Do you ever act absentmindedly? Sometimes it is in the very act of acting absentmindedly that you realize that you are acting absentmindedly and you do it anyway. And then we kick ourselves for why we did this or that. Particularly when the story seems to go down a not so good path. We blame ourselves for not being more present or worse for ignoring that fact that we were not being present when we did what we did. Do you feel me? 

 

Fret not! There is a plan at play. 

 

In this week’s Torah portion we read the dramatic story of Joseph, literally the stuff Hollywood movies are made of (Joseph and the Amazing technicolor Dreamcoat). It all starts with an innocuous request by Jacob to Joseph. “And he sent him from the valley of Chevron (Hebron)…” to check on his brothers. But Hebron is located on a mountain??

 

The word Valley in Hebrew translates as “depths or deep”. There was great mystery in Jacob sending Joseph to his brothers. It’s almost obvious; why did Joseph need to check on his brothers? What was Jacob worried about? 

 

The Midrash says that something else was pushing Jacob to do this.  It was the deep mystery of Hebron, those that are laying in Hebron, Ie. Abraham to whom G-d foretold that his children would be strangers in a foreign land only to be redeemed with great wealth and given the Land of Israel. That story needed to start somewhere. This was the starting point.

 

Joseph going to his brothers in Shechem set that ball in motion and as they say the rest is history.

 

Moral of the story; don’t kick yourself over what happened, recognize that there are other things at play.  What do I do now is the better question and the useful one.  Knowing that Hashem is guiding even our mistakes puts everything in perspective.

 

Good Shabbos!