- Clergy
- Shabbat
This week we begin the Joseph saga in our Torah. Chanukah may seem like an unlikely time to think about forgiveness. The author, Stephen Mitchell, associates Joseph’s journey and character with the quality of forgiving in his retelling of the Joseph story, Joseph and the Way of Forgiveness.
Joseph is clearly betrayed by his brothers and his story could easily have been one about revenge, but our Torah teaches us a different path - showing that it is possible, even in the most glaring examples of injustice, to choose the path of forgiveness.
As clergy, we are allowed into intimate moments with families. We have seen families torn apart by differences and this is especially painful and evident when such rifts are still in place at the time of loss.
Joseph’s path to forgiveness is not one that denies that damage was done. He was separated from his homeplace, from his loving father, and faced many trials of his own without family support.
Mitchell imagines Joseph at the end of his life, giving thanks for the identity that belonged to him. “More than enjoyed: he had great respect for (his identity). It had known when to properly assert itself and when to step out of the way and give itself over to the unnamable. At those moments, there was not a trace of doing in it. It was a transparent vessel, an instrument, grateful to be used. But he was ready to leave this cherished identity behind now… He had no regrets. There was nothing further he wished for, nothing he had left undone. Everything was coming to completion, like a long piece of music that had almost arrived at its final chord.” When Joseph leaves this world, he does so having made amends with others and with himself.
When Joseph is approaching death, he makes his brothers swear an oath that they will bring his bones back into the land. In Hebrew the word etzem (bone) carries a double meaning. It can also mean essence. "And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him, for he had solemnly sworn the children of Israel, saying: 'God will surely remember you; and you shall carry up my bones away from here with you.’" (Ex 13:19)
The essence of Joseph is the quality of forgiveness. May we all have the strength to forgive and be forgiven as we carry the essence of Joseph forward in our own lives.
Shabbat Shalom,
Cantor Kerith Spencer-Shapiro