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Earning a Living — Earning a LifeEarning a Living — Earning a Life Parshat VaYigash 5767 — December 27th, 2006 Essay #15 Breslov Research Institute © 2006 Savings and Family Hello again. Sorry for the absence but we also have to “earn a living” in order for Breslov Research Institute to finance its work. Hopefully, we will be able to keep up with weekly essays from now on. It’s quite a few interesting weeks of Torah reading what with the brothers selling Yosef into slavery, Pharaoh’s dreams, Yosef coming to the rescue and how Yosef deals with his brothers. Then we have this week’s Torah reading when Yosef reveals himself to his brothers and the subsequent family reunification. Yosef had a couple of dreams, the first referring to livelihood when they were bundling their sheaves in the field. Each person has his own bundle and there’s a right way for him to do his personal job. Yet, there’s an ultimate goal, a reason for the work we do. This was Yosef’s central bundle, which alludes to the need of the people to focus upon the tzaddik for guidance, even though they are busy with their material needs. But the brothers resented this idea and though, true, they were tzaddikim in their own right, they still needed a “Yosef” to get them to develop their potential to the utmost level possible. Instead, they allowed jealousies to cloud their business acumen, and instead of revering Yosef they sold him into slavery. But God always has master plans and despite Yosef’s position of servitude and his being a penniless slave, he remains a tzaddik and manages to ascend to the top, saving the Egyptian economy and even working up a huge surplus of profits from exports of grain, etc. How did this happen, that a tzaddik, a spiritual advisor, was able to do this? Reb Noson writes that Pharaoh represents the forces of evil, everything bad that happens in life. It could be financial, physical or emotional troubles but whatever the difficulty, there is a pharaoh or some other evil behind it happening. The tzaddik’s job is to help the person get passed his troubles, improving one’s self and situation where possible and also by teaching the person how to accept that which cannot be changed. Pharaoh’s “dream” is to supply people with “seven years of plenty,” each person attaining a measure of success. But then, pharaoh’s “dream” takes on a sinister interpretation of seven lean years, when everything the person ever had disappears completely. It is made to throw the person into despair by forgetting anything good that ever happened or that the person experienced. Yosef’s advice is not to fall victim to such dreams”—not to take all success as inevitable nor every failure as a signal to fall into depression. As Reb Noson explains, life is like that. We find success, we encounter failures. We experience good, but we then face difficult moments. Yosef advises us to always remember the good—to put aside a little for the “lean years” which are an integral part of life. People awake each day with a renewed feeling for getting things done, especially in their spiritual goals. But we then face the problems of life and tend to become overwhelmed by our challenges. Having begun, again, so many times, we just tend to give up and say, “The heck with it,” forgetting that we already taken great strides and have witnessed personal growth, perhaps countless times. This is “Pharaoh’s dream” to make us forget any good we ever experienced. It is Yosef, the true tzaddik, who comes up with the advice to counter the pharaohs of our lives. His counsel is to “put away something of the years of plenty.” The tzaddik teaches us to never forget any good you ever had. “Put it away” for the time will come when you have to draw upon that good to remind you that things were good and will eventually turn around and become good again. You will experience additional growth. As much as this applies to our spiritual growth, it also applies to our business acumen and financial stability. Few things, if any, remain stable in life. A businessman who wishes to be honest with himself knows that every deal is somewhat of a miracle. How many times does one seek a certain sale or contract yet the actual deal comes from another source altogether? Thus, he can never for certain assume that the “years of plenty” will remain so and if he learns from Yosef he understands the importance of building up his resources so he can wait out the lean years when they come. And a person on a fixed salary also can not rely upon his steady income. There are always outside factors which influence job markets and jobs themselves. Many companies are open to hostile takeovers or changing markets. And even from within, one can never anticipate the sudden expenses one faces such as broken water mains or a leaking roof which can set a homeowner back quite a bit. So, as Yosef advises, put away a little for the future, store a little bit of good for those times which might not be so fruitful. By listening to the tzaddik we can learn to appreciate what we had what we have, and also learn to anticipate what we will be receiving in the future. This is how, as we see in this week’s Torah reading, we find the reunification of the family. If we follow the right advice, we can live together and even be prosperous, since, when the family was united under their Patriarch, the famine ceased and blessings abounded. Next week we hope to get back on track into the topics of business and earning a livelihood. One final thought to leave with you in line with the season’s greetings. Whenever we are able to draw upon the teachings of Rebbe Nachman, you will find that there always is “Ho! Ho! Hope!” Best wishes, Chaim Kramer |
