Rabbi Dr. Jason Weiner is senior rabbi and executive director of the Spiritual Care Department at Cedars-Sinai in Los Angeles
Imagine being attacked and thrown into a pit by your brothers, sold off into slavery, your brothers pretend you’re dead, you become a slave in a foreign land, betrayed by your master’s wife-even though you did the right thing, you end up in prison betrayed again by your cell mate, who forgets to praise Yosef to the Pharoh. How would you feel?
If these questions aren’t difficult enough to ponder, what does it even mean that the Sar Hamashkim forgot Yosef? After all, 2 years later when Pharoh has a dream and needs someone to interpret it, it is the Sar Hamashkim who remembers that Yosef can interpret dreams.
The Ibn Ezra explains that the Sar Hamashkim forgot Yosef “B’leiv” which means that he did remember the actual event of Yosef interpreting his dream, but he forgot the exciting emotional experience of the significance of what happened.
He remembered the fact. He forgot the feeling.
Similarly, later on in this week’s Parsha, Yaakov hears the news that his beloved son Yoseph has been killed by wild animals. Judaism requires mourning rituals, and yet Yaakov “refused to be comforted.” Yaakov loved Yoseph dearly and would not give up hope that Yoseph was somehow still alive. He therefore refused to begin the mourning rituals and for decades held fast to his hope that Yoseph would still be alive.
Interestingly, the very same phrase appears in Sefer Yirmiyahu, regarding Rachel refusing to be comforted for her children going into exile. Rather, she is certain that we will return, and no matter how bleak things get, she will not give up. She thus also refuses to be comforted, because that would symbolize giving up hope and accepting that the Jewish people, and our exile, was permanent.
As the descendants of these great people, we Jews also never give up home, even when all of the evidence suggests otherwise. How else can one explain a people who remains tied and dedicated to their homeland during thousands of years of exile? Who miraculously returns to their land, revives their language, and practices the same Torah in that land as their ancestors did centuries earlier.
Jewish history is truly miraculous. But, when you understand who our ancestors were and the values they inculcated into us, one begins to understands where this comes from.
Even when things look very dark and scary, and many people would give up we know we’ve been there before.
-We were in the pit with Yosef.
-We were with Yaakov when he thought his dear son had been killed.
-And we heard the cries of our mother Rachel for thousands of years.
-We remember the facts, and we remember the feelings.
-We refuse to give up on our dreams and the hopes of our people, and we have confidence that Hashem will likewise never give up on us.