Mistakes, miscommunication’s, and misunderstanding’s are inevitable. “I’m sorry I forgot our anniversary!” “But I didn’t mean to break it!” “I’m sorry we sold you into slavery!” We’ve all been there. Right? There’s a song by Gregory Alan Isakov, that goes something like “if it weren’t for second chances we’d all be alone.” His lyrics feel a little moody, I know, but something about them stuck with me. We are all flawed (sorry to break it to you). So how is it that we always manage to find a way to put up with, and even to love each other? Believe it or not, Yosef happens to be an expert in the answer..

In last week’s parsha, we were left with a cliffhanger. After having been sold into slavery several years earlier by his brothers, Yosef finally sees them again for the first time. What does he do? He didn’t treat them like the people they’d used to be- the ones who’d sold him into slavery. Rather, he was patient. He instead tested them up so that they were once again in a position to sell one of their brothers into slavery. The plot twist, however, is that they still don’t recognize Yosef.

Who are you when nobody’s watching? Are you as kind to your waitress as you are to your grandmother? Will you cheat of that test the second your teacher looks away? Will you sell another brother into slavery, if you don’t know that the one you sold first time is watching? To Yosef’s brothers it seemed that no one was watching. The point, however, was that it didn’t matter who was or wasn’t watching- they had genuinely changed. When Yosef said that he was going to enslave Benyamin, Yehudah stood up and pleaded with Yosef not to make them give up their brother. They had changed authentically, and for that Yosef forgave them completely. He revealed that he was their brother Yosef, and finally the brothers were able to reunite as a family.

In our respective families, sometimes we are the brothers, and sometimes we are Yosef. Sometimes we mess up, and sometimes we get messed up by others. But the idea is that sometimes we need forgiveness, and sometimes we need to forgive. Again, we ask how it is that we can keep messing up, and still keep on keeping on with each other? I’m going to answer with some James Bay lyrics: “If it’s torn we can stitch it up. Don’t rule it out.” In other words, it’s fine for us to be a little dysfunctional, but what matters is that we try to fix the things that we break.

Good Shabbos,

Eliana Carasso

VP Chesed