The Making of Yosef – Vayeshev

“And these are the children of Yaakov, Yosef was seventeen years old…” In most cases up until now the Torah tells us the age of a person either how old they were when they had their first child or of when they died, but here we have Yosef’s age when his story of struggles began. His age is important to note especially as we get to the later one where he was 30 when he took the throne. There is a thirteen year period of being stepped on and then another 9 years of greatness before he reunites with his family. Those 22 years were packed with misery, challenges and triumphs, and for one to be as strong as Yosef we must first learn what he was made out of.

You see, there are two ways of looking at the future. We can look at the hardships of the past and worry how we will overcome the new ones soon to come, or we can look at the past and gather the experience and move into the future excitedly. It is a fine line to notice since it is exactly at that point where we are able to look at the past as a metaphor that we can start moving on. As long as we are still angry at someone, even after several years since the story happened, we are motivated from a place of anger, fear and resentment, but once we are able to look at what happened and say, “It was in the past, what did I learn from it all?” that’s when the magic starts happening.

Yosef had every reason to walk around with his head hanging low, he had every right to concoct ways to get back at his brothers, but for some reason he understood that his success will ultimately bring them to their knees, literally. He must’ve had a very strong foundation built within himself before all of this went down in order to keep himself focused on the fruition of his dreams. And if he received this education, what about all the other brothers? It seems as if each one of them had a tailored and personal lesson plan by their father Yaakov, but the one Yosef received prepared him, not just with lessons for life, but for imminent danger. We don’t hear much about the other brothers, Shimon and Levi make an appearance, Yehuda has a large role, Reuven is seen, but overall, the rest are just under the radar. They learned what it means to be part of this great dynasty and experienced their faith strongly, but still their talents would only be recognized at much later events in Jewish history.

The life of Yosef has to be categorized in this fashion. There are things that we struggle with on a daily basis, the thoughts that never stop, the pain that is unrelenting and the voices that never shut up. As King David explains it in Chapter 130, “My soul [yearns] to Hashem, from morning to morning,” These feelings that never cease, they wait for us to wake up each morning and just pop into our heads and never let us be. Those regrets we are constantly reviewing in our mind, those regrets that we forget to regret and actually appreciate reviewing those memories, those failures that have proven themselves time and time again to be our weaknesses. Our soul yearns to Hashem to release us from this prison that we find ourselves in each morning at the moment we awaken.

Yosef had these unrelenting thoughts bothering him all day long, he needed the guidance of his father to help him get through those dark days. The human’s natural inclination to quiet down those voices would be to find something that makes him forget about it, and that’s where we need to be vigilant and make sure that the cure isn’t worse than the sickness. We all know where our head goes when we are stressed, we fall into our addictions, habits, and depression which keep us in the loop for a very long time. We get accustomed to the laziness and feel at home living with the excuses, and what’s worse, we don’t even feel hurt when we fail anymore. It was very important for Yosef to learn how to control his emotions so that he can live with the belief his Grandfather proved to be true. Yaakov, after losing the love of his life understood what work had to be done in order to move on and see the world from the lesson standpoint instead of being stuck in a story from nine years ago and the only way to actually find healing would be to do the work with Yosef who he himself was plagued by this devastating reality.

It requires a firm belief in the truth of the world to be able to see each moment as its own. Knowing that what I am doing now is the most important thing and it will be done with the fullest attention. Every second of this activity must be done with the intention to find the truth at the end. We are here to take every moment of our life, successful or otherwise and learn their lessons in order to make the coming moment an everlasting one. Yaakov trained Yosef at a very young age because he had already experienced hardship in life, whereas the rest of the siblings have yet to. He was still too young to know on his own how to react to those painful thoughts and without the proper guidance and direction he would’ve never been able to withstand what life had in store for him. 

It is clear to us now that the pain he suffered as a child until he was sold into slavery was what gave him the strength throughout those 22 years, but for him, were it not for his father stopping the bleeding his life would be one long excuse for failure. He learned that circumstances happen to everyone, ones that we bring upon ourselves and some that are through the actions of others, but nevertheless they are all ordained and planned by Hashem Himself. Understanding that principle deep within his heart allowed him to take strides in the unknown and remain steadfast in his belief. He was hated, sold, framed, and jailed, but nowhere do we see that he broke down and cried until when he stood face to face with his brothers at the first reunion. His ability to stick to his composure was all thanks to the lessons he learnt from the seemingly smaller story he went through as a child.

What is our excuse when we allow ourselves to entertain the thought of giving up? We all allow these voices to take over and it is tragic to think that were it for just a little stronger principle in our hearts we’d be able to change the course of history with our sheer will alone. Yosef teaches us that no matter what has happened in the past there is only one reason to look back at them and that is to learn from the experience so we know how to be better next time. And what more, that even when we don’t see any success or we don’t receive any reward for the sacrifice we give, giving up is never an option. We need to strengthen our foundation with this core principle, even if you choose a life of business or travel, it doesn’t matter, we must remain strong with our belief. There is no better life than this and there is no therapy or exercise that will deny this conclusion. It worked for Yaakov, it worked for Yosef and it worked for our ancestors who have kept the belief all throughout the generations. We carry on that torch and we will succeed as we walk along the path of the giants who raised us. Od Yosef Chai, Yosef is still alive, within you!

David Lemmer is an Orthodox Jewish Writer and Hypnotherapist. He can be reached at LemmerHypno@gmail.com