Congratulations - you're an angel. Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1 - 40:23)

Joseph’s odd encounter with a "man", who does no more than point him to his brothers: a small, understated act. And the fulcrum on which the whole world turned. That's angels for you.

Do you believe in angels?

Would it surprise you if I told you you’ve probably seen more than one in your own life? Would it surprise you, if I told you there are good odds you have been an angel yourself, at least once?

… no, not like that. And also not the wings-and-halo kind, which do appear less frequently… I mean a living flesh-and-blood angel, as in the original meaning of the word ‘angel’ (same as the Hebrew ‘malach’): a messenger. Sent by God to deliver a message, or do one small job for the Boss.

All right. Listen close.

As his story begins, Joseph is… well, maybe a suboptimal character. (Notice a pattern yet?) Jacob, who cannot or will not get over his grief for Rachel, is spoiling her firstborn son for all he’s worth. Making clear to everyone – including all his brothers – that he’s the favorite, buying him expensive clothes, and sending him on special jobs to report on his brothers. Needless to say, the brothers aren’t thrilled with Joseph... and that will have dramatic consequences later.

So Dad sends Joseph on such a mission (37:13-14). Observe and report on the doings of your brothers – maybe trust runs low in the family. “Hineni”, answers Joseph, usually translated “here I am”, but signaling more – a total presence, attendance to the coming command, a total commitment to the mission. This is Abraham’s and Moses’s answer to God’s call: Hineni.

… only, at this stage Joseph is still a bit ‘green’. Less than perfectly competent. Joseph’s all may not amount to very much just yet. And so, Joseph gets lost while looking for his brothers. (Can you hear God doing a facepalm, muttering to Himself, as it were, ‘you had one job…’) And a “man” “finds” him wandering in the fields (37:13-17). And sets him back on course to where he can find his brothers. What an odd, brief and understated encounter, for a text that doesn’t normally waste any space on irrelevant events.

When they see him coming, the resentful brothers start planning bloody murder (37:18-20). But Reuben persuades them to hold off, let’s just toss him into that pit over there for now (37:21-22; maybe he’s trying to get back in Dad’s good graces after that embarrassing incident of sleeping with Dad’s concubine). And then it’s Judah that comes up with the brilliant idea to just sell him off into slavery (37:26-27). Whether trying to save Joseph’s life, or just make a buck, the result was the same: off goes Joseph to Egypt… and his destiny.

What would have happened, if at any point things had turned out differently? If Joseph had not found his brothers that day? Or if they had gone ahead and killed him, or even if, after cooling down a bit, they’d just taken him out of the pit and sent him packing? No Egypt. No saving everyone from famine. No slavery, no Exodus… no Sinai? No Israel, no Judeo-Christian West? That chain of decisions did not just change the lives of Joseph and his brothers – it changed the entire world, all of History thereafter.

Joseph’s ‘fortuitous’ meeting with the randomly occurring NPC in the field is how angels appear in our lives most of the time, see. One person who comes in, does or says one thing, and often vanishes right out again. We usually understand Abraham and Jacob to have met angels (18:02 and 32:25, respectively) – but in each case, the word used is ‘man’. Jacob wrestles a ‘man’. Three ‘men’ show up at Abraham’s tent… but only two go on to Sodom. What happened to the third? His job was to announce Isaac’s birth. Job done, seems he just went home.

As always, the Bible presents us with Archetypal examples – encapsulated representations of deeper and broader principles. Thinking back on your life, especially its larger turning points: could it be that someone was there, who told you one thing, or did one thing, which caused you to change course? Maybe they’re still in your life, or maybe they came into it for just that moment, and then vanished out again? I can think of several, just off the top of my head, in my own life. The man who introduced me to my wife; people who encouraged me to make Aliyah; people who made critical connections for me… and were never seen again.

The same goes for History. People who introduced people who said things that changed people’s minds or pushed them into decisions… The early history of Zionism and the reborn state of Israel, of the British Mandate, the Balfour declaration, Israeli independence, and even Truman’s decision to recognize Israel, are full of these stories – appropriately enough. So is early American history – the life of many of the Founders, such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin; or the story of the Declaration of Independence, the alliance with France, and many of the key engagements of the War of Independence. If we looked closely enough, we would find that critical moments in History are just as full of angels in human guise as our own individual lives – and why should that surprise us, when the two are so obviously linked? When maybe the reason our own life changes course, is so that we can change the course of the entire world? After all, that’s what happens with Reuven and Judah.

One person, one act, can change everything. Turns out, you matter, see?

You may not get to smite a city, or change the course of history… but then again you can’t exactly tell ahead of time, can you? And at a minimum, you probably will have a chance to touch someone’s life at a critical time, and help place them on a better course. And that’s definitely not worth nothing.

Abraham was warned that his descendants would be slaves and exiles… And as Joseph himself will say later, the brothers did intend him harm – but God took all that negative energy and leveraged it around for good. How? A nudge here, a quick word there, a glance and a wink and a poke at this precise time and place… voila, Grand Plan, shazam!

But besides justified awe at God’s unparalleled mastery, Providence, and grace, we should notice how important individual people and individual choices are: at each inflection point, at each hinge moment, stands a single person, performing a single act. And most of the time, they won’t even ever know they’ve done it, much less know it in the moment.

… but wait, so we won’t know? Maybe ever, but at least, as we live our lives and make our choices, we won’t know if we might not be doing Something Special, right then and there? … so, how can we make sure we know when, and how, to make sure we do that job right? Don’t let the Boss down, as it were?

… exactly. Right? Yes, that does mean precisely what you’re thinking: it means, we need to do our best all the time. Aim upwards, as high as we can, all the time. Treat everything we do, every interaction we have with absolutely everybody, both as if they could be the angel in that moment… and as if we could be. Right here, right now. Which means, we really don’t want to drop that ball. We want to bring ourselves, all of ourselves, all in all the time, because this could be the time we have Something Important to do.

Welcome to life.

And God help us all.