Like water reflects a face

What do you do when you have made a New Years Resolution to be really nice to people around you, but there is this one person who really gets to you? Like for example what happens if the guy is a king and he has just taken your brother (that you have pledged to your father that you would guard him with your life) as a slave.  Even more problematic is that this viceroy is one of the most powerful people in the world.  And finally, he seems to be a tough guy with not an ounce of mercy! What would you do?

This is the opening of our portion with Joseph having taken Benjamin as a slave since he had “stolen” the royal goblet.  Judah now approaches Joseph to plead on behalf of his brother, but it seems like Joseph has no room for mercy.  What does Judah do?

Rabbi Chayim ben Attar (1696-1743), Moroccan scholar and commentator on the Torah suggests a fascinating thought process that went on in Judah’s mind.  Judah sees in front of him a heartless ruler.  The only way to get him to express some compassion is for Joseph to uncover a small reservoir of mercy that might exist within Joseph’s heart.  So Judah changes his entire perception of Joseph (probably through intense meditation), and thinks of him as a merciful benevolent ruler.  Granted this wasn’t an easy task to accomplish.  But once he succeeded at changing the way he felt inside his heart, he was able to communicate to Joseph through his own speech, body language and aura the confidence he had in Joseph’s inner potential for good.

Once he did that internally and expressed it to Joseph, there was no longer any room for Joseph to hold back and immediately the Torah says, “and Joseph could no longer contain himself”, and he revealed his identity to his brothers.

When you express a lack of confidence in someone (you can’t possibly jump that fence, you can’t pass the test, you could never memorize all that data, etc.) then usually that is the result you get.  But when you express confidence in the inner potential, we reveal an inner reservoir that might not actually have existed in a revealed manner heretofore.

In our prayers we talk to G-d as Benevolent, Merciful, Powerful, Compassionate G-d.  Does G-d need our platitudes? Of course not! But our words bring out inner expressions of G-d that otherwise might not have been actualized.  The same is true for our children and friends.  When we tell a child “you are smart, and I am confident that you could figure out a solution”, they typically will.  When you tell a friend you are a good person and you can rise to the occasion they usually will.

The lesson for us is that when we want to impact another person or if we feel that another person doesn’t have the potential for good that we would like them to have, our responsibility is to change ourselves and our perception of them.

To quote an old Jewish adage – “Devarim Hayotzim min Halev nichnosim el halev” – words that exit from the heart enter into the heart.  If you are not making an impact one needs to visit the source of the expression.

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