In this week’s portion, we meet the young Joseph. His story is actually the longest continuous narrative in the Torah but at the outset we know only that he is a shepherd, that he is the favored offspring of Jacob’s old age, that his brother’s hate him and that previously he had brought debatam ra’ah of them to his father. In various translations you find that phrase rendered as bad report, evil report, malicious report and (even) false report.
A midrash quoted by the commentator Rashi relates: “Whatever Joseph saw wrong in his brothers, the sons of Leah, he reported to his father: that they used to eat flesh cut off from a living animal, that they treated the sons of the handmaids with contempt, calling them slaves, and that they were suspected of living in an immoral manner.” The midrash leaves it open as to the veracity of these reports. They could have been malicious fabrications, and in fact the passage goes on to say that for each of these reports Joseph suffered in kind. “Because Joseph slandered them saying they called their brothers slaves he himself was sold into slavery. And because Joseph charged them with immorality later his master’s wife charged him with immorality.”
The intent of this teaching is ambiguous. If Joseph’s reports were accurate why did he suffer such negative consequences for relaying them? On the other hand, if the reports were false and the consequences were merited, is the midrash telling us and are we to believe that what goes around comes around, that a kind of karmic payback operates in this world?
Human beings need to have some trust in the people with whom they share life. That goes for family, neighbors, co-workers and community; and if and when trust is lost the odds are small that a similar confidence and dependability can ever be fully restored. No wonder Jospeh’s brothers hated him.
The text says v’lo youchlu dabro l’shalom – usally translated ‘they could not speak peaceably to him.’ Shalom does mean peace, but the word also has a sense of completion and wholeness. So what may have been lost with Joseph’s un-truthful reports was any sense that his brother’s could ever fully trust him again.
It is very difficult if not near impossible to be with or work with people you do not trust, and distrust can easily escalate into a more pernicious and destructive emotions. If you want to be trusted be trustworthy.
It used to be said that people were entitled to their own opinions but not their own facts. That notion seems not only passé today, but when facts are so easily labeled fake, when falsehoods are disseminated with such abandon, when conspiracy theories purport that nothing is at it seems to be, it becomes ever harder to know whom, when and what to trust. The very concept of truth is under attack.
The prophet Isaiah cautioned: Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. I would add to that list truth for falsehood and falsehood for truth. Because if there is karmic payback in the universe…..
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Whiman