Dear parents and NCSYers,
There are those weeks when you get the normal camp dvar torah (which is aweosme every week). Then there are weeks when Yehuda Alter writes the dvar torah. It is a rare opportunity to get to hear from someone who knows his taco tafkid in life. Colorado pride ya'll...
At the beginning of Parshas Vayeishev, we read that Yosef had two dreams. In one of the dreams, there were twelve bundles of wheat, each belonging to one of Yaakov's twelve sons. The brother's bundles all bowed down to Yosef's bundle. In the second dream, the sun, moon, and stars all bowed down to Yosef himself.
The Torah says that the brothers had two different reactions to the two different dreams. For the first dream, they simply hated him. By the second one however, they were jealous of him. Why were they only jealous for the second dream, and not the first?
The Beis Halevi explains that in the first dream, they bowed down to his bundle of wheat, which represented the financial success he would have over them. In the second dream, the sun, moon, and stars bowed to him, which represented the higher spiritual level that Yosef would attain.
Now we can explain why they were jealous of the second dream and not the first. The first dream represented Yosef's monetary success. The brothers were not jealous of this because they were not materialistic. They realized that money was not part of them, it was just something that they had, and therefore was not something that they would be jealous of. The second dream, however, represented Yosef being a spiritual leader over them. Spiritual growth is who we are, and is an inner quality that a person can expand. When the brother's saw that Yosef would be their superior in this trait too, they were jealous. They too wanted to reach such high spiritual levels.
Rabbi Eliakim Koenigsberg expands on this idea. He asks that in life, what are we really jealous of? Usually, we are jealous of other people's possessions. In reality, all of these physical objects don't have any real value in life, and shouldn't make us jealous. He tells a story about a guy who wanted to be buried in his fancy car. As nice as his car may have been, that is still ridiculous request. As much as it pains me to say this, this idea can also apply to sports. Don't worry though, you can still all be jealous of the elite sports teams, like the Broncos (your 2014 Super Bowl champions). Anyways, the lessons we can learn from this is that jealousy is not always bad. If we can be jealous to strive towards a greater level of spirituality and act appropriately on that jealousy, we are truly fulfilling our purpose in this world.
Have an awesome Shabbos!
P.S. Get in on the action! Email ydeutscher@gmail.com and write a dvar torah! |
