Since last week, I’ve been thinking about something a friend asked as discussion questions in a study session I was at about last weeks portion. I was a little out of it at the time and didn’t answer then, but I thought about my answers, since mine are some of Joseph’s final comments in the book of Genesis:
19. And Joseph said to them, Fear not; do I replace God?
20. But as for you, you meant bad things against me; but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is today, keeping alive many people.
These words are Joseph’s response to his brother’s agitation after the death of Jacob that Joseph will now take retribution on his brothers. They are the words of a wise seasoned sage, not the words of the haughty seventeen year old tattletale. They made me think this week about those discussion questions. While there were several, there was a question that stood out:
Does God have a personal plan for each of us, and if so what does that say about free will?
My answer is yes, I do have a personal plan given to me by God. Indeed we all do. Yet I think it’s important to remember something that seemed to be missing in that conversation last week. A plan is not a script. A script indicates all the actions and statements made. A plan gives the general idea, but not how it will really be implemented. Plans may not end up the way they started. There is room for variation in implementation. For example imagine the plans for a house. You can make a hundred houses from the same blueprints but the furniture, choices of paint, siding, roofing materials etc. could make for a hundred unique homes. Plans and free will are not mutually exclusive.
One problem with plans I mentioned last week. Some want to spite God through sin because an omnipotent God did not interfere with bad events. Most moderns think of the holocaust of course, but in the time of the Rabbis the brutality of
Joseph is familiar with such bad things in his life. Joseph was a man who at seventeen was assaulted and almost murdered by his own brothers, sold as a slave, accused and jailed for Sexual assault. He spent thirteen years in the lowest worst conditions anyone could imagine. At many a turn his death looked imminent. Yet he survived and we are told at each of those points that God was with him. God was with Joseph because Joseph was with God. Although told to the People of Israel many years after Joseph’s death, there are words which summarize this plan best of all:
4. Hear, O Israel; The Lord is our God is the Lord is One;
5. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. 6. And these words, which I command you this day, shall be in your heart; 7. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise up. 8. And you shall bind them for a sign upon your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9. And you shall write them upon the posts of your house, and on your gates. [Deuteronomy 6:4-9]
Joseph may not have known the Shema, but he lived it. By living it he kept God close. Bad things still happened to him, but each was a challenge to his character. The obnoxious brat of seventeen would have lost his head in front of Pharaoh. The thirty year old convict knew how to play the game and not only survive the encounter, but end up second in command. The hardship in his life made him a better person. He was given a challenge and accepted it by moving with each experience to a more righteous character. There are plenty of prophets and patriarchs in Torah, but Joseph is the only Tzaddik. All the others heard the voice of God, Joseph never did. Like us, he only got dreams.
Plans change. People perceive the parts of the plan differently, and thus execute them differently. Our perceptions are unique as we are unique. Joseph realized by the end of his life he cannot know the whole plan, nor the plan for anyone else. A good thing for one is a bad thing for others. A bad thing in one’s life may be the entry point for something wonderful. We cannot know. Sometimes a dream, as in both my case and Joseph’s changes everything, but only if you know how to react to the dream. What we can do is change and improve our character and strive towards becoming a tzaddik, a righteous person, loving God and living in the way of God as we go down the path of our life.
One of the reasons I never answered this question last week was that the time of darkness outside reflects the darkness that I and many feel inside at this time of year. I really cannot complain about my life but there are places where it is painfully empty, and December always rubs it in my face a thousand different ways. I therefore was not in the mood to answer. Yet that pain and emptiness I have taken as a challenge. I have grown as a person, and continue to do so, much like the Bill Murray character from Groundhog Day did. A dream helped me realize that last week as well, a dream where much of my life in the last seventeen years never happened. I’ve faced many crises in that time, chiseling and forging me. Today, I’d rather be the Shlomo of 2008 with two masters’ degrees and a lot of charisma, than the agnostic shy computer geek Steve of 1991.
Joseph was very clear he should be grateful for his brother’s evil. Without it not only would they have died but Joseph would never have achieved the success he did. Moreover, everyone in the entire region might have died from starvation. God planned a famine. Joseph’s response to the warnings countered the plan and saved lives.
There is a plan. The plan for each of us is found in the Shema, though we each read it differently. Hardships do exist, some slight some horrible. Yet even those may lead to even greater things for us depending on our actions. We as limited beings cannot know. As Joseph Ha Tzaddik said, we cannot replace God with ourselves. We can only love God, and improve ourselves day in and day out.
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