Attitudes That Build or Destroy Worlds: Parashat Vayeshev

Attitudes That Build or Destroy Worlds

Parashat Vayeshev – Kol Shalom, 2025

Parashat Vayeshev introduces us to a family seemingly destined for greatness, yet caught 

in a deep internal crisis. As is often the case, the Torah does not present them as a perfect 

family; instead, it shows a home where pride, jealousy, and parental favoritism shape 

relationships and ultimately set in motion events that will change not only their lives, but 

the entire future of the people of Israel. And it is precisely in these attitudes—subtle, 

human, everyday—that the parashah’s most contemporary message is found. Joseph, the brilliant young son, favored by his father, appears before us as someone who has not yet learned to master the light he carries within.

Rashi explains that he spoke negatively about his brothers.

Ramban notes that when he recounted his dreams, he did so with details that inevitably 

deepened the wound. In other words, the issue was not only what he said, but how he 

said it.

Kabbalah sees in Joseph the sephirah of Yesod, the channel through which divine 

abundance flows into the world. But when that channel is not yet refined, as Rabbi Isaac 

Luria teaches, connection turns into disconnection. Joseph had light—he simply had not 

yet learned how to share it without blinding those around him. 

His youthful pride—perhaps unconscious, perhaps unintentional—was enough to distance 

him from his brothers.

But the responsibility does not fall on him alone. The Torah tells us plainly that “Israel 

loved Joseph more than all his sons,” and the Midrash teaches that this favoritism created 

an emotionally poisoned atmosphere. 

Jacob, unintentionally, through a gesture of genuine love, creates an inequality that marks 

everyone’s life. The special tunic, the ketonet pasim, becomes the symbol of a fracture. 

One commentator points out that unbalanced love not only hurts the one who receives 

less, but also the one who receives more, because it isolates them, places them in a 

different category, and makes them the object of tensions they never chose. Joseph did 

not ask to be the favorite, but he suffered the consequences of that parental preference.

In this environment, the brothers become filled with jealousy. \

Their jealousy is not just an emotion—it becomes a distorted lens through which they see 

everything.

Sforno notes that their hatred grew to the point that they could no longer speak to him 

peacefully. When speech breaks, relationship breaks.

The Zohar compares “kinah”, jealousy, to a spark of fire: it can warm and inspire, but it 

can also burn down homes and relationships.

And the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, teaches that the root of envy is 

the inability to see one’s own mission; when you do not know your purpose, you obsess 

over someone else’s. 

The brothers, in their pain, forgot who they were. Their anger led them to action, and that 

action—throwing Joseph into a pit—was the final crystallization of attitudes that had been 

forming for a long time.

Joseph’s fall into the pit is not merely a tragic episode: it is the accumulated result of 

words, silences, gestures, tones, favoritism, and resentments. The Torah shows us how a 

small act of arrogance, an unbalanced expression of preference, an unprocessed emotion, 

or a conversation avoided can lead to immeasurable harm. And yet, hidden within this 

drama is a spark of hope. 

Many teachers see in this parashah the very beginning of future redemption. Joseph’s 

descent into Egypt will ultimately save his family from famine, and today’s pain will 

become tomorrow’s salvation.

Menachem Mendel Schneerson, the Lubavitcher Rebbe, explains that Joseph learns 

humility in Egypt: he learns to see others, to interpret their dreams, to use his brilliance 

not to elevate himself but to support those around him. The family, for its part, learns to 

reunite, to apologize, to repair. The message is profound: emotional mistakes are an 

inevitable part of life, but redemption is possible when one dares to transform one’s 

attitudes.

A few years ago, a school principal shared that she had two equally dedicated teachers, 

but she always praised one of them publicly because she was more expressive and 

affectionate. One day, the other teacher—quiet, responsible, impeccable—asked to speak 

with her. 

She said, “I don’t need applause, but when you compliment her in front of everyone, I feel 

like I become invisible.” 

The principal was stunned: she had never imagined that a gesture of affection toward one 

person could turn into a message of indifference toward another. From then on, she 

chose her words more consciously—and the school’s atmosphere changed within weeks. 

Sometimes the issue is not what we do, but what we fail to see.

The Talmud teaches in the Tractate of Rosh Hashanah 17a that “one who yields in 

judgment, Heaven yields toward them.” 

In other words, “the world is sustained by those who broaden their hearts for one 

another.” Those who make room for others, who soften their judgments, who expand 

their hearts and attune themselves to the needs of others—those are the people who 

sustain the fabric of the world.

In Vayeshev we learn this crucial Mussar: that our attitudes create worlds: they can 

become dark pits, or pathways to redemption. 

And this message resonates even more in these days leading up to Hanukkah, when we 

remember that even a small light—even the humblest—can dispel a great darkness.

May this parashah inspire us to examine our words, our gestures, our silences, and our 

priorities. May we choose, each day, attitudes that heal, that unify, that balance, that 

illuminate. And may we, like Jacob’s family, transform our falls into growth, and our 

shadows into a saving light—a light that, like the Shamash of our Hanukkiah, begins small, 

but has the power to ignite others