We will read the last portion of Genesis, Vayechi. I would like us to think about the ethical questions raised by the story of Yosef. What do you find troublesome, and what do you find worthwhile?
(20) So Joseph gained possession of all the farm land of Egypt for Pharaoh, every Egyptian having sold his field because the famine was too much for them; thus the land passed over to Pharaoh. (21) And he removed the population town by town, from one end of Egypt’s border to the other. (22) Only the land of the priests he did not take over, for the priests had an allotment from Pharaoh, and they lived off the allotment which Pharaoh had made to them; therefore they did not sell their land. (23) Then Joseph said to the people, “Whereas I have this day acquired you and your land for Pharaoh, here is seed for you to sow the land. (24) And when harvest comes, you shall give one-fifth to Pharaoh, and four-fifths shall be yours as seed for the fields and as food for you and those in your households, and as nourishment for your children.” (25) And they said, “You have saved our lives! We are grateful to my lord, and we shall be slaves to Pharaoh.” (26) And Joseph made it into a land law in Egypt, which is still valid, that a fifth should be Pharaoh’s; only the land of the priests did not become Pharaoh’s.
(6) He left all that he had in Joseph’s hands and, with him there, he paid attention to nothing save the food that he ate. Now Joseph was well built and handsome. (7) After a time, his master’s wife cast her eyes upon Joseph and said, “Lie with me.” (8) But he refused. He said to his master’s wife, “Look, with me here, my master gives no thought to anything in this house, and all that he owns he has placed in my hands.
Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Sermon, 1/19/2010
Rabbi Soloveichik, who was raised in Chicago, began his sermon by recounting the perpetual frustrations of Cubs fans, whose team, in several recent years, has missed playing in the World Series by the narrowest of margins. Each time the Cubs miss an opportunity to win a pennant, the rabbi noted, many Chicagoans experience periods of depression and feelings of worthlessness. Such feelings are not uncommon, he added, because most people encounter periods of great frustration in both their work and personal lives—periods in which their efforts seem to produce no results and their sense of personal worth is called into question.
Rabbi Soloveichik then drew attention to a detail in the sections of the Torah from the Book of Exodus that are read this month in synagogues. In ancient Egypt, the onerous labor of the making of bricks was forced on the Hebrew slaves. In a number of biblical passages, including those that tell of the building of the Tower of Babel, brick has a negative association. According to a classical Jewish commentary, when a worker fell from the scaffolding during the building of that tower, the overseers ignored the death because one worker is like another, just as one brick is like another.
By contrast, the Torah compares the Jewish people to natural stones: The stone that the builders despised has become the cornerstone of the foundation, says the psalmist. The patriarch Jacob, who is called the Stone of Israel, built an altar of stones at Beth-El. The altars of ancient Israel were built only of uncut natural stone. This, Rabbi Soloveichik continued, has symbolic significance: Whereas every brick is alike, every natural stone is different. In this sense the Jewish people are like natural stones because every individual is created for a purpose, and each, in his or her own way, is unique and indispensable.
No matter what our frustrations, the rabbi concluded, we must keep in mind that all of us—each unique, each indispensable, and each with his or her own contribution to make—must persevere in our efforts to realize those contributions.