Preparing for Next Steps—Finding Forgiveness
Vay’chi
December 29, 2017
We have serendipitously come to the end of the secular year and the end of the Book of Genesis on the same week. As we prepare for 2018 and embark on New Year’s resolutions we also close out 2017 and once again close out the stories of our ancestors; the first families of the Israelite people when being followers of the One God was a family affair not a peoplehood or even a religious group. In Parshat Vay’chi Jacob (who is now in Egypt) knows he is dying. He blesses Joseph’s sons Ephraim and Menashe (in reverse birth order) and takes them as his own for inheritance purposes. He then “blesses” each of his 12 sons according to their nature. Finally, he extracts a promise from Joseph that he will be brought back to Canaan to be buried in the Cave at Machpellah which Abraham bought in perpetuity. After the proper mourning period in Egypt, Joseph and his brothers bury their father in that cave. On the way home this happens:
Gen 50:15-21:
Joseph’s brothers, seeing that their father was dead, now said, “Perhaps Joseph still bears us enmity and intends to repay us for all the harm that we inflicted upon him!” So, they brought a charge to Joseph saying, “Your father left this charge before his death, saying, ‘Thus shall you say to Joseph: Please, I beg of you, forgive the transgressions of your brothers and their sin, though they inflicted harm upon you;’ yet now please forgive the transgressions of the servants of your father’s God.” Joseph wept as they spoke to him. His brothers also prostrated themselves before him and said, “Here we are, your slaves!” Joseph said to them, “Have no fear, for am I in place of God? Though you intended me harm, God intended it for good, in order to accomplish what is now the case, to keep alive a numerous people. Now, therefore, have no fear—I will provide for you and your little ones.” Thus, did he comfort them and speak straight to their hearts.
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After years of living peacefully together, Joseph’s brothers still feared retribution, and my guess is they also felt guilty. There is a midrash on this section that says these fears were stoked because as they were in Canaan to bury their father, they passed the place where they had thrown Joseph into a pit to die (and then sold into slavery). Understandably, reliving the location of the memory, they feared Joseph would relive the terror of that day, and they relived the guilt of that day. But Joseph answers these fears with forgiveness. Joseph had come to understand that while his brother’s motives were evil God had a plan for him to save the family and the Egyptian population. Joseph forgave his brothers for the final time.
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As we turn to our new year, I’ve seen many retrospectives on 2017: whether it was best books, best movies, articles about how Trump changed the presidency, or about the work of the #resistance, or the #Metoo movement, and the internet is full of 2017, a year in review. The topic I think our Torah is asking us to look at as we conveniently move from one generation of Israelites in Genesis into the next chapter of our story in Exodus; as we move from 2017 into 2018 is that of forgiveness.
In a conversation over lunch at Wegmans with the Rabbi and a few congregants, the topic of forgiveness was raised. Someone said: “There are just some people I cannot forgive, what they did, I will never be ok with.” I believe there is truth in this, there are some actions which may truly be unforgivable; there are people who were supposed to protect us and didn’t, who should not be welcome in our lives. But so too, holding onto that anger and resentment, enables them to have power in our lives every day, even when those people are not acting in our lives anymore. Rabbi brought out a quote by Ann Landers. She said: “Hanging onto resentment is letting someone you despise live rent-free in your head.” Ultimately, that resentment only hurts you. If the person who hurt you has been cut out of your life, in all likelihood they are not hurt by you, so holding onto your anger only uses your energy.
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Personally, I do not believe everything happens according to God’s plan, because I believe in free will; but I do think we are often able to find comfort in bad situations by finding the silver linings. Joseph has a terrific silver lining; he becomes viceroy of Egypt and saves the nation and his family through centralized planning for the famine. I think we can all think of examples where the adversity we went through in childhood, whether it was a learning problem, or a social problem or a family problem; many of these helped give us the strength and courage, the grit to tackle life’s problems as adults; many of us might even say they helped mold us into who we are today. We would not wish these adversities on our children or our friends and loved ones, but we also know that without them we might not have become who we are.
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It’s one thing to overcome adversities caused by nature: a learning disability, a family illness. It’s quite another to overcome and forgive a trauma caused by a person, especially a person who should have been responsible for us. I think the story of Joseph gives us a bit of a road map for this. While I have never liked the part of the story where Joseph tricks his brothers, accusing Benjamin of stealing; he learns they have truly changed. They cannot just say they are sorry, especially given the power dynamic (he was Viceroy, with the power to feed them or let them starve to death); they must prove they now put family above personal wellbeing. When Judah says, take me instead, it would kill our father for Benjamin not to come home, Joseph knows they have learned, they have changed. When again in our Parsha, they come to him in fear and with apologies, it is easy for him to forgive them, and convince them of his forgiveness. He knows they have changed, and he knows they feel truly sorry. Being in the location of the first sin, the location of the pit, reminded them all of the harm they intended him; but he has had years of living with his silver lining, knowing that without that harmful act, he would not be in the beneficial position he is today. He has learned to forgive them even before they were able to forgive themselves.
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What might this look like in our lives? We are, I believe, in the midst of a national conversation about a culture of disrespectful behavior, and just starting to institute consequences for it. But part of this conversation will also have to be about forgiveness. How can we know when an apology is politically motivated, a move to get your job back, or something which shows you really have changed as a person? Am I asking victims to just namby pamby forgive terrible people without consequence? What is the line of accountability, what is the act of recompense? It is easy to see, after the fact, that Joseph's brothers had made t’shuvah and Joseph had appropriately forgiven them. It is much harder to know in real time. But as we turn to 2018 I hope we can take a moment to find the blessings in our lives, be they silver linings, or true unencumbered blessings, and be filled with gratitude for all that is right and good with us, that we find a way to let go of one resentment or another, let go of one piece of anger living rent free in our heads. Perhaps if we can all do this as individuals we will find a way to help our communities and even our county to forgive each other for the real and perceived slights, for the real and perceived acts of disrespect, and dehumanization. Perhaps we can make 2018, not a reckoning on a political pendulum but a reckoning on overcoming the barriers that divide us; forgiving those who come to different conclusions, even while we fight for our own right ideas; and knowing that if we can see humanity even in those we disagree with we will be much closer to love than to resentment or hatred.
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I wish you a happy new year; may the gratitude for what is good in your life overcome all the bad things and all the negativity we can so easily become enmired in. And may God bless us with the ability to find forgiveness in our hearts.
