Miketz: December 19, 2020/4 Tevet 5781

This week's parashah is all about tests of character. Early on, Joseph is summoned from his prison cell to interpret a dream for Pharaoh. Based on the interpretation, predicting seven years of abundance followed by seven years of famine, Pharaoh appoints Joseph to be viceroy, vested with full executive authority, only Pharaoh being above him. One of the chief responsibilities of this office is managing the creation of a strategic food stockpile during the years of plenty in preparation for the famine. The famine is so widespread that even in Canaan there is no food to be had. Jacob sends his ten oldest sons to Egypt to buy food, and when they arrive, they are brought to Joseph, who they don't recognize. After ascertaining that his family is well, he commands the brothers to return with the last brother (and Joseph's only full sibling), Benjamin, but sending them with food and surreptitiously returning their money. 

Jacob is loath to part with Benjamin, having already lost one son of his favorite wife, but ultimately agrees after Judah takes personal responsibility for his brother's safety. On the brothers' return to Egypt, Joseph, obviously wary of his brothers after they sold him into slavery, puts them to a secret test. He has his servants place a silver goblet, used both for drinking and for divination, in Benjamin's bag, and then when the "theft" is discovered, orders Benjamin to be seized. Judah offers to take his younger brother's place so that their father will not suffer the loss of his last remaining son by Rachel, by so doing, passing the test. (Judah's offer actually comes in the first few verses of next week's portion, but we are dealing with it here so as not to leave a cliffhanger, the ending of which we already know).

Nobody is perfect, and even someone who has sinned or hurt us can be redeemed by showing contrition and working to make better choices in the future. While it is fair, even expected, to remember people's past actions when they hurt us, it is also important to remember that people change and to judge others and ourselves on the present, not on past behaviors. Whenever an election comes up, we see candidates charge each other with the cardinal sin of "flip-flopping." They were for something in the past, and now they claim to be against it, but which is it? Are they for or against? Is it not possible that their position changed? The same is true for Joseph in Egypt. He knows his brothers were cruel and selfish, and they sold him, their own brother, into slavery as a last-minute change of plans from murdering him. When they appeared before him, not knowing his true identity (he was given the Egyptian name Zaphnat-Paneah), Joseph can tell that maybe they have turned over a new leaf in the decades since he last saw them. So he gives his brothers a chance to prove themselves.

One of the most fundamental principles in Judaism is that teshuvah - repentance - is always available to us. True, we have Yom Kippur, where the whole day is dedicated to that concept, but that does not mean that we can't make amends for our past mistakes the other 364 days of the year. Rabbi Eliezer, in Mishnah Shabbat, advises his students, "repent one day before your death." Obviously, people do not know when they will die, so all the better to start one's repentance today just in case. More important, however, than repenting our errors is learning from them so that we don't repeat them. In his magnum opus, Sha'rei Teshuvah, the 13th-century rabbi and ethicist Rabbenu Yona of Girona details several components of proper repentance. According to him, a person must truly regret their actions, confess to themselves verbally, and, if possible, undo the sin. They must also commit to not repeating their sin in the future. Critically, however, not all wrongdoing is done against God. If our sin was against another person, we must make amends to that person and receive forgiveness from them before asking God's forgiveness. Joseph's test may not hit all of Rabbenu Yona's components, but inviting contrition from the brothers is what will allow him to see whether the brothers are on the path of repentance and deserving of his forgiveness.

The Talmud, in the very first tractate, quotes Rabbi Abahu's teaching that "in the place where the repentant stand the perfectly righteous cannot stand." That is to say, one who has made mistakes and learned from them is more praiseworthy than one who has never made a mistake. There are few if any perfectly righteous people, so if they are held up as the standard to which we are to aspire, nearly everyone will fall well short. We are judged only against ourselves and our own potential. A story is told of Rabbi Zusha of Hanipol, one of the first generation of Hasidic masters. On his deathbed, he was crying inconsolably, and his students assured him that God would judge him kindly, as he was nearly as wise as Moses and as kind as Abraham. Zusha told them, "In the World to Come, they won't ask me, 'why were you not as good as Moses or Abraham?' They will ask me, 'Why were you not as good as Zusha?' and to that, I will have no answer." Zusha understood that perfection is reserved for God. Inasmuch as we are not God, we need not be perfect. Every day is a new opportunity to be the best version of who we are, and that's all that anyone can ask of us.