Colors, Divided Souls, Highest Selves, & Mikkeitz

This week we are in part II of the saga of Joseph and His Brothers, as the story is commonly called.

Joseph has been in Pharaoh’s dungeon for two years now; the butler has forgotten him, though Joseph had asked him to remember him to Pharaoh once out and safe.

The Parsha begins with Pharaoh waking from a disturbing dream, then falling back to sleep only to dream another disturbing dream.

None of his dream specialists are able to interpret his dreams (or perhaps it feels too risky to give Pharaoh bad news without also proposing a solution, as Leon Kass suggests in The Beginning of Wisdom).

The butler then conveniently remembers “the Hebrew” who had successfully interpreted his dream in the dungeon.

In preparation for being presented to Pharaoh, Joseph gets a change of clothes—for at least the third time: first he is given the ornamented, multicolored tunic which his brothers strip him of when they throw him into the pit; we can assume he gets a new set of clothes when he enters Pharaoh’s house as his slave; he leaves his clothes behind as he runs from the sexual advances of his chief steward’s wife and possibly gets some dungeon clothes.

Now he must be cleaned up to come before the king.

Not only is he outfitted with new clothes, he is also fully shaven, as per Egyptian custom.

Soon he will be outfitted as Egyptian royalty, raised to the highest position in Pharaoh’s court, just one step below the throne.

Joseph will be Pharaoh’s most trusted servant, in charge of all Egypt and its surrounding lands, for he has not only predicted a terrible famine based on Pharaoh’s dreams, but also has a practical solution to it, one that stands to increase Pharaoh’s wealth severalfold.

As a sign of his high status, Joseph acquires robes of fine linen, a gold chain around his neck, but most importantly, Pharaoh’s signet ring.

Symbolically, Joseph repeatedly takes on new identities, while also being stripped of them.

His change in attire and identity hints at transformation, reminding us perhaps of his father Jacob who gets a name change.

But this is a different kind of transformation.

Jacob’s change in name signifies an awakening; when Jacob is Israel, he is more in touch with his higher self, the part of him that is more connected to the Divine, possibly also meaning more authentically himself.

But for Joseph, though on the surface he seems a different person—is he really?

Not only is Joseph burying his Hebrew identity beneath Egyptian regalia, I wonder about the person he is and has always been under the surface.

As opposed to transforming him, does his new identity finally give Joseph the opportunity to become his full, authentic self?

Because what are Joseph’s true interests?

And what are his true colors beneath it all?

Many rabbis like to talk about Joseph’s important role as savior of the Jewish people from famine, thus allowing for a future.

Or to point to the realization of dreams coming in their own time, when God decides, after great hardship and suffering.

Others like to point to Joseph’s modesty around his dream interpretations. On several occasions, including when he interprets Pharaoh’s dreams, Joseph takes no credit for his special ability; it is God godself, Elohim, who gives over this information.

Joseph claims only to be a channel.

Has he matured and reflected on the error of his ways of having lorded his dreams over his brothers?

Rabbi Levi Yitzhak of Berdichev, in his Kedushat Levi, touts Joseph as one of great righteousness, wisdom and connection to the Divine: a tzaddik.

He attributes the title of tzaddik to a desire on Joseph’s part not to embarrass his brothers when they come to procure grain in the midst of the famine.

Just as his 17-year-old dreams predicted, his brothers bow low to him, believing him to be king, one who would naturally speak harshly to them.

Out of concern for their feelings, to prevent their shame and suffering, he makes himself “like a stranger” to them.

This, says the Kefushat Levi, is the inner awareness of the righteous person, concerned with the well-being of the other—something we should all aspire to.

Not only that, Joseph is the “vizier of the land,” the broker who oversees the grain;

וְיוֹסֵ֗ף ה֚וּא הַשַּׁלִּ֣יט עַל־הָאָ֔רֶץ ה֥וּא הַמַּשְׁבִּ֖יר לְכׇל־עַ֣ם הָאָ֑רֶץ וַיָּבֹ֙אוּ֙ אֲחֵ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף וַיִּשְׁתַּֽחֲווּ־ל֥וֹ אַפַּ֖יִם אָֽרְצָה׃

V’Yosef hu hashalit al ha’aretz, hu hamashbir l’khol-am ha’aretz, vayavo akhi Yosef vayishtakhavu lo apayim artzah:

“Now Joseph was the master of the land; it was he who dispensed rations/was the broker for all the people of the land. And Joseph’s brothers came and bowed low to him, with their faces to the ground.” (Gen. 42:6)

The root verb used repeatedly in these verses, שָׁבַר, whose infinitive form is לִשְׁבׇּר, meaning to procure or buy, also carries the more commonly known meaning, “to break.”

The Kedushat Levi proposes that Joseph, the broker (הַמַּשְׁבִּ֖יר), is the one who “breaks” the Israelites of their bad habit of over-attachement to material wealth; thus, they will be a more spiritually developed people deserving of the epithet, “treasured people.”

This seems harsh to Rabbi Jonathan Slater, who comments on this in his book on the Kedushat Levi, A Partner in Loneliness. Slater points to another definition for שָׁבַר. “Shever,” as a noun, means “grain.”

Slater asks, “Could it be that Levi Yitzhak is suggesting that the work of the leader, the tzaddik, is to nurture and raise up the seeds of holiness in the ‘people of the land’? Or, is the role of the tzaddik to provide the people with the food that they need to grow out of their rootedness in their earthly concern?”

It is true that, on the surface, Joseph saves his own people, and the Egyptians, from a terrible famine.

This can easily be viewed as noble.

We also see Joseph run from the room to hide his tears at hearing his brothers (privately, not knowing Joseph can understand them) profess their guilt for his supposed death; their unrecognizable brother, representing the crown and challenging them in ways that make them fear for their lives in the face of such power, now fear punishment by God for their crime.

We, too, may be overcome by emotion when we read of Joseph’s tears; poor Joseph, a victim of favoritism himself, maligned by his brothers, caught between his loyalty to Pharaoh (which translates to his very life) and his family of origin.

How difficult this must be. Who can blame him? He’s doing his best.

On some level not so deep, we can relate.

And his role in saving the Jewish people has been ordained by God!

But Leon Kass wonders if Joseph, in his masterminded “solution” to the impending doom of famine in the land, actually exacerbates the famine—or even caused it because of his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dreams?

Not only does Joseph make the country folk, the farmers themselves, dependent on the city, where all the grain was stored.

In so doing, Joseph additionally makes Pharaoh an even wealthier man than before now that everyone must go to the palace to buy grain—and he himself finally gets to be lord.

Kass wonders about Joseph’s motives in the same way as everyone else does, but is not so generous with his analysis.

Kass says of Joseph’s tears, which are shed on several occasions during this time, that “we must guard against sentimentality and our tendency to sympathize with tears and to grant automatically the moral high ground to those who shed them. Often a man weeps most when he is feeling sorry for himself.” (p. 580)

Kass states that understanding Joseph’s tears is “no doubt important in gauging his character and state of his soul,” and concludes that “Joseph’s impulse to tears makes clear…that his feelings…and his lack of self-command are incompatible with his lofty position as Egyptian viceroy and consummate manager of the present drama. Fittingly, Joseph must weep in private, shedding tears also for himself and the divisions within his soul.” (p. 589)

Whether it’s blasphemous or not to challenge Joseph’s position as a tzaddik, a righteous, wise and caring one, I don’t see how a person with a divided soul can be considered as such.

Whether it’s true or not that Joseph has a direct connection to God through his talent for dream interpretation, Joseph is one who struggles with his identity.

After crowning him viceroy, Pharaoh gives him an Egyptian name, an Egyptian wife and he has two sons.

Joseph gives both his sons Hebrew names.

One son he names Menasheh, meaning “God has made me forget all my hardship and my parental home.” The second he names Ephraim, or “God has made me fertile in the land of my affliction.”

Joseph has clearly not forgotten anything, hard as he’s tried, and he considers Egypt to be a land of suffering—all things that emerge through his tears.

And Joseph goes on to test his brothers, to emotionally torture them repeatedly, when finally faced with them again more than twenty years after being sold into slavery.

Unlike Esau, he has not overcome the pain inflicted upon him. (If I had to choose, I would actually have to say that Esau is kind of the tzaddik.)

We’re all flawed.

We are all divided.

The word “healing” comes from an old English word meaning “wholeness,” as in the achievement of cohesion.

None of us can achieve healing—in body, mind, spirit, soul—without the cohesion of our divided soul.

Therefore, I think it’s important to ask ourselves in what ways are we each divided?

And how can we trust our connection to the Divine and our interpretations of dreams or situations when we ourselves are divided and not at peace?

How do we reach our authentic selves?

How much do we allow ourselves, in big ways or small ways, to be dazzled by material wealth or status?

How much of our apparent generosity is grandiosity?

My blessing for this week:

May we achieve a level of being only one step below the throne—but may it be the throne of God where we find our highest selves.

And may we plant seeds of righteousness and aspire to be tzaddikim.

And say Amen.