Hindsight - Vayechi (Genesis 47:28 - 50:26)

Hindsight is always 20/20, we say, deprecatingly. Yes, it is: a field, albeit limited, of perfect vision – rich with valuable things to see and learn. Maybe worth a second look after all.

(Posted with a small delay, because while day jobs enable our extracurriculars, they also will sometimes get in the way…)

A long line of decisions brought Joseph to where he is, Pharaoh’s viceroy and savior from famines: Jacob’s questionable parenting choices. Joseph’s own insufferable behavior. His brothers’… unbrotherly choices. Even that guy in the field, directing him to his brothers just in time to be sold off to passing traders. And there’s Joseph enslaved. Things are going badly. And when things start improving, his master’s extremely bored wife lands him in the pit again… where he must be, to get noticed by Pharaoh’s cupbearer… and positioned to help Pharaoh at the critical time.

When the brothers understand who this Egyptian potentate really is, they become… concerned. In Joseph’s position, many would take sweet revenge. But Joseph’s had time to look at things from a different angle – backwards. He tells them, be cool: “Do not be distressed or angry with yourselves that you sold me to this place, for God sent me ahead of you to save life. (…) it was not you who sent me here, but God. He has made me adviser to Pharaoh, (…) and ruler over all Egypt.” (45:5-8). And again in this week’s reading, because Jacob’s just died and can no longer protect them, causing the brothers renewed worry: “Do not be afraid, for am I in place of God? You intended harm for me, [but] God meant it for good” (50:19-20).

It was God all along, see? Now, you did sell me and all… You chose that option. There were others. But God used that to send me here and save everyone, so chill.

In hindsight, that whole chain of events looks different… Even Joseph’s original dreams: the brothers are indeed bowing down to him, but maybe in humility and gratitude rather than pure submission. In hindsight, we remember that Joseph never interpreted his own dreams! His brothers and father did that all for themselves. The Israelites, for that matter, will be stuck in Egyptian slavery for a century or four… In hindsight, did Joseph fail? (Ignore that God Himself gave that game away, promising it would turn out OK in the end.) No Egypt, no slavery, no Exodus… no Sinai? If Jacob’s family had stayed in Canaan, would they have survived the famine? Would the revelation have taken place at Moriah instead? Or, not? Or, in hindsight… all part of the plan?

Make no mistake. Free will is a thing. Choices, actions, have value, positive or negative, and consequences, and do get written down in the book of our lives – for better or worse. Our lives are not a reductionist-determinist nightmare, whether in ancient, modern, or postmodern form. Proper choices are not forced, and evil is not excused by adverse circumstances, postmodern poison notwithstanding. Although he sees the Hand of Providence, Joseph still needs to forgive his brothers – that would be unnecessary, if their choices had no moral value.

And hindsight does not mean sugarcoating. Evil intent is evil intent, catastrophe is catastrophe, and suffering is suffering. Joseph isn’t saying thank you for his time in slavery, any more than Frankl or Solzhenitsyn did, even though they found life-sustaining meaning and even gratitude in the midst of the 20th century’s bottommost hells.

Instead, hindsight offers the possibility of a radical kind of gratitude, even in the face of malevolence and disaster – the possibility that our tragedy and pain might in truth serve something greater, and thereby have meaning.

God is driving, see? We might grab the wheel and drive off that bridge… only to land on a different road, just below, invisible from back there… which God wanted us on all along. Only He sees the whole map, but His hand is at work in human affairs. Any serious student of history (especially that of America, or Israel’s) will have come up against its fingerprints. God cares, and He meddles… for which we should all be grateful. But we cannot see the grand design. If truly blessed, we get hints of what our part should be, some inkling that it has some importance. Usually, in hindsight.

Hindsight is the world’s least-appreciated superpower. And it really is a superpower, more accurate than Superman’s laser eyes, more revealing that Wonder Woman’s… lasso of truth.

Maybe it’s too common to count as a proper superpower… but still, it gets a bad rap. We say, “hindsight is always 20/20”, deprecatingly – as if 20/20 vision lacks merit or worth, just because it’s backwards-looking.

Or maybe it’s because we use it mostly on the negative – on the landmines we just stepped on, rather those we just avoided. “Seemed like a good idea at the time!” Right? In hindsight… Not so much. In hindsight, shouldn’t have.

But is hindsight all that useless, really?

Hindsight reveals the lessons of what was, for what is, and what will be. History is elaborated hindsight. We cannot see forward; only back. The present is but a fleeting glimpse, blurry objects rushing by, only visible when they become fixed – in the past. Science, also, studies things that have just happened, in whatever experiment is running or just ran – not truly things as they are happening... much less will happen.

So in hindsight, I’m glad I went on that blind date. And also, that the other didn’t work out.

In hindsight, I’m glad for that long stretch of hard road – no other way to get here… even though for a while I thought I was lost forever in the wilderness. Worth it.

In hindsight… should have started going sooner. Wasted a lot of time. God willing, there’s just enough left… And God willing I’ve learned something useful in hindsight. Maybe even something I can tell others.

Maybe even, something about hindsight itself: It’s 20/20, a field of perfect vision, however limited – rich with things we really should learn.

And maybe something like humility and even gratitude for that other field where I can’t see so well. Because maybe it’s actually much better than it looks, sometimes.

God help us all.