Parashat Vayeishev

I tried to talk my sister into coming to Shul yesterday by telling her that she would see the first act of “Joseph and the Amazing Techno-Colored Dreamcoat”. After figuring out what I meant, she decided against it.

Yesterday we read the first Parashat about Joseph, the story continues for the rest of the book of Genesis. I think most of us know the story, so I don’t want to talk about that. What I do want to talk about is a tiny section, which seems insignificant, but in reality, all of Jewish History is based on it.

Here’s the story. Josephs brothers head out to plot to kill Joseph. Jacob sends Joseph out to make peace with his brothers. When Joseph gets to where he thought his brothers would be, the following happens

Then a man found him, and behold, he was straying in the field, and the man asked him, saying, "What are you looking for?" And he said, "I am looking for my brothers. Tell me now, where are they pasturing?" And the man said, "They have traveled away from here, for I overheard them say, 'Let us go to Dothan.' " [37:15-17]

Doesn’t sounds like much. But this man could have saw Joseph wandering in the field and thought to himself, “He’s just some kid playing in the field, not my business’. In fact that’s what most people today probably would have done. But if things had happened that way, Joseph would have never found his brothers, he would never have been sent to Egypt, and the upcoming famine would have wiped the Jews out. In other words, this unidentified man’s act of kindness is what allowed the Jewish nation to be born.

They say that the world stands on three things Torah, Service of G-d, and Acts of Kindness. This is what they are refereeing to.