Stop Comparing, Start Appreciating
Words of Wisdom with Rabbi Efrat Zarren-Zohar
The new secular year 2025 has begun, and the title of this Dvar Torah is my advice to you and my own resolution to myself.
In this week’s Parashat Vayigash, we find two very different responses to life — one negative and one positive.
When Yosef / Joseph brings his father to meet Pharaoh, Pharaoh asks Yaakov / Jacob a simple question: “How many years have you lived?” (Bereisheet / Genesis 47:8). This is his reply:
“The span of the years of my lifetime has been 130; few and miserable have been the days of the years of my life. They have not attained to the length of the days of the years of my fathers when they were alive.” (Bereisheet / Genesis 47:9)
This is one of the saddest statements of any of our ancestors!
Here is Yaakov / Jacob, after 130 years, having fathered 13 children and many more descendants, a man rich with abundant cattle and sheep, who has not long before learned the son he thought was dead is instead alive — yet, he characterizes his days as being “few and miserable.”
And in addition, he compares his lifespan to his father and grandfather and believes himself to have gotten the short end of the stick.
Here we see the problem of comparing…
There will always be someone who lives longer.
There will always be someone who is wealthier.
There will always be someone who has more of whatever it is you wish you had.
Even when objectively Yaakov / Jacob’s life is remarkably successful, by comparing his life with others, he feels miserable.
On the other hand, earlier in the parsha, Yosef / Joseph is seated on a throne, second in line only to Pharoah in Egypt. His brothers have come down to Egypt seeking food, because there was a famine in the land of Canaan.
Yosef / Joseph has successfully concealed his identity from his brothers, and essentially frames his youngest brother Benjamin for stealing.
Yehudah /Judah, the fourth brother, pleads with Joseph to release Benjamin lest their father Jacob die from the shock of losing yet another son (in addition to Joseph), since Benjamin is “a young boy of his old age” (Bereisheet / Genesis 44:20).
Seeing his brother’s love for Benjamin and their father, Joseph is deeply moved, revealing to them:
“I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold to Egypt; and now, don’t be troubled, don’t be chagrined because you sold me here, for it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.” (Bereisheet / Genesis 45: 4-5)
What an entirely different response to life!
At the tender age of 17, Yosef / Joseph had been sold into slavery by his own brothers, experienced sexual harassment from Potiphar’s wife, got thrown into prison for several years, and now, this is his understanding of his own suffering.
He finds meaning and I would even argue, appreciation, for the travails he has encountered, seeing in it all the “hand of G!D” and a positive path forward for his own family.
This year of 2025 I resolve to be less like Yaakov / Jacob, constantly fixating on all the things that make me miserable, that could be better, and more like Yosef / Joseph, finding the good that is inherent even in the worst situations, but especially in the day to day.
My wish is for you and your loved ones to be able to do the same.
