Thursday, December 3, 2015
Parshas Vayeshev: We are not hear for Popularity!
10:32 PM | 
Posted by
Rabbi Chaim Coffman |
"And Yosef dreamed a dream and he told it to his brethren and they hated him yet the more" (Genesis 37:5).
If Yosef already had issues with his brothers, why did he tell them the dreams if he knew that it could potentially put his life in danger? After all, why not forego this and not tell them since it is going to increase their hatred?
These dreams that Yosef had were a form of prophecy and when someone has a prophecy they have an obligation to tell it over even if that will put their life in danger. Not only that, but a prophet having this vision has to give over the correct meaning of it and if he doesn't he is liable for the death penalty. It is tough to be a prophet!
This is the issue that Yona had when he didn't want to give over the prophecy to the people of Nineveh. Even though he tried to hide so to speak G-d came to him again emphasizing that he had to go and tell the people of Nineveh what He told him. From here we see an interesting idea,
On the one hand we see the importance of giving over the right message even if that meant possibly putting your own life in danger. We also learn that sometimes even if we feel uncomfortable we have to protest some things to show G-d that we don't approve. We have to know when and where to do this but why is it important?
Sometimes we will see something that goes against what G-d wants from us and we can't just sit around and watch a desecration of G-d's name. This means even if we don't think that what we are doing has any consequences, nonetheless we don't want to be held accountable in the next world!
Why would we be held accountable? The reason is that we didn't think it was that problematic and it is as if we see that there is nothing wrong with it! Is this really true? Does G-d want us to seemingly complain when people aren't going to listen?
First of all, we don't know that people won't listen. It will depend how we do it but at the same time, we have to show that this is not an ownerless world where what we do doesn't matter and that G-d forbid He is not around or doesn't care! By taking a stand, we are showing that there is judgment and there is a true Judge! If not, we could be held responsible and it will look like we agree with this!
Although this may be far from our reality, we have to ask ourselves, when we see Jews who don't keep shabbos drive by us on Shabbos, does it bother us or do we just chalk it up to their ignorance about the important of this holy day? If it doesn't bother us at all then we have some real spiritual issues that need to be worked on! We have to look inward to try and understand what we may be lacking in.
We also have to realize that even if no one is going to listen we still have a obligation (depending on the circumstances) to show that we disapprove of what is happening around us. As one person told me when that they went to a siblings intermarriage under protest. Under protest? How was the protest shown if they were actually there? The greatest protest that could have been made would to not have gone! By going under "protest" you are actually showing that you approve and that could not be further from the truth!
We sometimes have to make unpopular decisions but better to look stupid in the eyes of man than uncaring about Torah in the eyes of G-d!
Shabbat Shalom
If Yosef already had issues with his brothers, why did he tell them the dreams if he knew that it could potentially put his life in danger? After all, why not forego this and not tell them since it is going to increase their hatred?
These dreams that Yosef had were a form of prophecy and when someone has a prophecy they have an obligation to tell it over even if that will put their life in danger. Not only that, but a prophet having this vision has to give over the correct meaning of it and if he doesn't he is liable for the death penalty. It is tough to be a prophet!
This is the issue that Yona had when he didn't want to give over the prophecy to the people of Nineveh. Even though he tried to hide so to speak G-d came to him again emphasizing that he had to go and tell the people of Nineveh what He told him. From here we see an interesting idea,
On the one hand we see the importance of giving over the right message even if that meant possibly putting your own life in danger. We also learn that sometimes even if we feel uncomfortable we have to protest some things to show G-d that we don't approve. We have to know when and where to do this but why is it important?
Sometimes we will see something that goes against what G-d wants from us and we can't just sit around and watch a desecration of G-d's name. This means even if we don't think that what we are doing has any consequences, nonetheless we don't want to be held accountable in the next world!
Why would we be held accountable? The reason is that we didn't think it was that problematic and it is as if we see that there is nothing wrong with it! Is this really true? Does G-d want us to seemingly complain when people aren't going to listen?
First of all, we don't know that people won't listen. It will depend how we do it but at the same time, we have to show that this is not an ownerless world where what we do doesn't matter and that G-d forbid He is not around or doesn't care! By taking a stand, we are showing that there is judgment and there is a true Judge! If not, we could be held responsible and it will look like we agree with this!
Although this may be far from our reality, we have to ask ourselves, when we see Jews who don't keep shabbos drive by us on Shabbos, does it bother us or do we just chalk it up to their ignorance about the important of this holy day? If it doesn't bother us at all then we have some real spiritual issues that need to be worked on! We have to look inward to try and understand what we may be lacking in.
We also have to realize that even if no one is going to listen we still have a obligation (depending on the circumstances) to show that we disapprove of what is happening around us. As one person told me when that they went to a siblings intermarriage under protest. Under protest? How was the protest shown if they were actually there? The greatest protest that could have been made would to not have gone! By going under "protest" you are actually showing that you approve and that could not be further from the truth!
We sometimes have to make unpopular decisions but better to look stupid in the eyes of man than uncaring about Torah in the eyes of G-d!
Shabbat Shalom
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