This post is dedicated in memory of my father Yaacov Zev Yisrael ben Shmuel.
It was late Wednesday afternoon and I was already glancing at my watch dreaming of the end of the workday, when I got a call on my mobile from one of my coworkers asking if I could come down to the event hall on the first floor of our WIZO headquarters to help out with the sufganiyot (Chanukah donuts) campaign.
In the hall, workers and volunteers were busy boxing hundreds of sufganiyot to be distributed the next day for Chanukah as part of a first-time WIZO initiative in which all proceeds went to towards helping WIZO put an end to violence against women.
Now, if I were Homer Simpson, my reaction would probably be …
But I took another look at my watch and said I’d come down at 5pm and help out for an hour (in the end I stayed two hours but that was nothing compared to a pair of my coworkers – one of them even called in her husband in to help!) and two young volunteers who worked up until nearly midnight (and some well beyond that time) to get the job done.
After failing at the labeling station, I was put on boxing duty. The donuts were already in the boxes, I just had to close the boxes, which I managed to do well enough.
This is what the final product looked like:
What did I learn for the experience? Well, you can’t have an ego when you are packing hundreds of boxes of donuts with other people. The cause is much greater than any one person.
In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, we begin reading the story of Yosef (Joseph) and his brothers. Yosef was their father Yaacov’s favorite son, was given a special coat, had big dreams or ruling over them and his brothers and they were naturally jealous of him.
But as you can see from this video (starring Donny Osmond as Joseph), our hero got a big head once he got that coat.
But when did Yosef switch from becoming a bratty spoiled kid to the path that ultimately led him to become second in command of all of Egypt.
In this video, UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis gives a very simple but profound answer to what was the turning point in Yosef’s life.
At the beginning of the Parsha, Yosef is dreaming about himself: his importance and that others will be prostrating themselves before him. At the end of the parashah however, the dreams are not about Yosef, they are about other people: Pharaoh’s ministers, their futures and their welfare. Yosef is no longer telling the world about himself, he is trying to help others understand themselves. When your dreams are all about yourself, your ego and your importance – you will be on the way down. But when you see your role as helping others achieve their dreams, you will certainly be on the way up.
As Rabbi Mervis says, it is natural that every person has an ego. However, when that ego gets in the way of one’s responsibility to others when one’s entire existence is about promoting oneself – it won’t work. You’ll find yourself, like Yosef, on the way down. We need to see ourselves as existing for the sake of others, to help other people to help themselves.
Since I brought a thought from the current UK chief rabbi, I’ll add one from the former, the recently deceased Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talking about the holiday of Chanukah:
The message of Rabbi Sacks is a profound one. When you give of your light for the sake of others – it can be like Yosef who stopped dreaming about himself and started focusing on the dreams of others or it can be something as simple as putting your ego aside and rolling up your sleeves for a couple of hours to pack dozens and dozens of boxes of donuts – when you give of yourself you do not diminish from you light – on the contrary- you create more light in the world!
Shabbat Shalom & Chanukah Sameach!
yonatansredni 