After receiving bad news or experiencing a tragic event, people will sometimes respond with the words, "It's God's will." There's even a Yiddish phrase that captures the idea, "It's bashert," meaning it was meant to be.
What is your reaction to such a response? Are you comfortable with it? Or does it fall on unreceptive ears? Is it in keeping with your philosophy of life or does it rub you the wrong way?
In this week's parashah, Vayigash, Joseph reassures his brothers that they should not feel guilty about the way they treated him. They had good reason to be frightened and harbor guilt. After all, they had tossed Joseph into a pit and sold him to passing merchants who led the lad into servitude in Egypt.
But Joseph tells his brothers not to fear, because ". . . it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you. There have already been two years of famine in the land, and (there remain) five more years without plowing or harvesting. So God sent me ahead of you to assure your survival in the land, and to keep you alive for a great deliverance" (Genesis 45:5-7).
If Joseph had spoken Yiddish, he might have said that it was bashert. Of course he couldn't use those words because Yiddish developed more than two millennia later than the time Joseph lived.
Bashert suggests a fatalism that doesn't quite fit in with the lives we live today. Most of us believe in free will. We believe that we actually have choices and are responsible for the choices that we make. Most of our actions seem to be under our control. If a student works hard and writes a fine paper, she expects to be rewarded with a good grade. If that paper were bashert--destined to be written in just those words--no matter what she did, any grade or reward would be meaningless. Maimonides taught that free will is a fundamental belief in Judaism.1 (A Maimonides Reader, Isadore Twersky, ed., Behrman House, New York, 1972, pp. 77-78).
So how can Joseph say, as noted above, that "God sent me ahead of you to assure your survival"? And how can he say, in next week's portion, that though the brothers intended to harm him, "God intended it for good [l'tovah]" (Genesis 50:20). It's a paradox that Rabbi Akiba captured: "All is foreseen, yet [free] choice is given" (Pirkei Avot, 3:15).2 So how are both things possible?
The Joseph story helps us understand this seeming contradiction. On the one hand, Joseph appears to make free choices: he was a master planner who protected the surplus of the good years so that Egypt could survive during the lean ones. He cleverly tested his brothers to determine if they had become men of good faith, and much more.
On the other hand, Joseph sees the bigger picture, and attributes or connects much of what he does to God. He doesn't do this when he is young and is highly focused on himself. But he does see things from a larger perspective as he matures, gets in touch with his feelings, comes to terms with his brothers, and uses his talents to save a nation. In doing so, he acquires humility and becomes more of a mensch who recognizes that the sun does not rise and set on him. For example, when Pharaoh tells Joseph that he heard that the young man was a fine interpreter of dreams, Joseph responds, "Not I--it is God who will account for Pharaoh's well-being" (Genesis 41:16). And when he names his children Manasseh and Ephraim, in a linguistic twist, he explains those choices in this way: because God caused him to forget his troubles (Manasseh) and because God made him fruitful (Ephraim) (Genesis 41:51-52).
The pieces of his life start to fit together. He learns that he is more than his title or his accomplishments. He understands that what he has done fits into a larger plan. Again and again, he describes it as God's plan. It's not exactly bashert, but he increasingly grasps the connection his life has to God.
Let's look at this in terms of our lives today. I know a man who was very impressed with himself and with good reason. A stand-out student, he attended an elite university and landed a plum of a job, rising to second in command of a Forbes 500 corporation. And he seemed to do it "on his own," harnessing his abundant talents to every challenge that he faced. If free will was ever given, he had it.
Then one day he realized that his life was not complete. Something was missing. He searched in many directions, until he reconnected with his Jewish tradition. He discovered the meaning of tikkun olam, "repairing the world." He learned that Judaism expects him to be a partner with God. He discovered from studying Jewish texts that there was a plan for human beings and he wanted to be part of it.
The biblical Joseph believed that God had a plan for him. So did Theodore Parker, a Unitarian minister, prominent American Transcendentalist, and abolitionist, who put it another way in the 1850s: "Look at the facts of the world. You see a continual and progressive triumph of the right. I do not pretend to understand the moral universe, the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways. I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. But from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."3
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. captured that "plan" in words he paraphrased from Parker in a speech he delivered at the Southern Christian Leadership Convention in 1967: "The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice."4 This moral universe pushing us toward justice is probably not "bashert," but I do believe it is God's plan for us. What plan do you feel God has for you?
- Isadore Twersky, ed., A Maimonides Reader (New York: Behrman House, 1972), pp. 77-78)
- Leonard Kravitz and Kerry M. Olitzky, ed. and trans, Pirke Avot (New York: UAHC Press, 1993) p. 46
- Theodore Parker, Ten Sermons of Religion, "Of Justice and the Conscience," (Boston: Crosby, Nichols and Company, 1853), pp. 84-85
- Convention, Southern Christian Leadership Conference, August 16, 1967, www.stanford.edu
Rabbi Charles A. Kroloff , past president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis and of ARZA, is Rabbi Emeritus of Temple Emanu-El in Westfield, New Jersey. He is vice-president for special projects at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion and author of When Elijah Knocks, A Religious Response to Homelessness, (Behrman House) and Reform Judaism, A Jewish Way of Life, (Ktav).
Recently, the Pew Research Center published its 2013 survey of U.S. Jews. Like all studies, it is filled with numerical data, which we will likely be unpacking, discussing, and debating for many years to come.
There's some good news for the Reform Movement--55% of those raised as Reform Jews retain that identity as adults. But there's also some bad news. The majority of those who leave Reform Judaism (17%) are switching to . . . nothing. Instead, they identify as "Jews of no religion"--a phrase that may be uncomfortable for those of us who do view Judaism as religion.
Rabbi Seth Limmer posted a response to this data on the CCAR blog,1 reminding us that although many active members of our Jewish communities shy away from identifying themselves as "religious," the word itself doesn't exist in ancient Hebrew and would never have been used as a way for Jews to identify themselves until modernity.
So let's focus on the whopping 69% of Jews for whom leading an ethical life is essential to their Jewishness, and the 70% who participated in a seder this year. The majority of U.S. Jews are maintaining Jewish traditions and building Jewish identity.
At the start of Parashat Vayigash, Joseph discloses his identity to his brothers. Perhaps we also must reframe how we think about and disclose our Jewish identities. For when we see Judaism primarily as a religion, judging or excluding those who think otherwise, we close our doors to Jews who feel Jewish, care about Judaism, and might one day come to see it as a religion as well. This could happen if only we would welcome and engage them, and share the value of those aspects of Judaism that we might consider to be "religious practices," but that are really just rituals that help us to connect to that which is beyond ourselves--to one another, and, if we so desire, to the Divine Presence that unites us all.
Rabbi Emma Gottlieb is the rabbi at Temple Beth David of the South Shore in Canton, Massachusetts.
Vayigash, Genesis 44:18-47:27
The Torah: A Modern Commentary, pp. 281–297; Revised Edition, pp. 286–301;
The Torah: A Women's Commentary, pp. 259–280
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