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Jewish World Review Dec. 7, 2007 / 27 Kislev, 5768 Where and why Joseph went wrong By Rabbi Avraham Pam
A penetrating essay on the requirements — and limitations — of faith and their real-life, political applications
— Genesis 41:1
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The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 89:3) comments on this
verse: ''Praiseworthy is the man who has made the Divine
his trust — this is Joseph — and turned not to the arrogant
(Psalms 40:5) — because Joseph told the wine butler,
Remember me . . . and mention me to Pharaoh (Genesis 40:14),
two years were added to his term in prison.''
Much has been written
about this Midrash, which seems to contradict itself. Was Joseph a
baal bitachon (lit., master of trust in the Divine) or not? If he is the
embodiment of the verse of Psalms praising the man who has
made the Divine his trust, why did he display a lack of it by
soliciting the help of the wine butler?
This issue can be understood through a clarification of what faith
is and what it is not.
The Talmud (Bava Basra 21b) discusses the question of "business infringement", when a person with an established mill or other business can prohibit someone
else from opening a similar enterprise in close proximity to his. Under certain circumstances (the guidelines of which are discussed
at length in Shulchan Aruch, Choshen Mishpat, Ch. 156), the
businessman can claim, ''You are cutting off my livelihood!'' and take
steps to prohibit his competitor from opening a business.
This is
recognized by Jewish Law as a legitimate, Torah-based right that a
tradesman or storekeeper has to protect his own interests, even when
it will be to the detriment of another person trying to earn a livelihood.
This is puzzling, because the Talmud (Beitzah 16a) says that all
of a person's income is fixed by Heaven from Rosh Hashanah to
Rosh Hashanah. If so, what does the mill owner or storekeeper
have to worry about when a competing business opens close to his
own? Whatever income is Divinely ordained for him that year will
not be diminished because he has a competitor (or two) down the
block.
PIOUS FOOLS
It is true that there are many levels of faith in the Divine, and
the more one elevates his neshamah (soul) and places his absolute trust
in his Creator, the less hishtadlus (personal effort) is required of
him to earn his livelihood. Nonetheless, the verse (Deut. 15:18)
says, And the Divine, Your G-d, will bless you in all that you do,
which, as explained by Sifrei, means that a person cannot sit and
do nothing and expect to miraculously receive livelihood. He is
required to ''do'' and can then hope for the blessings of Heaven.
How much must he ''do''? That is the difficult issue which people
grapple with daily, trying to recognize the fine line where personal effort
ends and faith begins.
Thus, if A has a mill and B wants to open a competing mill down the block, A does have
the right under certain circumstances (see Choshen Mishpat 156)
to stop him. Doing so would not be considered a lack of faith.
When Jewish Law does permit B, the competitor, to open shop,
then A would not be permitted to take measures to stop him.
It is an unfortunate occurrence that when a businessman feels
threatened by a competitor, he resorts to all sorts of forbidden
methods to impede or undermine him. He besmirches his reputation
and maligns the quality of his products and services, or questions
the fairness of his price structure. This rapidly degenerates.
If Jewish Law permits a competitor to open
shop, then the preexisting storekeeper has to have faith that
the competitor will not be cutting into his livelihood.
MINE AND YOURS
Writing in Emunah U'Vitachon (2:6), the Chazon Ish, explains that while
there are different levels of personal effort required of a true man of faith,
some types of personal effort are absolutely worthless and, in fact, display just the opposite. This, he explains, was the fault noted by the
Midrash in the conduct of the great master of faith, Joseph.
Joseph had
already languished in prison for a decade and the experience had
not crushed him as it would have a lesser person. His strong
faith gave him the strength to endure this trial and not surrender
to despair or give up hope of ever seeing the light of freedom again.
After brilliantly explaining the strange dreams of Pharaoh's chief
baker and wine butler, Joseph asked the wine butler to ''put in a
good word'' for him before Pharaoh. Joseph, of course, realized that
his salvation was totally in the Hand of the Divine.
Nonetheless, in
order not to rely on a miracle, he felt that personal effort required him
to enlist the help of the wine butler. If so, why was he punished so
severely for doing so?
The answer is, as Chazon Ish explains, that
the wine butler was a a wicked, egotistical, selfish person from
whom no good could be expected.
Joseph should have turned not to the arrogant (Psalms 40:5) for assistance, as this was not a gesture of personal effort. Doing so improper for a true man of faith.
Had the wine butler been even the least bit of a Mentsh, he would have felt
immense gratitude to Joseph and could not possibly have attributed
his explanation to a ''good guess.''
The Meshech Chochmah (40:2) asks: Why was it necessary for the Divine to give a disturbing dream
to the chief baker which foretold that he would soon be beheaded?
What bearing did this have on the situation and what role did it play
in Joseph's release from prison?
He explains that the baker's dream
and subsequent execution underscored the veracity of Josef's interpretation.
If the wine butler alone had experienced a dream which
Joseph interpreted favorably, that would not prove that Joseph was an
expert dream interpreter.
It is human nature that if someone has a
disturbing dream and asks a friend what he thinks it means, the
friend will calm his fears by telling him, "Don't
worry! It will be good!'' If things turns out well, the friend ''predicted''
correctly, and if they don't, then at least the person had a
few days of tranquility before the calamity struck him.
The true test of Joseph's expertise was in his interpretation of the
chief baker's dream. If Joseph was not 100 percent sure of himself,
would he so confidently say that in three days' time the baker
would be beheaded? What would happen if Joseph were proven
incorrect and the baker would be returned to his post? If he didn't
kill Joseph on the spot, he would subject him to unimaginable
tortures for giving him such a scare by predicting his execution. It
would have been suicidal for Joseph to offer such an explanation
unless he was totally convinced that he was correct. Therefore, it
was from the baker's dream that the wine butler realized that
Joseph's interpretation was professional and not just some soothing
words. Still, he felt no need for gratitude to Joseph.
If so, why did the wine butler finally inform Pharaoh of Joseph's
abilities as a dream interpreter? Did he suddenly become a repentant?
The Midrash (Bereishis Rabbah 89:7) supplies the answer and says
that nothing changed with the arrogant, selfish wine butler. His
advice to Pharaoh was motivated strictly by his own self-interests
and self-preservation. He saw that Pharaoh was depressed by the
inability of his advisers to interpret his two extremely disturbing
dreams. The wine butler feared that he might even die due to his
state of melancholy. If he did, his successor would probably appoint
new ministers and the wine butler could lose his job.
To
protect his own self-interests, the wine butler recommended Joseph
as a dream interpreter. Even so, his recommendation was filled
with words of abuse and denigration as he called Joseph a youth, a
Hebrew foreigner, a slave (41:12).
That is the behavior of an
arrogant, selfish person, and Joseph should have realized that it was
pointless to ask anything of him. For this he was punished.
TRUE LEADERSHIP
This week's Torah portion is almost always read on during the week of Chanukah. The lesson of Chanukah is that, as the Talmud (Sotah 49b) puts it, we can only rely on our Father in Heaven to redeem us from
our anguish. May we merit to this speedily, and in our days.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes inspiring articles. Sign up for our daily update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment by clicking here. Rabbi Avraham Yaakov Pam (1913 - August 16, 2001) was the dean of Yeshiva Torah Vodaas in Brooklyn, New York and a member of the Council of Torah Sages of Agudath Israel. Recently, some of his public addresses have been rendered into English by a disciple, Rabbi Sholom Smith. The latest is "Shabbos With Rav Pam", from which this essay was excerpted.
© 2007, Mesorah Publications, Ltd.
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