I hate going to the optometrist. I first began wearing glasses when I was five years old, and every year or so in that office they would have to pin me down to put eyedrops in my eyes. I hated the experience, and as an adult went ten years without going (until my wife forced me to this past year.) We all have places like this: places that carry a negative association. For me it\u2019s the optometrist\u2019s office, the intersection I got in a small car accident, the room I failed a midterm. Bad associations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Our sages tell us that as a nation, we have such a location.\u00a0 Our tradition does not look fondly on the city of Shechem: The gemara in Sanhedrin 102a tells us Shechem is a makom mizuyen lapuraniyos, it is a location of calamities:\u00a0 in last week\u2019s parsha, the violation of Dina occurred in Shechem.\u00a0 In our parsha, the brothers confront, ambush, and ultimately sell Yosef in Shechem, and about a thousand years later, in Shechem, Yeravam rebels against david hamelech and divides the kingdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Imagine the lump in Yosef\u2019s throat as he receives his father\u2019s instructions to check on his brothers in Shechem.\u00a0\u00a0 To be fair, at this point in history, only one of these events has transpired, so Yosef may not think much of the symbolism of Shechem.\u00a0 But the Ramban tells us he was not excited about the trip: he knew his brothers hated him, he was full of fear confronting them, and were it not for his devotion to his father, he would have refused the mission.\u00a0 But he obliges to his father\u2019s request, he arrives in Shechem, and we know how the story ends.\u00a0 The brothers strip him of the ketonet passim, they throw him in a pit which chazal say was filled with snakes and scorpions, he gets sold and ultimately ends up as a slave in Egypt and by the time our parsha ends, he finds himself serving an indefinite jail sentence for a crime he did not commit.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A rather unpleasant trip to Shechem. If Chazal view Shechem as this city of doom, we can only imagine how Yosef sees it, after experiencing these hardships firsthand. If you were to play Jewish geography with Yosef, you probably want to pass on the Shechem connections. It understandably may be a sore subject.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fast forward to Parshat Vayechi: Yaakov Avinu is on his deathbed, and he spends his final moments blessing his children. He sets a special meeting with Yosef and his family, the famous crossing hands bracha for the children, and now he has a special present for Yosef: an extra portion in the land of Israel: \u201cva\u2019ani natati licha\u201d I have given you \u201cshchem echad al achecha.\u201d You get the city of Shechem!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It sounds like a joke: Yaakov gives Yosef Shechem? The city of horror? The city associated with Yosef being hated, separated, enslaved?? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Maybe we are mistranslating the words? Rashi there informs us \u201cShchem mamish,\u201d it\u2019s a proper noun; the gift from Yaakov is none other than the wonderful city of Shechem. (See the commentaries there for other views.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It gets better: flip to the final page of Sefer Bereishit: Yosef tells his brothers do not leave me in Egypt. Ha\u2019alitem et atmotai mizeh, bring my body out of Egypt. During the exodus, the Torah tells us they carried Yosef\u2019s bones with them throughout their journey in the desert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
How does that episode end? The penultimate pasuk in Sefer Yehousha records that finally, Yosef\u2019s coffin came to rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u05d5\u05b0\u05d0\u05b6\u05ea-\u05e2\u05b7\u05e6\u05b0\u05de\u05d5\u05b9\u05ea \u05d9\u05d5\u05b9\u05e1\u05b5\u05e3 \u05d0\u05b2\u05e9\u05b6\u05c1\u05e8-\u05d4\u05b6\u05e2\u05b1\u05dc\u05d5\u05bc \u05d1\u05b0\u05e0\u05b5\u05d9-\u05d9\u05b4\u05e9\u05b0\u05c2\u05e8\u05b8\u05d0\u05b5\u05dc \u05de\u05b4\u05de\u05b4\u05bc\u05e6\u05b0\u05e8\u05b7\u05d9\u05b4\u05dd, \u05e7\u05b8\u05d1\u05b0\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc \u05d1\u05b4\u05e9\u05b0\u05c1\u05db\u05b6\u05dd<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Yosef is forever linked to the city of disaster, to a moment of pain, trauma, and loneliness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My good friend and former chavrusa Rabbi Jonah Steinmetz offered a beautiful insight which I believe explains the recurring Shechem connection in Yosef\u2019s life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n No one feels comfortable in a pit or appreciates slavery in a foreign country, but believe it or not, Yosef looks back fondly on that fateful day in Shchem. Read through the next few parshiyot carefully: Yosef never complains, he never points fingers, and he never feels a need to plot revenge. Yosef understood that that moment in Shchem was necessary for him to accomplish his life\u2019s mission, and that day of darkness and place of pain became a defining moment in Yosef\u2019s life. Yosef\u2019s life is filled with adversity, but he maintains utmost faith in the Almighty, and not only rolls with the punches, but uses his lowest moments to fuel his growth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We all have moments and locations in life where things went differently than we would have hoped. Our inclination is to forget these moments or more accurately delete them from our memory. We can take these experiences and simply move past them. Sometimes this may be appropriate and healthy, but at times we do ourselves a disservice if we remove an experience because it was difficult or even because we failed. Yosef\u2019s life provides an alternative model; we can define ourselves by our ability to grow and overcome the adversity and challenges we all face. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I hate going to the optometrist. I first began wearing glasses when I was five years old, and every year or so in that office they would have to pin me down to put eyedrops in my eyes. I hated the experience, and as an adult went ten years without going (until my wife forced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"saved_in_kubio":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[72,11,22],"tags":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/remoteshul.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}