Carrie Fisher used to say, “take your broken heart, make it into art.” It’s incredible how we are able to turn tragedy into triumph and our own dark moments into light and hope for others. There’s nowhere we see our interconnectedness more than in art. The stories that are the most popular in films and literature play off the primary story (rises, falls). A few examples: Rags to Riches, Riches to Rags, Cinderella (rise then fall then rise), and Oedipus (fall then rise then fall). Most stories play off of this – this is seen in the Torah, too, especially in the story of Yakov and Yosef. When we bump into a friend or a stranger, we never really know if at that moment they are feeling a fall or a rise, & so we each have to be as graceful as we can. In writing these dvars, my own story has been facing ups and downs, and when I feel low and go through something difficult that so many of us have gone through, I actually think it has been happening to put me in a space to be able to relate & bring light to others, since I am actually going through it, too– we are all connected.
Yosef’s brothers are scared that because their father passed away, he’ll finally take revenge on them -“… he will surely repay us and the evil that we did to him.” They told Yosef that one of their father’s wishes before he died was to forgive their spiteful deeds. This means that for all their years, even though Yosef had shown time & again that he had forgiven them, they lived with the fear that eventually he would take his revenge. It’s incredible how often this plays out in our own lives; the safek (doubt) and fear which plays on our minds as a personal Amalek, the nation/notion that the Torah commands us to eliminate from the world. We are commanded to eliminate it because it is the force that makes us fall. It stands opposed to faith and is our strongest detractor of bitachon.
Balance is instrumental in being in a space of goodness, as too much of one thing throws off the balance and alignment required for peace and blessings to flow. Mercy with each other and ourselves is the one thing we could attempt to overdose on and find that, even in those instances, it is often not enough.
Thanks for reading! Much love & Shabbat Shalom!🤍🕊
– Erez
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