The children of Jacob were divided into two factions: on one side were ten of the twelve brothers, led by Judah; on the other, Joseph, whose differences with his brothers were the cause of much pain and strife in Jacob's family. The conflict between Joseph and his brothers ran deeper than a multicolored coat or a favorite son's share of his father's affections. It was a conflict between two world-views, between two approaches to life as a Jew in a pagan world.

Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were shepherds, as were Joseph's brothers. They chose this vocation because they found the life of the shepherd - a life of seclusion, communion with nature, and distance from the tumult and vanities of society - most conducive to their spiritual pursuits. Tending their sheep in the valleys and on the hills of Canaan, they could turn their backs on the mundane affairs of man, contemplate the majesty of the Creator, and serve Him with a clear mind and tranquil heart. Joseph was the exception. He was a man of the world, a "fortuitous achiever" in business and politics. Sold into slavery, he was soon chief manager of his master's affairs. Thrown into jail, he was soon a high-ranking member of the prison administration. He went on to become viceroy of Egypt, second only to Pharaoh in the most powerful nation on earth. Yet none of this touched him. Slave, prisoner, ruler of millions, controller of an empire's wealth - it made no difference: the same Joseph who had studied Torah at the feet of his father traversed the palaces and government halls of Egypt. His spiritual and moral self derived from within and was totally unaffected by his society, environment, or the occupation that claimed his involvement twenty- four hours a day.

The conflict between Joseph and his brothers was the conflict between a spiritual tradition and a new worldliness; between a community of shepherds and an entrepreneur. The brothers could not accept that a person can lead a worldly existence without becoming worldly; that a person can remain one with G-d while immersed in the affairs of the most depraved society on earth. In this conflict, Joseph was to emerge the victor. The spiritual seclusion that characterized the first three generations of Jewish history was destined to end; Jacob and his family moved to Egypt, where the "smelting pit" of exile was to forge their descendants into the nation of Israel. As Joseph had foreseen in his dreams, his brother and his father bowed to him, prostrating their approach to his. Jacob had understood the significance of these dreams all along, and had awaited their fulfillment; Joseph's brothers, who found it more difficult to accept that the era of the shepherd was drawing to a close, fought him for twenty-two bitter years, until they, too, came to accept that the historical challenge of Israel was to be the challenge of

"And Yosef provided his father, his brothers and his father's entire household with food enough for even the little children." (47:12) Little children need lots of food, because they crumble up more than they actually eat! (Sforno)

"So now, it was not you who sent me here, but G-D, and he made me a father to Pharaoh and a lord over all his house, and ruler over all the land of Egypt."(45:8) When someone harms you, remember that he is only an agent of the Almighty. (Love Your Neighbor)

"Sadness is not a sin," goes the famous Chassidic saying, "but the

damage that sadness can do to a person, no sin can." Does this mean that a person is never to experience anything other than happiness and satisfaction? Never to experience regret and remorse, never to be grieved by the negative in oneself and one's world? Obviously not. The important thing, however, is not to allow the sadness to pervade our souls and dominate our lives. The Torah establishes special times (such as the month of Elul and the Ten Days of Repentance, the "Minor Yom Kippur" at the end of each month, and the nightly "Reading of the Shema" before going to sleep) when one is to search one's soul, dwell on what requires rectification, and weep over one's shortcomings and transgressions. However, these feelings must be confined to these specifically designated times, following which one should resume "serving G-d with joy" [1] and confidence in one's own intrinsic goodness and the intrinsic goodness of G-d's world.

One of the great Chassidic masters employs the following parable to explain the place that sadness should occupy in our lives: A barrel of the finest wine has a layer of sediment on its bottom. The sediment plays an important role in the wine's preservation, but must be kept at the bottom of the barrel: if it is allowed to mix with the wine, the wine becomes undrinkable. The pain we experience in our lives has a most constructive function: without it, we would become indifferent to all that is not as it should be in ourselves and our world. But this is the sediment to the wine of life. Life itself must be a joyous and exhilarating experience, its melancholy moments to be confined to the bottom of the barrel [2].

Footnotes: 1. Psalms 100:2 / 2. Based on Tanya, chs. 29 and 31.(From: The Week in Review Vaad Hanochos Hatmimim).