This week’s parshah recounts the events surrounding the brothers’ sale of Yosef, including how Reuven saved Yosef’s life by suggesting that he be thrown into a pit rather than killed. The Likkutei Harim brings the well-known Medrash: “If Reuven had known that Hakadosh Baruch Hu would write of him, ‘And Reuven heard and he rescued him from their hands,’ he would have carried [Yosef] on his shoulders and brought him back to his father.”
“If he had known,” writes the Chiddushei Harim, he would have done things differently. Why? Not because Reuven wanted to be praised for his deed, but because the fact that Hashem recorded his actions in the Torah shows how important the deed was. At the time, Reuven didn’t realize the full importance of what he was doing, but if he had, he would have exerted himself that much more.
This idea can be applied to many areas of our lives. We often don’t realize the full significance of the “little” things we do — for example, for our children — and how great the potential impact is.
Another life-lesson we can glean from this parshah is derived from the words “vayeshev Yaakov—and Yaakov settled.” The Medrash tells us here that when we have emunah, it’s possible to settle, to remain in the situation we find ourselves and deal with the challenges it presents, rather than running away. With emunah, we can find the solution to the problem, rather than trying to avoid it.
Very often, people try to avoid or flee from a challenge or difficulty, and although this can sometimes work, the better solution is to have emunah, realize that the challenge was tailor-made for us, and then do our best to address it in the right way. When we follow these guidelines, we’ll surely see much more hatzlachah than we could ever have found by running away.
