Life can throw a lot at a person and there will always be the optimists and pessimists amongst us. Some will view every opportunity as a challenge and others will view every challenge as an opportunity. But there are scenarios that are objectively traumatic, where even the staunchest optimist will be crushed. Is there a Torah perspective on how to navigate these events?
In this week’s parsha we continue learning about the long and tortured narrative of Yosef and his brothers. Their relationship was complicated from the start and they eventually kidnapped him, sold him off into slavery when he was 17 years old and covered it up by staging his death.
During the span of their twenty two year separation Yosef was sold multiple times, brought down to Egypt, imprisoned on false charges and then elevated to the highest levels of global power - charged with the responsibility of providing the entire region with food during a devastating famine. Despite his meteoric rise to power, the objective observer would conclude that Yosef’s experience was truly traumatic. Back on the Land of Canaan, his brothers were filled with remorse for what they did and resolved to bring Yosef back at all costs. When they arrived in Egypt to purchase provisions for their father Yaakov and their families during the famine, Yosef set in motion a complex and multifaceted plan to ascertain whether they regretted selling him over two decades earlier. They passed the test with flying colors and Yosef knew the time was ripe to reveal his identity to them and set in motion the family reunion. What are the first words you would say to someone who subjected you to unparalleled trauma? Here is what Yosef said to them after revealing his true identity and seeing their understandable shock and deep shame: “Do not be sad, and let it not trouble you that you sold me here, for it was to preserve life that G-d sent me before you. For already two years of famine have passed in the midst of the land, and for another five years, there will be neither plowing nor harvest. G-d sent me before you to make for you a remnant in the land, and to preserve it for you for a great deliverance. You did not send me here, but G-d.” Yosef did not demand an apology or explanation for their actions; neither did he allow them to express their remorse to him and work things through. He did not rewrite history and assure his brothers they did the right thing. His perspective did not absolve his brothers of wrongdoing, nor wipe away the personal pain he certainly experienced. But ill feelings, hatred, revenge or paralyzing trauma had no place in Yosef’s world, because he clearly understood that every problem “life threw at him” was really a divine mission. Yosef was neither an optimist nor a pessimist. He was the ultimate realist. His mindfulness of the fact that everything happens according to a divine plan allowed him to survive the decades long ordeal mentally and emotionally unscathed.