Community Torah Corner, Dec. 20, 2024

Parenting can be tough. Yes, having children is one of the greatest blessings we will ever experience. Raising kids who we hope will one day be kind, contributing Jews and human beings is extraordinarily meaningful. Yet parenting may be the hardest thing we have ever done. At many points in parenthood, our buttons will be pushed and our limits tested. There will be times when the easier path might give us the immediate gratification of happy children, but the harder path is the one that will yield a more resilient and healthy young person.

We often study Torah for examples of how we ought to be and behave, but we also learn a great deal from our ancestors’ mistakes. In parashat VaYeishev, we encounter 17-year-old Joseph, who the text makes clear was Jacob’s favorite.

Not only does the text tell us that “Israel loved Yosef above all his sons” (Gen. 37:3) and highlight this favoritism through the gift of what is now known as the technicolor dream coat (or more simply, a striped tunic), it also tells us in the next verse that this preference was abundantly apparent to his 11 brothers: “His brothers saw that it was he whom their father loved above all his brothers.” What’s the result of this favoritism? “They hated him, and could not speak to him in peace” (v. 4).

With all his wisdom from lived experience, including his own childhood, Jacob never learned how damaging favoritism among siblings can be. Instead of taking the harder path of setting aside his feelings about Rachel and Joseph for the sake of his family’s well-being, he chose the easier path of doting on his favorite son. His first recorded moment of what might be considered better parenting comes when Joseph recounts his dream of the sun, moon, and stars bowing to him. Jacob rebukes him, asking if they all should be bowing down to him (v. 10). It took 17 years for Jacob to offer a single piece of difficult feedback.

It may be that the first person to set Joseph on the path that ultimately transformed him into a righteous human being who saved thousands during a famine was the unnamed man who directed Joseph to find his brothers (vv. 15-17). Without this man, Joseph would never have found his brothers, never been sold into slavery, and never made his way down to Egypt to hit rock bottom—only to rise again with humility, wisdom, and righteousness. Who was this unnamed man? Some commentators label him a random passerby, but others, including Rashi, saw him as an angel—specifically, Gabriel. One could read this text and see that where Joseph’s parent failed to parent, God stepped in and made the brutally difficult but entirely necessary decision.

Sometimes, to help our children become who they need to be, we must guide them down harder roads.

Let us remember, though, that while Jacob was absent for much of the journey, God—the One who stepped in—was present the whole way. When Joseph reached his darkest moment, he recognized, for the first time, that God—his divine parent—was there, and that’s when things began to turn around.