Rabbi's Message

It’s almost Hanukkah! On Sunday night we will light the first candle and begin our celebration of the holiday. We have a number of opportunities to celebrate together at TBS that you can see below, I hope you will join us! 

Hanukkah is also called Hag Urim – the Festival of Lights. In the darkest time of the year, when the days are the shortest, we light candles to illuminate our homes. There is a powerful lesson in this. When things are challenging, when it is hard to see clearly, we try to make it a little brighter. I found a comment on one seemingly simple verse in our Torah portion this week that teaches what can happen when we don’t try and improve our vision. 

This Shabbat we begin reading the story of Joseph and his brothers in Parashat Vayeshev. It begins with Jacob sending his favorite son to find his brothers, who are tending to the family flock. As Joseph approaches his brothers, the Torah says “They saw him from afar and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him.”  We know what happens next. The brothers throw Joseph into a pit, and then sell him into slavery, and he is taken down to Egypt. Rabbi Yehuda Herzl Henkin, a 20th century Israeli rabbi who was born in the US, adds a very insightful commentary to this verse. When the Torah says, “They saw him from afar,” Rabbi Henkin writes, “they recognized him by his coat.”  We can picture the brothers seeing a figure coming towards them off in the distance. He is too far away to recognize, but the bright coat of many colors gives Joseph away. That coat, a special gift from their father, once again arouses their jealousy. They don’t see their brother, they only see the object of their envy. The Torah continues, “and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him.” Rabbi Henkin continues, “so that they would not see his face and have mercy on him.” It is at that moment that they conspire to kill Joseph, which, Rabbi Henkin writes, is before they could actually see their brother’s face. He gives the impression that, if they could see his face, if they could recognize him as their brother, and not as an object of their jealously, then perhaps they would have not been able to do what they did. 

Perhaps the story would have gone differently. When we only see people from afar, we can allow our prejudices, fears, and emotions to inform our sight. But if are able to see someone up close, in the fullness of the light, then we can look into their face, recognize their humanity, and then our mercy can overrule our judgment.  As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks writes, “From far away, we don’t see people as human beings, and when we stop seeing people as human beings, and they become instead symbols, objects of envy or hate, people can do terrible things to one another.” That’s the lesson that our Parashah teaches this Shabbat, and what makes the holiday of Hanukkah so meaningful. We light candles to cut through the darkness to inspire us to really see the humanity in others, no matter if they are near or far.