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Succeeding Beyond all Expectations
ב וַיְהִי יְהוָה אֶת-יוֹסֵף וַיְהִי אִישׁ מַצְלִיחַ וַיְהִי בְּבֵית אֲדֹנָיו הַמִּצְרִי
ג וַיַּרְא אֲדֹנָיו כִּי יְהוָה אִתּוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר-הוּא עֹשֶׂה יְהוָה מַצְלִיחַ בְּיָדוֹ
ד וַיִּמְצָא יוֹסֵף חֵן בְּעֵינָיו וַיְשָׁרֶת אֹתוֹ וַיַּפְקִדֵהוּ עַל-בֵּיתוֹ וְכָל-יֶשׁ-לוֹ נָתַן בְּיָדוֹ
(בראשית לט: ב-ד)
“
The Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man; and he stayed in the house of his Egyptian master.
And when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord lent success to everything he undertook, he took a liking to Joseph.
He made him his personal attendant and put him in charge of his household, placing in his hands all that he owned.” (Genesis 39:2-4)
Despite the perilous and dubious circumstances in which Joseph arrived in Egypt, we learn that he quickly became quite successful at everything he did. Rising to significant prominence, Joseph the Hebrew found himself living a full Egyptian life. Of course he soon becomes the victim of attempted seduction and false accusation plot that lands him in jail, proving to be a minor stumbling block in his sweeping rise to fame and power. Joseph’s story is the quintessential Diaspora Jewish story. Exiled from his homeland and birthplace, Joseph finds himself charged with the task of acculturation, assimilation and essentially becoming more Egyptian than the Egyptians. He changes his name, his persona and provides sage advice to the local leadership. Is this not the model that every Diaspora Jew has sought for the past 2500 years?
So many Jews throughout history sought such a balance between succeeding in a predominantly non-Jewish society and maintain one’s own Jewish identity. From the shtadlanim or court Jews of Medieval Europe to what the late 19th-century Russian Jewish thinker Yehuda Leib Gordon coined as: “Be a Jew in your home and a man (mentsch) on the street,” this delicate balance is still contentious today as ever. Gordon most likely meant that for Jews to be successful in the world we must not disclose our Jewish identity, keeping it secluded to the confines of our homes – we must go by our local names and speak the local language never expressing conflicts of identity or dual loyalties.
The notion that a Jew could fit in and completely assimilate into another society was at the heart of Theodor Herzl’s anxiety. Exemplified in his 1894 play “
Das Neue Ghetto
” (The New Ghetto), he deals directly with the Jewish Question and what he perceives to be the unsuccessful emancipation of European Jewry. Herzl’s solution later became solidified after another “Hebrew” was falsely accused and tried in Paris, and the rest is history. For Herzl and so many others, Zionism became the answer to not being accepted by the host culture and society. As the Zionists were building a Jewish State another prominent Jewish philosopher and leader wrote wholeheartedly on this issue.
For Mordecai Kaplan, being a hyphenated American did not mean that Jews would harbor any kind of
divided
allegiance to two civilizations, but rather a
dual
loyalty that allowed them to live simultaneously and fully within both Jewish and American civilizations. The Jew, he insisted, would not be “fifty percent Jew and fifty percent American, but one hundred percent of each.” (Mordecai Kaplan,
Judaism as a Civilization
, 1934 pp. 249-52). Kaplan posed the fateful question challenging Jews to live fully in two distinct civilizations, and argued with those who refused to accept the possibility and realistic manifestation of such a proposal. Joseph’s arrival and thriving success in Egypt is a marvelous setup for the unfolding breathtaking drama of his future rise to power and eventual reconciliation with his brothers, however had Genesis stopped there – Dayenu – that would be enough to link to our modern story of Jews arriving in [fill in the blank for several societies: Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, Hungary] rising to prominence and forgetting their Jewishness.
Joseph’s situation raises the age-old question of how do we maintain a Jewish existence outside of the Land of Israel? I would be fascinated to reads the results had the Pew researchers and interviewed Joseph for their study on Jewish identity. We are told in the text that God was with him, and that he was identified as an ivri, and fast-forwarding to the end of the story we know that Joseph saw the importance of returning to the Land – even if only his bones. And so we have the three pillars of Jewish existence: God and
Torah
,
Am
or peoplehood, and
Eretz
– a connection to the Land. While this trifecta could stand on two legs or pillars I feel that without a strong sense of all three we cannot be as Joseph “אַנָשִׁים מַצְלִיחִים” – a successful people.
Today of course, many of us live in open societies blurring these public-private lines. No longer do we need a bifurcated identity à la Gordon, and some may argue that had Herzl lived to see Jewish life in so many of today’s communities he may not have despaired at the failure of emancipation.
What would Jewish life be like today if we were all Joseph? Would we be unrecognizable as Jews? Without spoiling the plot of next week, let us remember that Joseph’s greatness comes of course with his natural talent for dreaming and interpreting, but also for not forgetting his God, his people and of course his Land.
Succeeding Beyond all Expectations
ב וַיְהִי יְהוָה אֶת-יוֹסֵף וַיְהִי אִישׁ מַצְלִיחַ וַיְהִי בְּבֵית אֲדֹנָיו הַמִּצְרִי
ג וַיַּרְא אֲדֹנָיו כִּי יְהוָה אִתּוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר-הוּא עֹשֶׂה יְהוָה מַצְלִיחַ בְּיָדוֹ
ד וַיִּמְצָא יוֹסֵף חֵן בְּעֵינָיו וַיְשָׁרֶת אֹתוֹ וַיַּפְקִדֵהוּ עַל-בֵּיתוֹ וְכָל-יֶשׁ-לוֹ נָתַן בְּיָדוֹ
(בראשית לט: ב-ד)
“
The Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man; and he stayed in the house of his Egyptian master.
And when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord lent success to everything he undertook, he took a liking to Joseph.
He made him his personal attendant and put him in charge of his household, placing in his hands all that he owned.” (Genesis 39:2-4)
Despite the perilous and dubious circumstances in which Joseph arrived in Egypt, we learn that he quickly became quite successful at everything he did. Rising to significant prominence, Joseph the Hebrew found himself living a full Egyptian life. Of course he soon becomes the victim of attempted seduction and false accusation plot that lands him in jail, proving to be a minor stumbling block in his sweeping rise to fame and power. Joseph’s story is the quintessential Diaspora Jewish story. Exiled from his homeland and birthplace, Joseph finds himself charged with the task of acculturation, assimilation and essentially becoming more Egyptian than the Egyptians. He changes his name, his persona and provides sage advice to the local leadership. Is this not the model that every Diaspora Jew has sought for the past 2500 years?
So many Jews throughout history sought such a balance between succeeding in a predominantly non-Jewish society and maintain one’s own Jewish identity. From the shtadlanim or court Jews of Medieval Europe to what the late 19th-century Russian Jewish thinker Yehuda Leib Gordon coined as: “Be a Jew in your home and a man (mentsch) on the street,” this delicate balance is still contentious today as ever. Gordon most likely meant that for Jews to be successful in the world we must not disclose our Jewish identity, keeping it secluded to the confines of our homes – we must go by our local names and speak the local language never expressing conflicts of identity or dual loyalties.
The notion that a Jew could fit in and completely assimilate into another society was at the heart of Theodor Herzl’s anxiety. Exemplified in his 1894 play “
Das Neue Ghetto
” (The New Ghetto), he deals directly with the Jewish Question and what he perceives to be the unsuccessful emancipation of European Jewry. Herzl’s solution later became solidified after another “Hebrew” was falsely accused and tried in Paris, and the rest is history. For Herzl and so many others, Zionism became the answer to not being accepted by the host culture and society. As the Zionists were building a Jewish State another prominent Jewish philosopher and leader wrote wholeheartedly on this issue.
For Mordecai Kaplan, being a hyphenated American did not mean that Jews would harbor any kind of
divided
allegiance to two civilizations, but rather a
dual
loyalty that allowed them to live simultaneously and fully within both Jewish and American civilizations. The Jew, he insisted, would not be “fifty percent Jew and fifty percent American, but one hundred percent of each.” (Mordecai Kaplan,
Judaism as a Civilization
, 1934 pp. 249-52). Kaplan posed the fateful question challenging Jews to live fully in two distinct civilizations, and argued with those who refused to accept the possibility and realistic manifestation of such a proposal. Joseph’s arrival and thriving success in Egypt is a marvelous setup for the unfolding breathtaking drama of his future rise to power and eventual reconciliation with his brothers, however had Genesis stopped there – Dayenu – that would be enough to link to our modern story of Jews arriving in [fill in the blank for several societies: Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, Hungary] rising to prominence and forgetting their Jewishness.
Joseph’s situation raises the age-old question of how do we maintain a Jewish existence outside of the Land of Israel? I would be fascinated to reads the results had the Pew researchers and interviewed Joseph for their study on Jewish identity. We are told in the text that God was with him, and that he was identified as an ivri, and fast-forwarding to the end of the story we know that Joseph saw the importance of returning to the Land – even if only his bones. And so we have the three pillars of Jewish existence: God and
Torah
,
Am
or peoplehood, and
Eretz
– a connection to the Land. While this trifecta could stand on two legs or pillars I feel that without a strong sense of all three we cannot be as Joseph “אַנָשִׁים מַצְלִיחִים” – a successful people.
Today of course, many of us live in open societies blurring these public-private lines. No longer do we need a bifurcated identity à la Gordon, and some may argue that had Herzl lived to see Jewish life in so many of today’s communities he may not have despaired at the failure of emancipation.
What would Jewish life be like today if we were all Joseph? Would we be unrecognizable as Jews? Without spoiling the plot of next week, let us remember that Joseph’s greatness comes of course with his natural talent for dreaming and interpreting, but also for not forgetting his God, his people and of course his Land.
Succeeding Beyond all Expectations
ב וַיְהִי יְהוָה אֶת-יוֹסֵף וַיְהִי אִישׁ מַצְלִיחַ וַיְהִי בְּבֵית אֲדֹנָיו הַמִּצְרִי
ג וַיַּרְא אֲדֹנָיו כִּי יְהוָה אִתּוֹ וְכֹל אֲשֶׁר-הוּא עֹשֶׂה יְהוָה מַצְלִיחַ בְּיָדוֹ
ד וַיִּמְצָא יוֹסֵף חֵן בְּעֵינָיו וַיְשָׁרֶת אֹתוֹ וַיַּפְקִדֵהוּ עַל-בֵּיתוֹ וְכָל-יֶשׁ-לוֹ נָתַן בְּיָדוֹ
(בראשית לט: ב-ד)
“
The Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man; and he stayed in the house of his Egyptian master.
And when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord lent success to everything he undertook, he took a liking to Joseph.
He made him his personal attendant and put him in charge of his household, placing in his hands all that he owned.” (Genesis 39:2-4)
“
The Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man; and he stayed in the house of his Egyptian master.
And when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord lent success to everything he undertook, he took a liking to Joseph.
He made him his personal attendant and put him in charge of his household, placing in his hands all that he owned.” (Genesis 39:2-4)
“
The Lord was with Joseph and he was a successful man; and he stayed in the house of his Egyptian master.
And when his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord lent success to everything he undertook, he took a liking to Joseph.
He made him his personal attendant and put him in charge of his household, placing in his hands all that he owned.” (Genesis 39:2-4)
Despite the perilous and dubious circumstances in which Joseph arrived in Egypt, we learn that he quickly became quite successful at everything he did. Rising to significant prominence, Joseph the Hebrew found himself living a full Egyptian life. Of course he soon becomes the victim of attempted seduction and false accusation plot that lands him in jail, proving to be a minor stumbling block in his sweeping rise to fame and power. Joseph’s story is the quintessential Diaspora Jewish story. Exiled from his homeland and birthplace, Joseph finds himself charged with the task of acculturation, assimilation and essentially becoming more Egyptian than the Egyptians. He changes his name, his persona and provides sage advice to the local leadership. Is this not the model that every Diaspora Jew has sought for the past 2500 years?
So many Jews throughout history sought such a balance between succeeding in a predominantly non-Jewish society and maintain one’s own Jewish identity. From the shtadlanim or court Jews of Medieval Europe to what the late 19th-century Russian Jewish thinker Yehuda Leib Gordon coined as: “Be a Jew in your home and a man (mentsch) on the street,” this delicate balance is still contentious today as ever. Gordon most likely meant that for Jews to be successful in the world we must not disclose our Jewish identity, keeping it secluded to the confines of our homes – we must go by our local names and speak the local language never expressing conflicts of identity or dual loyalties.
The notion that a Jew could fit in and completely assimilate into another society was at the heart of Theodor Herzl’s anxiety. Exemplified in his 1894 play “
Das Neue Ghetto
” (The New Ghetto), he deals directly with the Jewish Question and what he perceives to be the unsuccessful emancipation of European Jewry. Herzl’s solution later became solidified after another “Hebrew” was falsely accused and tried in Paris, and the rest is history. For Herzl and so many others, Zionism became the answer to not being accepted by the host culture and society. As the Zionists were building a Jewish State another prominent Jewish philosopher and leader wrote wholeheartedly on this issue.
For Mordecai Kaplan, being a hyphenated American did not mean that Jews would harbor any kind of
divided
allegiance to two civilizations, but rather a
dual
loyalty that allowed them to live simultaneously and fully within both Jewish and American civilizations. The Jew, he insisted, would not be “fifty percent Jew and fifty percent American, but one hundred percent of each.” (Mordecai Kaplan,
Judaism as a Civilization
, 1934 pp. 249-52). Kaplan posed the fateful question challenging Jews to live fully in two distinct civilizations, and argued with those who refused to accept the possibility and realistic manifestation of such a proposal. Joseph’s arrival and thriving success in Egypt is a marvelous setup for the unfolding breathtaking drama of his future rise to power and eventual reconciliation with his brothers, however had Genesis stopped there – Dayenu – that would be enough to link to our modern story of Jews arriving in [fill in the blank for several societies: Britain, United States, Canada, Australia, Hungary] rising to prominence and forgetting their Jewishness.
Joseph’s situation raises the age-old question of how do we maintain a Jewish existence outside of the Land of Israel? I would be fascinated to reads the results had the Pew researchers and interviewed Joseph for their study on Jewish identity. We are told in the text that God was with him, and that he was identified as an ivri, and fast-forwarding to the end of the story we know that Joseph saw the importance of returning to the Land – even if only his bones. And so we have the three pillars of Jewish existence: God and
Torah
,
Am
or peoplehood, and
Eretz
– a connection to the Land. While this trifecta could stand on two legs or pillars I feel that without a strong sense of all three we cannot be as Joseph “אַנָשִׁים מַצְלִיחִים” – a successful people.
Today of course, many of us live in open societies blurring these public-private lines. No longer do we need a bifurcated identity à la Gordon, and some may argue that had Herzl lived to see Jewish life in so many of today’s communities he may not have despaired at the failure of emancipation.
What would Jewish life be like today if we were all Joseph? Would we be unrecognizable as Jews? Without spoiling the plot of next week, let us remember that Joseph’s greatness comes of course with his natural talent for dreaming and interpreting, but also for not forgetting his God, his people and of course his Land.