אָמַר רַב אַחָא בְּשָׁעָה שֶׁהַצַּדִּיקִים יוֹשְׁבִים בְּשַׁלְוָה וּמְבַקְּשִׁים לֵישֵׁב בְּשַׁלְוָה בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה הַשָֹּׂטָן בָּא וּמְקַטְרֵג, אָמַר, לֹא דַיָין שֶׁהוּא מְתֻקָּן לָהֶם לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא אֶלָּא שֶׁהֵם מְבַקְּשִׁים לֵישֵׁב בְּשַׁלְוָה בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה. תֵּדַע לָךְ שֶׁהוּא כֵּן, יַעֲקֹב אָבִינוּ עַל יְדֵי שֶׁבִּקֵּשׁ לֵישֵׁב בְּשַׁלְוָה בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה נִזְדַּוֵּוג לוֹ שִׂטְנוֹ שֶׁל יוֹסֵף. וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב (איוב ג, כו): לֹא שָׁלַוְתִּי וְלֹא שָׁקַטְתִּי, לֹא שָׁלַוְתִּי מֵעֵשָׂו, וְלֹא שָׁקַטְתִּי מִלָּבָן, וְלֹא נָחְתִּי מִדִּינָה, וַיָּבֹא רֹגֶז, בָּא עָלַי רָגְזוֹ שֶׁל יוֹסֵף.
Rav Acha said: When the righteous sit in tranquillity and desire to sit in tranquility in this world, the Satan comes and accuses, saying: “Is that which is set for (the righteous) in the World to Come not enough that they seek serenity in this world?” Know that this is certainly the case. Our Forefather, Jacob, sought to dwell in serenity in this world and the “Satan” [difficulty, impediment] of Joseph clung itself to Jacob. “And Jacob dwelt … etc.”(Gen 37:1) [actually is connected to]“I had no repose, no quiet, no rest, and trouble came” (Job 3:26) - I had no repose – from Esau; no quiet – from Laban; no rest - from Dinah; and trouble (lit. anger) came – the trouble of Joseph.
Jacob's attempt to resolve, to "read" the text of God's covenant in the light of his own life seems impeccable. And yet, as we have seen, God does not merely override Jacob's reading (as in the above midrash), but--much more radically-He mocks such an attempt, wher ever it occurs, as vulgar misreading, a lack of aesthetic tact.
The opening verse seems to contrast Jacob's desire to "settle," to interpret his life and God's word, with the "sojournings" of his father, Isaac. The provisional, God-directed quality of his father's life has been replaced by a new enterprise in Jacob's life-the enterprise that the kabbalists called emet-truth. Jacob wants to read the family texts strongly, to synthesize the contrasting elements of his father's and his grand-father's worlds. In a word, Jacob wants to compose a whole world of his own: "He sought to settle in peace" indicates a cognitive and aesthetic ambition to see history resolved, sojournings over, in this world. What "leaps upon him" is the wild animal that tears Joseph apart-tarof toraf Yosef. Instead of yishuv ha-da'at, clarity, composure, coherence, there is tiruf ba-da'at, confusion, bewilderment, loss of consciousness.
Rabbi Acha’s midrash reminds us how hard it is to live in tranquility (shalva) in our messy worlds. We sit. We seek out refuge. We retreat. But things happen around us (to us, it often feels) that disturb our settled minds. Rest and quiet are elusive, trouble all too present. Some are our personal sadnesses and trials. Some belong to the people around us. Still others happen half-way around the world to people we’ve never met, but nevertheless take up residence in our minds. Is Rabbi Acha right? Are we destined to live a restless and troubled lives? Can our moments of peace on the cushion or the mat be anything more than fleeting?
Among my most treasured insights since I began learning with the Institute is the notion that olam haba and olam hazeh are not temporal designations, but mind states. Both worlds exist in all moments. The first one presents itself so readily, our everyday experience of “this” and “that,” a world of separate things. The other one comes upon us with some effort and some grace. It is boundless, infinite. Living in the one or the other isn’t a simple thing, a mere “glass half-full” choice one can make once and for all. But I do believe that we can go there, again and again.
As I sit during the week of Vayeshev, I will look for signs of yishuv da’at in my practice: the clarity and “sparkle” that come with concentration, the empathy and compassion that accompany me when I rise from the cushion. Knowing that moments of yishuv are fleeting, may I nevertheless live in their light.
“Vayeshev” in Hebrew means “settles,” sharing a root with the Hebrew word for “sit.” In mindfulness parlance, “sitting” is another word for meditating. Jacob reminds me of myself and so many other meditators who, when we first start meditating, fall into the trap of wanting to “meditate away” our troubles, hoping to escape ourselves and the world through sitting. Bestselling author and psychiatrist, Dr. Mark Epstein, recounts his early experiences with meditation and excitement about the Buddhist concept of “no-self”:
"[M]y understanding of no-self was limited at this point. I took it to mean that my inner anxiety, my “self,” was unreal and would drop away once I woke up. It was confusing to find that meditation – rather than dropping me into a void of no—self – backed me into myself…While meditation was teaching me to hold myself with a light touch, it was also helping me…to emerge through my suffering, not in spite of it. (Trauma of Everyday Life, 9)"
This has been my experience as well. Each of my attempts to find peace outside of the chaos of my own heart, mind and life eventually fails. The only way out of suffering is through it. The Buddhists’ have a phrase for this: “No mud, no lotus.” Lotus flowers, one of the symbols of enlightenment, only grow in muddy, swampy waters. Working with our pain in this world (as opposed to the “next”) is our best chance of attaining the inner peace that Jacob may have been seeking.
בפסוק ויהי ה' את יוסף כו' בבית אדוניו המצרי כו'. במדרש מצליח קפוז. הענין הוא שכל איש ישראל בפרט הצדיק בכל מקום שהולך. הפנימיות שלו הולך עמו. אך בודאי בגלות אין החיות מסודר במקומו כראוי רק לעתים ידועות יכולין להחזיק עצמו בההארות שמתגלות להצדיק ולכל בני ישראל שנאמר ועמך כולם צדיקים. לכן במצרים כתיב ויהי ה' כו' ויהי בבית אדוניו הוא בשינוים בתערובות. לפעמים נגלה. ולפעמים נכסה ע"י הסתרות הסט"א וטומאת המקומות
Sefat Emet (brought by Rabbi Erin Leib Smokler)
Regarding the verse [in Genesis 39:2]: “The Lord was [vayehi] with Joseph, and he was [veyehi] a successful [matzliach] man; and he was [vayehi] in the house of his Egyptian master [Potiphar],” the midrash [says that a] successful [man means a man of] alacrity. The idea is that for every Jew, specifically the righteous ones, everywhere they go, their inwardness goes with them. But certainly in exile, full vitality is not set in its place as it ought to be. Only at certain times can a person strengthen herself with the illuminations that are revealed to the righteous and to all Jews, as the verse says, “And your people, all of them righteous…” (Isaiah 60:21). Therefore, in Egypt, the verse says “And the Lord was... and he was in the house of his master” [to indicate that God was there] in different, more mixed [N.B. less obviously delineated] ways. Sometimes revealed and sometimes covered over by the Other Side (sitra achra) and the impurity of the place….
Joseph “leaps over mountains” in the sense that he jumps from one experience to another. His life feels more episodic than continuous, more interrupted than sustained. He gets glimpses of flow then returns to gritty mundanity; has intervals of intensity followed by periods of ennui. “And he was...And he was...and he was…” is a sentence structure that reflects the rhythms of a life lived in distinct, perhaps unintegrated, chapters.
His experiences varied in quality, quantity, intensity, texture, and flavor. God was with him (and then God was not) and then God was this way and then God was that way. ...ויהי...ויהי...ויהי .In a dance of hide-andseek, these partners come into contact and then part, sneaking peeks at one another from time to time, leaping from peak to peak.
This, says the Sefat Emet, is the dance we all do, as we are all in exile, alienated from a world and a life that is fully, constantly enchanted. We are blessed occasionally with “illuminations.” We are gifted moments of clarity. We periodically make contact with the divine within and without. These times are gorgeous and they are fleeting. For as much as Joseph’s episodic life testifies to what is possible-- ”ףֵ֔ת־יוסֶא ה׳ יִ֤הְיַו “,God really can show up--it also honors the emptiness between encounters: “ההארה נפסק בינתים “,in between, our vision is occluded. From one peak moment to the next, the flow of illumination really does cease, and we must learn how to live with all the in-betweens. We must learn how to stay aloft as we leap from mountain to mountain.
Rabbi Amy Bernstein