voice of temptation is to realize that the urge does not have to lead to action they're not synonymous they're not simultaneous but there's a pause between the urge and the action we talked about this in torah we talked about this in modern research and we talked about this in motivation to create the pause between the urge and the action so there are urges that we can create that pause you're tempted to sleep in you're tempted to eat the wrong thing you're tempted to react the wrong way take that deep breath breath and take that pause and we can do it he says but there's one urge there's one drive in a person that it's almost impossible to have a pause and you know what that is hatred when a person is filled with hatred when you have sinner you lose your mind we've seen people quite literally lose their mind when they're filled with sinner lebron james the other night happened to not be a fan threw an elbow and made someone else bleed and anyone who saw the highlight you'll see that i remember his name on the opposing team i don't even know what team it was he lost his mind three times going after lebron a person who feels injured physically emotionally or spiritually and gets filled with a hatred and a vengeance loses their mind against their own best interest how many people have brought themselves down in the pursuit of attacking someone else is says these brothers were filled with such hatred such sinner that is the power of sinner the power of sinner the power of anger and rage we become different people our judgment is clouded so for yaakov's image did appear but they didn't see it they couldn't see it because when you're filled with rage you can't even see the truth right in front of you when you're filled with rage it's like cataract and macular degeneration combined when you're filled with rage you can't see you become blind to what's right in front of you so yaakov's image did appear to them like it appeared to yosef they simply couldn't see because they were filled with such anger and such rage and we continue to suffer from that as we spoke about until today but the soron's not satisfied this foreign look at this for now i say look as if you have microscopes if you have them at rose godolas look at this foreign italian commentator and he writes here on this puzzle paragraph and he says the following they conspired they were going to kill him now does it bother you these are the shifts we're talking about this is not some gang this is not the mafia this is not the lowest shear this is not not to say anything wrong with the lower shear i myself as a child it was not a right ma i was not mate i was not a great student but meaning this is not the rejects these are the shifted car these are the 12 tribes the 11 these are the greatest these are the individuals whose names are on the ocean the high priest wears them on his uniform in the holiest place in the world at the holiest time and they conspired to kill their brother to murder their brother in cold blood says this foreigner the language of conspire tells us that this was premeditated premeditated this was not self-defense you know there was a very high profile trial just now this was not self-defense this was premeditated murder omar shah was joseph if you look at the grammar if you look at the dikduk you'll see it reveals do you know why the brothers felt that they could kill yosef it was not premeditated murder they thought they were acting in self-defense they believed that yosef's dreams and that yosef had his own yosef was conspiring himself to eliminate his brothers they thought yosef was going to kill them and they therefore believed with all their heart that they were acting in self-defense these great tribes whose names are on the names appear before hashem how did they unite to conspire to kill their own brother olamakuro to sell them they didn't even feel bad afterwards they didn't even have regret afterwards even later when they say we were guilty they don't say we were guilty of what we tried to do we felt guilty of how it turned out we're guilty of the pain that caused our father but they don't feel guilty that at the time they did the wrong thing says that's verna you know why because they say if we could do it again we do it the same way because we thought he was trying to kill us we were acting in self-defense the torah says someone trying to kill you rise and you can kill them you can kill them self-defense so the foreigner says and he tries to make a little bit more sense of what's going on for us this foreign says do you know why the brothers felt justified and conspiring to kill yosef self-defense he was coming to kill them which begs the question that revolver then asks if this foreign was right that the brothers were acting in self-defense then would they do wrong what did they do wrong and how do we know they did wrong torah tells us they did wrong but tells us the ten martyrs the hands of the romans were paying the price of the terrible sin of these ten brothers we continue to suffer from it until today the baseless hatred we know what they did was wrong we know what they did is wrong so if this foreign was right if sin if if the sorority was right his interpretation that these brothers were acting in self-defense then what did they do wrong and listen to this insight by revolver oh it's unbelievable so our core obligation is to study torah is to both read the surface to read the simple understanding and meaning of the text and to take a deep dive to try to understand what's going on beneath the surface of the text and he says here mahalo so the simple understanding is they considered him a road if he was coming to kill them they were entitled in self-defense to kill him but there was also some underlying drive that was kinna sina jesus their ego says revolt and not me says revolver they're annoying their ego got in the way they were jealous they were envious they were arrogant so he says he says how do you know this go back to that word s that word s has the two letters on top so it tells us that it tells us that on the surface these brothers were going to check in on yosef on the surface they thought they were acting in self-defense according to this phono but just beneath the surface they had an alternative motive ulterior motive just beneath the surface their act was laced with egocentric feelings their action was laced with egocentric feelings they brought the brothers had jealousy and hatred even if it was subconscious so the torah is telling us we are responsible for our subconscious feelings as well even when we're doing the right thing but if we're driven to do what is what is a justifiably right thing but we're driven to do it for the wrong reason then we are accountable for that even if this foreign was right that they were acting in self-defense that yosef was a road dave at least they perceived it as such nevertheless what they did was wrong why because their actions were laced with selfish motive with envy and with jealousy and with arrogance midos are a very very important factor says revolver it's not just about what we do externally it's about why we do it what's driving us to do it the person what we call it the person on the gears personality is you know somebody has to do something somebody needs to be suspended from shul from the community a child needs to be need some time out at home who is the one who executes on that decision sometimes you say you can't do it you know why you have personal nigias even though they deserve it you have personal negias here you're biased you'll get a certain joy from it you have a certain hatred or jealousy in it so we have to be aware of those feelings even subconscious feelings says revolba we are accountable for or we have to be aware of even the subconscious feelings and that we are accountable even if we do a justifiable action if we are doing it for a non-justifiable reason then we are accountable we salavichik has a different interpretation of miracle the brother saw him from a distance from afar says the rav at the moment that he tried to come close to they rejected him he appeared strange to his brothers they could not perceive the beauty hidden in the soul the younger brother his sanctity was hidden behind the curtain of his external appearance which intervened to hide the sublime and wonders within him the coat of many colors the external covered what was taking place beneath to his brothers his beauty was merely superficial a sun charming to the eye each one strode along to see him only his father understood that his handsome son with the flowing locks of hair with the dream-filled eyes that revealed both soft refinement and great strength was given to a vision beyond the boundaries of this world and was swept along in a strong storm of emotion yearnings for redemption and transcendence only his father understood that the dream implanted within him was directed toward not towards tangible goals but towards a holy pure existence only his father grasped that the deceptively attractive external reflected in an inner light you know sometimes beauty is a liability sometimes charisma is a liability it makes people cynical or sarcastic about you it makes people believe that there's nothing belief to surface that there's no depth and that was the mistake that the brothers had they saw him by uru oso they saw him they kept him at a distance and arm's length away oh you're the good-looking you're the charismatic you're the charming you're the jock you're the this you're the that they never got to know the real hymn they never got to see inside him all they saw was the curated social media profile of yosef they didn't bother and maybe yosef didn't allow them to get inside who he really was they only saw him merak you know who got inside yosef's inner chamber inside his heart who really understood him his father that's why his father was shaming but yosef walked around misunderstood yosef walked around lonely yosef walked around he was very blessed he was brilliant and good-looking and charismatic and athletic and artistic and he had alamylas he was one of the mitsuyanam and that sounds like it's an amazing asset but for yosef it was also a liability because it left him feeling very alone his own brother saw him from a distance he's the other he's the outsider he's the one with the perfectly curated profile he's the one who everything comes easy they didn't let him in the brothers thought that personal holiness a pure heart and modest soul were inconsistent with yosef's concern for his appearance that you can't be handsome and charming and charismatic and also have depth and authenticity to you they looked at their handsome sibling with suspicion he was guilty of paying too much attention to his physical self adorning himself combing his hair and his desire to attract praise he was guilty of displaying something grandizing pride the sun the moon the eleven stars even after his death yosef's real self remained hidden he was always viewed from afar a cold white statue devoid of warmth the embalmers turned him into a frozen mummy and closed his coffin we read at the end of no one recognized him for who he truly was this description of the rav is very painful to think of his existential loneliness to think how jose lived his life constantly feeling misunderstood under appreciated that people only saw him as skin deep they only accepted of and what they saw on the surface but there was so much more and so here you have again see this conversation now in an entirely different way the angel saying ma ma makesh you want to succeed when you go down to egypt you have to always be a mavakish constantly be re-evaluating and recalibrating what are you movakish what are you searching what are you seeking yosef says you know what i want the real me what i want is not this amazing hairdo all gelled up and handsome and beautiful the real me is not this designer clothing or good looks the real me is not this charisma this oratory skill the real me is not that i'm the captain of every team in school you know what i want i just want to fit in i want to be understood i want to belong i want my place and then the brothers come along and while that's what yosef wants valero they refuse to give him his desire they still see him as the outsider from afar a distant misunderstood misunderstood yosef's greatness is that he doesn't turn to a life of drugs because he feels he doesn't belong i wish we had time to talk about this now but you know we have all around us and let's be honest every community has within us enormous challenges with drugs alcohol addiction people say oh rabbi you're one of the rabbis who talks a lot about recovery i don't know i i there's not a rabbi who doesn't interact a lot with recovery or people who need or belong in it i don't think there's anything to be ashamed of the only people who are should be ashamed and the only stigma should be on the people who don't talk about recovery and who don't get the help they need when they need it so very very often talk to people who turn to a life of addiction who numb themselves or try to fill that vacuum and hole in their heart with some substance or behavior or addiction and ask them why they did it and it begins with i cannot tell you how many of those young people tell you that when i was growing up and when i was in school they saw me as the outsider i never belonged i can never break in i was never understood i was never comfortable in my own skin i was never comfortable among friends i wasn't even comfortable in my own family and living with that discomfort regularly i needed to ease that pain i needed to relate relieve that pressure and then i found alcohol or drugs or gambling or or eating or or intimacy or pornography and that distracted me and that filled the hole in my heart and you know what i still didn't belong and i still wasn't understood but at least now i didn't feel the pain i could live with it i can't tell you that's almost every young person how it begins what leads to it so you can read this entirely differently the story of yosef yosef looked like he had it all who wouldn't want to be yosef but if you see it through that lens yosef did not have it all he didn't have the one thing that he wanted the most that when the angel says what do you want the most the one thing he wanted the most he didn't have and his brothers wouldn't let him have it they didn't let him in and if he fast forward the story of and when it seems that yosef now should be on top and the brother should have learned their lesson and finally she couldn't come around and now yoshi should finally have what he's wanted all along he still doesn't you know why because one of the brothers do after yaakov dies they break yosef's heart into pieces when yosef thinks he's finally broken in and he thinks he has he's one of the brothers and the brothers come to him and they say yosef can we talk to you for a minute sure what's up brothers all good everything's been amazing we're reunited we're all good we understand one another we're one said yeah yeah all that stuff but we need to tell you something dad before he died called us to his deathbed he just wanted us to remind you that even after he's gone don't kill us don't take revenge don't get even for what we did and yosef is devastated he says you think that all this time the only reason i haven't taken revenge is because of dad you think i'm still an outsider you're the outsider still to me that all this time you think the only thing that's held me back from killing you is dad is abba so much so that you need to lie and manufacture why is yosef's heart particularly broken yosef knows that his father could not have said that and why does joseph know that his father could not have said that because yosef never told his father what happened so here was jose for all those years protecting his brothers because that's what brothers do for one another real brothers who understand one another and love one another are loyal to one another real brothers have each other's back real brothers do not stab each other in the back so joseph's had his brother's back and what does he come to learn at the end of his life that the very thing he's craved all of his life he still doesn't have he knows his father couldn't have said that because he never told his father what happened because he acted like a brother and they now break his heart because they're still not his brothers when they say dad said remind you don't kill us so it's really a tragic reading and the way the rav reads these three words this whole exchange yosef with the angel and what he wants what yosef describes that he does want and that his brothers don't give it to him it's absolutely absolutely heartbreaking paragraph zion pasta moving right along jose was sold into slavery they go back and they tell yaakov they present the bloody colored coat they say that he was killed by an animal and we know that we invoke this seder we do several dippings karpas sonas passim we dip it in salt water because we begin our seder before we can celebrate freedom we have to remember redemption we have to remember how it all began with senescriena with hatred now our story is rudely interrupted by the story of yehuda and tamar this is like theater and the act the curtain comes down on the story of the brothers with yosef sold in the pit they go report falsely to yaakov he's pulled out of the pit he's sold in the caravan of of uh merchants and now the curtain comes down and when it comes back up we bring you to another scene we pivot to another story the story of yehuda and tamar but before we get to it before we get to it somewhat enigmatically we have two words two words paragliding and what are those two words vayasha of rooving vayashruvain last revain left it they were trying to kill yosef convinces him throw him in a pit don't kill him now he comes back to the pit but he ain't jose before uh-oh he comes back to the pit there's no yosef by the cross pika dub he tears his garments because he didn't want yosef dead he's the one who had a whole plan to keep him alive where's yosef he goes to his brothers he says where am i going to go what am i going to do we're in big trouble what's going to happen where is yosef these two words vayasha of ruvving ruvin came back where was he what happened what do you mean he came back from the the brothers seemed like they were doing this all together we're going to kill them now let's throw them in a pit throw them in the pit now let's send them into slavery reuben seemed to disappear between the throne and the pit the settlement to slavery where was he during this time so rashi tells us you know where he was during this time he was also he was sitting and he was crying he was sitting and he was doing shiva he was sitting fasting he was sitting fasting and learning and getting stuck up and repenting what did he have to repent for why do you have to repent he disrespected his father on last week's pasture in fact the medrash tells us and because you open the door to doing chuva now because of that your great great grandchild your progeny will do true israel says the russia shiva the founder of navy israel baltimore the talmud of the altar of slobodka the great revolution is yeshua and he says reuben's the first to do chuva what are you talking about oh the marisha de what are you talking about reuben's the first you ruvain are the first to dechuva therefore in your merit she was introduced to the world what are you talking about what are you talking about says reverend the answer to this question is in the gemaran shabbos tells us if you say that ruben sinned you're making a mistake what does that mean you're making a mistake doesn't the turtles descend what's the case rachel dies yaakov is so broken that his wife his beloved rachel dies that he moves his bed into whose tent billa the maidservant of rahul if you can't be with rocco at least he can be with second best rocco's maidservant reuben says it's bad enough dad that you had to marry a second wife aunt rachel it's bad enough you took on a second wife in raquel but now that she died instead of permanently being with my mother leia you're with this maidservant the shivra billah so the text says that that rubing lay with but the gemara says if you read it simply like that ina la toa you're making a terrible terrible mistake and why is that a terrible mistake why is that a terrible vailla ruben vaishkava is bill up reuven went and he lay with billah the p legish of his father vaishkava's bella sounds like he was intimate with billa rubin's revenge against his own father avenging the dignity of his mother sounds like was that he was vaishkav he lay with he slept with he was intimate with billah but the kumar says if you read it that way inela tower you're making a big mistake you know what it means billa it means he took the bed out of billa's tent and he moved it back into leia's tent he took the bed out of bill's tent and he moved it back into the accomplishment into leicester god forbid he was not he would never violate those moral boundaries he would never disrespect his father he would never disrespect his aunts shifra of course he didn't do anything like that but in his father's in his mother's defense he took the bed and moved it back to leia's tent but that was a mistake because that was disrespecting his own father's choice and for that he sat and he mourned and he grieved so it says do you know what it means that he's the very first to do sometimes we make a mistake where we made a mistake and we did the mistake for the wrong reason a person looked at the thing they shouldn't have looked at a person did an act they shouldn't have done a person crossed the line a boundary they shouldn't have crossed the person was dishonest on their taxes a person crossed a moral boundary made a mistake because we gave in to the eight sahara sometimes we made a mistake because we thought what we did was right we thought we were following we thought we were defending dignity standing up for the honor of torah practicing kibbut aim we thought we were doing something righteous but even when we think we're doing something righteous sometimes we're wrong says ravrudaman reuben is the first to do chuva and admit he was wrong even when he thought what he was doing was righteous to do chuva when you know what you did was wrong that many did before but to duchuvah even when you thought what you did was right and righteous that's a whole new level of juba and that's where rouhani was ruben wasn't here that's why vayasya rivena al-abor he had to return to the pit because he was sitting doing chuva he was broken and that's so impressive to us that he was doing true when he was broken and why is that so impressive to us because he thought what he did was right he did what he did with a sense of shema he did it he did it for the right reason even if it was the wrong thing to do now we're out of time out of time even though there's so many more things to talk about i have so many torah in the parasha alas what can we do all right join us maybe i'm going to share what come to the ammunition women are invited to the living with a muna for women men you could stay home and watch on your devices streams but the room is only for women and uh i have advaita on the parasha and muna we're going to start with tomorrow so if you still want more in the parasha check out living with the munna first massive sharon may 15 tomorrow morning living with the moon is 8 45 behind the bimother of machlas san diego is mind-boggling too good to be true almost he's incredible tomorrow night at 9pm until next time stay happy stay healthy and stay