A Guest Writer on the Parasha

 וַיֵּשְׁבוּ לֶאֱכָל לֶחֶם וַיִּשְׂאוּ עֵינֵיהֶם וַיִּרְאוּ וְהִנֵּה אֹרְחַת יִשְׁמְעֵאלִים בָּאָה מִגִּלְעָד  וּגְמַלֵּיהֶם נֹשְׂאִים נְכֹאת וּצְרִי וָלֹט הוֹלְכִים לְהוֹרִיד מִצְרָיְמָה

“And they sat to eat bread, and they lifted their eyes and saw a caravan of Yishmaelim coming from Gil-ad, and their camels were carrying spices, balsam, and birthwort to bring down to Egypt”

Bereishit 37:25

  Yosef was going through the most difficult part of his life. His brothers left him in a pit with scorpions crawling around him. He was about to be sold  as a slave,being sold to many different masters in a short period of time. This was followed by imprisonment, in a dungeon, where he would stay in a dark room for around 12 years. Yosef definitely had a bumpy road ahead of him! Rashi shows us when Yosef was being sold, he was travelling in the back of a caravan. The caravan travelling all the way to Mitzriyam carried nice-smelling items. It was filled with fragrant smells, as opposed to the normal cargo that of petroleum and that would have smelled disgusting and dirty. Because Yosef was a tzaddik and Hashem loved him, He arranged for  a small comfort along the way to ease his  journey.

  If Hashem is watching His Tzaddikim, then why couldn’t He just save Yosef from all of the suffering that he was about to endure?  Why did G-d arrange to have Yosef to be sold in the first place?  Why bother making Yosef have a comfortable ride, if his ultimate journey was so unbearably uncomfortable?

  In our life’s journey, we will travel on many different types of roads. Some will be bumpier than others. But no matter how the road is paved, no matter how smooth or bumpy our journey is, we will ultimately encounter a fork in the road. At that juncture, we will have to make hard decisions. Which path do we choose? We will have to decide whether to take the high road and do the right thing ,no matter how difficult it seems, or whether to  take the low road, which seems so much easier to do.

These life decisions are what makes our journey, uniquely OUR OWN PERSONAL journey. We can not control what happens to us in our life. That is in G-d’s hands only. But, what we can control is : how we REACT to these challenges when they do arise. Will our response to strife be… to become utterly devastated and to shrink inward?? or will we grow infinitely  from these experiences and rise to reach the greatest heights that  our souls can soar to.

  Unfortunately, at much too tender a young age, I have learned exactly this lesson. I was like any other teenager, living my life moment by fun moment. You could say I was travelling life in a fast red Ferrari. Then, I hit a huge bump in the road, that made my entire life veer off course.

At the tender age of 16, I lost my mother, my confidante, and my best friend. When my mother was diagnosed with cancer, her medical team had to decide the specific amount of chemo to administer which would yield the optimal results… results culminating in the ability to kill the cancer cells, but still allow the infection fighting cells to live and to fulfill their purpose. G-d knows with certainty, the exact treatment plan to implement for each one of us. He knows how to administer the specific dose of suffering that will annihilate negative influences residing within us and around us, as well as   how to administer the proper amount of challenges which will allow our positive character traits to emerge, enabling each one of us to fulfill our life’s mission. One merely needs to gaze at a single sunrise, or to examine the intricate beauty of a budding flower, in order to understand with complete clarity, how perfectly formed, every creation is in this world. If we do believe that every creation was made perfectly, and was created with all that it needs to function and beautify this world… what does that say about the creator of that incredible beauty? It says, that the creator of this world , is clearly a master artist! If we believe that G-d is a master artist then we believe that every living creature, from the smallest insect to the largest tree has exactly what it needs to live it’s entire lifespan.  How much more so, does a human being, who was created in the image of this perfect creator, have all that it needs to thrive in this world. G-d endowed every human being with a perfect soul with which to connect to Him. When you understand that the master plan, is a plan that is perfectly custom made for each one of us, you will understand that everything we are given, be it something we perceive as negative or positive, it is a gift from g-d and it is for our own good. Like a father who needs to punish his child in order for the child to become a better person, G-d needs to give us challenges which sometimes are accompanied by suffering in order to become better people. Even when He does that, G-d  administers our tests with compassion, as he did with Yosef. We too, pray for a ride in this world where we are surrounded by sweet smelling blessings, no matter what caravan we have to travel in and regardless of how many bumps we encounter as we travel on our life’s journey. 

Shabbat Shalom!

Posted in: Guest Writers