We have all heard stories of individuals who worked their way up the corporate ladder and went from the mailroom to the boardroom. However, Yosef’s story of going from jail to being the second most powerful man in Egypt in one day seems to be virtually without precedent! Yosef went from the dungeon to the palace overnight. This is certainly not your typical “climb up the corporate ladder“!
The events occurred with lightning speed: “And Pharaoh removed his ring from upon his hand and put it on Joseph’s hand. He then had him dressed in garments of linen and he placed a gold chain upon his neck. And he had him ride in his second chariot, and they proclaimed before him, ‘Avrech!’ And he appointed him over all the land of Egypt.“ [Bereishis 41:42-43]
This is an indication of what happens many times in life. Fate can change so quickly. One day, a person can be sitting on top of the world, and the next day, he can find himself literally bankrupt. This is a two-way street; it works both ways. Sometimes, a person thinks a situation is hopeless, and then within a matter of days or months, he finds himself on top of the world.
Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz, the late head of the Mir Yeshiva in Jerusalem, was both a great Torah scholar and a tremendous master of mussar [Jewish ethics]. Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz would extract great ethical lessons from many seemingly mundane everyday events. Once, when Rav Chaim was walking in the streets of Jerusalem, he saw a garbage truck collecting garbage. In earlier times, the way garbage was picked up in Jerusalem was that a garbage man on the ground picked the can of garbage up off the street and handed it to another garbage man who stood atop the truck. The man at the top of the truck would then empty the contents of the can into the garbage truck. The preferred job was to be on top of the truck, rather than running around on the ground picking up the cans and handing them up to the man on top.
The garbage man on the bottom turned to the Rosh Yeshiva and said, “Rebbi, do not worry – in ten minutes I will also be on top! We take turns and switch places every so often.“ Rav Chaim commented that this is what life is all about. In ten minutes, a person can go from being on bottom to being on top or from being on top to being on bottom. In the blink of an eye, life can change from bad to good, or sometimes the other way around.
The story of Yosef is the story of how, in a matter of hours, Yosef went from dungeon to palace. If the Master of the World is on one’s side, that can happen at any time.
