"Proclaim Peace" Season 2, Episode 8 // Joseph's Story From Pride to Compassion: Breaking Generational Cycles, With Rabbi Sam Spector
- 6 hours ago
- 33 min read
Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or watch on YouTube.
Patrick and Jen discuss peace and leadership with Rabbi Sam Spector through the story of Joseph. They explore the Hebrew concept of "shalom," meaning complete peace, and its relevance to personal and national contexts. The conversation highlights lessons from intergenerational conflicts in biblical narratives, emphasizing communication and reconciliation. Rabbi Spector shares insights on leadership qualities and the importance of challenging authority respectfully. He also offers practical advice on resolving conflicts through dialogue and understanding, providing listeners with valuable insights into fostering peace in relationships and communities.
Chapters
(00:00) Introduction to biblical concepts of peace and the story of Joseph
(00:55) Historical context of Israel’s conflicts and peace treaties
(03:29) The story of Joseph: favorite son, dreams, and family conflict
(06:14) Intergenerational conflicts: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and sibling rivalry
(14:53) The brothers’ revenge, subsequent reconciliation, and lessons on dealing with jealousy
(20:12) The danger of using peace as manipulation in relationships
(26:11) Joseph's foresight, hope, and resilience in adversity
(31:53) Free will, personal responsibility, and the potential for growth in conflict
(36:26) Challenging leadership constructively and exemplars from scripture and recent history
(44:10) Personal practices for finding inner peace and balance, including family moments
(48:39) Connecting biblical stories to contemporary issues of peace-making and leadership
Transcript
Patrick Mason (00:00)
Hi everyone, and welcome to the "Proclaim Peace" podcast, where we talk about how the scriptures can teach us to be better peacemakers. I'm Patrick Mason, your co-host, along with my friend and co-host Jen Thomas. How are you?
Jennifer Thomas (00:11)
I'm doing great, Patrick. You're going to hear this later people, but I am coming off a high from the MWEG conference. It was such a great and hopeful event. And so it's always good in these times to find peace and hope in something and being together. And I was able to find that last weekend.
Patrick Mason (00:26)
Yeah, that's amazing. I wasn't able to make it, but I heard only good things and ⁓ just incredible the community that you've put together. We are today as we kind of make our way through the Old Testament and through the book of Genesis, we're going to talk about one of the most famous of many famous stories, but we're going to talk about the story of Joseph and his brothers. And this is a story I think that, you know families tell and the kids grow up with and we've seen on Broadway stages and all these kinds of things. So this is not an unfamiliar story to us. Violence and politics. Yeah.
Jennifer Thomas (00:59)
it's got all the drama. It's got family conflict. It's got sex. It's got like power, violence. There's a reason that made it to Broadway. But we are going to tease it out a little bit today through the lens of kind of what we do and talk about conflict. But we also want to talk about how leaders, you know, can cause or create or reduce conflict, how families can, how decisions can. This story is a beautiful example of a narrative of what it can look like when we allow conflict to take over, but it also gives us resolution and offers us examples of how we can change that and how conflict can be resolved.
Patrick Mason (01:42)
Yeah, there are so many lessons to learn here. really, I mean, we'll only be, you know, just drawing on, you know, kind of we'll just be sampling from all of the things that can be learned from these chapters. This is a story that actually, as I get older, Jen, like I come back to more and more and find more and more depth in it. Because I think it is, I mean,
Jennifer Thomas (02:00)
Same. Yeah.
Patrick Mason (02:05)
It just draws out so much of actual human emotions and experience. mean, I've never been sold into slavery or I mean, you know, so, so, so lot of some of the exact parallels don't don't track, fortunately, knock on wood. But, but just so much of the, the inner dynamics, the relational dynamics, and the promise that at the heart of, of what it means to be human.
Jennifer Thomas (02:13)
Yeah. Knock wood.
Patrick Mason (02:32)
is the opportunity, even in very constrained and limited circumstances, we can't always control our circumstances, but even in the midst of those, we can have some degree of control over the inner quality of our heart and then how we respond to the circumstances that we find ourselves in.
Jennifer Thomas (02:47)
I completely agree. And for me, this story is also, and I'll share a little bit more about this in the episode, but when I was reading these scriptures recently, I know all of us have different versions of scriptures we've had over our lives, right? And I, for whatever reason, I couldn't find the ones I'm reading from right now. And so I had gone back to an older set of scriptures that dated to my mission and college life. And it was really interesting the notes that I had taken about Joseph and his dream, about how he'd been given a sense of his own promise and his own purpose and how he was courageously interested in voicing that. And then as I was reading this as an older person who'd been through life, boy did I see that quite differently. And we'll share more about that in this episode. And so I think for those of you who are wondering what new there is to find in this story, there are lots of new things to find. And just to Patrick's point, I think it can bring different things to us at different points in our lives and help us understand how we are moving through the world as peacemakers.
I think it's a really beautiful narrative about that. And I will say, you guys, there's a gem of an ending to this particular podcast episode. So this is one is worth wading through to the bottom because we got a little gift from our guest that is going to make me think quite differently about my own birthright. So I'm really grateful for that.
Patrick Mason (04:03)
Absolutely. Yeah. It's one of those. I, if you normally like turn off the podcast when you can tell we're like wrapping it up, don't do that. Like stay for the end credits.
Jennifer Thomas (04:07)
Don't do that. This is after the last question. This little gorgeous nugget shows up.
Patrick Mason (04:16)
Yeah, right. The one who will provide that for us today is our special guest, Rabbi Sam Spector. We're so grateful for him sharing his time with us and his knowledge. Rabbi Spector was recently one of the presenters at the interfaith repair event that Waymakers sponsored in Salt Lake City. And he
I attended that session and it was originally called How to Argue Like a Rabbi, which I thought was like an amazing title for a session, but it's still the spirit of it was still like how in the Jewish tradition, how have rabbis and more broadly, Jews learned to disagree productively. And it was amazing session where he went deep into scripture and pulled out examples both from the Torah, from the Talmud, from other Jewish teachings in terms of how not to be afraid of conflict, but actually how to wrestle with these things and be God wrestlers actually like Israel himself. So Rabbi Sam Spector is Rabbi of Congregation Kol Ami in Salt Lake City, He's from California, but he came to Salt Lake several years ago to be Rabbi of the congregation there.
And he's really become a fixture, I think, in the broader kind of interfaith and civic community here in Salt Lake City. He does a lot of interface with Latter-day Saints, with people of other faiths. And I think he's just a tremendous representative and leader for his congregation. And we're really grateful to have him in the community and in the state of Utah. But we're especially grateful that he would share some time with us here today.
Patrick Mason (05:46)
All right, so Rabbi Sam Spector, welcome to the Proclaim Peace Podcast.
Rabbi Sam Spector (05:50)
Thank you. Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here with you.
Patrick Mason (05:53)
We're thrilled to have you.
Jennifer Thomas (05:53)
We are so happy to have you, yeah.
Patrick Mason (05:55)
So we start with the same question with all of our guests, and we'd love to have you share your reflections on how you define peace.
Rabbi Sam Spector (06:04)
Sure. What I think about is with the Hebrew word for peace. You might know it already, it's shalom, which also means hello and goodbye. But with the word shalom, the root of that word is shin lamed mim in Hebrew. And it also is the same root of the word as to pay. If I pay somebody, say mishalem, and ani mishalem.
Also, the word for complete in Hebrew is shalom. It's the same root as well. So, when we think about peace, it should be a complete peace. For example, I I talk a lot about Israel because it's a special place to me and significant to Jewish people and it's a place I've lived in. I've studied about it a bit.
In 1948, Israel had the War of Independence and they went to war with Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq. Now that war ended in 1949. However, it ended not with a peace agreement. It ended with an armistice agreement. So technically, Jordan and Egypt have since signed peace treaties with Israel but like with Iraq for example Israel has technically still been at war with Iraq since 1948. They just have stopped fighting each other but they're technically still at a state of war even though they aren't fighting one another they don't, they aren't having mutual recognition or collaboration and so is that truly peace even though they're not fighting. So in order to have a peace it needs to be a complete peace and also on top of that, you know, with that word also for payment coming from the same root I can't really have peace with somebody if I have outstanding debts to them. That creates tension. So peace needs to be something that's not just not fighting, but is something that's true and complete.
Patrick Mason (08:04)
So you're saying I can't be at peace with my mortgage company.
Rabbi Sam Spector (08:08)
I will never be at peace with my mortgage company exactly or student loan company. No, I don't know anybody who's at full peace when they open up that email or envelope every month.
Patrick Mason (08:18)
Right.
Jennifer Thomas (08:19)
Well, I really appreciate that because I think in human relationships, I like thinking about that, that if I want peace with someone, it involves, I mean, to me, that's also reconciliation to some degree. We use reconciliation also as a financial term. And I think that this idea that if I want to be at peace with someone, I need to make sure that I have fully made an accounting of what I've owed them or perhaps what I've taken for them. And...
Jennifer Thomas (08:44)
I take that burden upon myself to make sure that at the very least I've done the best I can to make restitution and reconciliation before I demand from someone else that they be at peace with me.
Rabbi Sam Spector (08:51)
Yeah. Right, you know, know Patrick was making a joke there about his mortgage company, but if you think about it, it's not just how you feel about them, but if you stopped paying that mortgage, they would come after you and throw you out of your house. so how can you truly be at peace with them, you know, knowing that's the case. ⁓ When you pay off that mortgage, and they can't do anything to you or come after you or anything, then maybe you'll have that peace.
Jennifer Thomas (09:02)
Yeah
Rabbi Sam Spector (09:20)
Yeah, if we also have a difficult month with payments, I deal with that with congregants all the time and say, I don't know how I'm going to pay my mortgage. And so this month, so they don't have that peace there.
Jennifer Thomas (09:31)
Yeah, that's really true. Well, we are going to jump into the story that we came here to talk about, which is the story of Joseph. And I think you've set us up beautifully because it is a story that involves peace and reconciliation and payments. It's a very complex story that I think allows us to explore, is going to allow us to explore all of these aspects of peace.
Rabbi Sam Spector (09:39)
Yeah.
Jennifer Thomas (09:52)
But I want to start by asking you to share with us a little bit more about something that you shared with us in your notes before the conversation. This is one of your favorite stories in the Torah. And I am really interested in why, because we're not supposed to have favorites, but apparently you do.
Rabbi Sam Spector (10:02)
⁓ yeah. I do. You know, it's like I tell my daughters, I have three daughters and I tell them, I do have favorites. It just changes every five minutes. I always have a favorite. Exactly. Exactly. This is my favorite daughter today. But yeah, with Joseph though, so I'm a big history buff. I love history. But when we look at the Torah,
Jennifer Thomas (10:13)
Yeah, it's not static. So today this is your favorite story is what you're telling us.
Rabbi Sam Spector (10:26)
So much of it requires faith. And when the Torah for those listeners who go, what exactly is that? Those are the five books of Moses, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It requires a lot of faith. And part of the reason it requires a lot of faith is we don't have extra biblical proof that's evidence outside of the Bible that this stuff happened. We actually don't even have extra biblical evidence that there was a guy named Moses. And so for a lot of folks, they can come to a conclusion if they wish that, oh, none of this actually happened because there's no proof. And where's the proof? However, when it comes to Joseph, we see that in Egypt, there was a guy named and Yuya with a name meaning Ya means he was Western Semitic meaning he came from like the land of Canaan or somewhere like that. And he was the grand vizier to the Pharaoh and then I believe it was his daughter or his granddaughter was named Tuya and her son was Amenhotep III, I want to say, but who changed his name to Akhenaten, the pharaoh who embraced monotheism. And that likely came as a result of the influence of his Western Semitic grandfather. And so Joseph is the one guy in the Torah who I believe there's actually historical evidence that we that did exist a person at least like him who inspired that that story and Yuyah, Yosef kind of sounds similar but so I really like him for that historical aspect and if you go to Cairo Egypt you can see an amazing sarcophagus that that belonged to Yuyah and also one for Tuya which was considered to be the most impressive one until King Tut was found, Tutankhamun was found. But also I like Joseph a lot because I think the ultimate message in Judaism is that tomorrow has the potential to be better than today and there's nobody who who epitomizes that greater than than Joseph and we'll get into that I'm guessing in just a little bit but he literally went from rags to riches and from the the deepest darkness to the greatest power.
Patrick Mason (12:54)
I love that and it's fascinating to think obviously we have only the barest sketch of the historical record, But it's fascinating to think that these stories, they have real power for us, but to think that there's some kind of actual historical being, right? This person who played these kinds of roles in Egyptian courts and all these kinds of things. It's pretty amazing that it's not just Donny Osmond dancing up on a stage.
Rabbi Sam Spector (13:20)
Yeah, that's just it.
No, and I guess I didn't even think about that but for Utah maybe all Utahns should have a as well as thanks to Donny Osmond should have Joseph as their favorite biblical character, but hey and you know the founder of Church of Jesus Christ Latter day Saints he was a guy named Joseph too. So there you go Joseph comes up, but with yeah, I was just going to say but yeah, I mean with that story too and Joseph's story epitomizing hope in coming out of a place of darkness, that perhaps we've all experienced in different ways in our own lifetimes or that your listeners might be experiencing right now, to say, gosh, this guy who overcame so much, there's actually evidence he existed, I think adds to that inspiration.
Patrick Mason (14:12)
Yeah. So, so as we think about it, there's lots of different ways to approach this story. It's interesting how much real estate it takes up. mean, it's kind of the last third or so of the book of Genesis. And when you look at it, what do we see, especially as the story begins, in terms of the different ways that Joseph and his brothers approach conflict? There's clearly conflict in the family. I mean, right out of the gate.
Rabbi Sam Spector (14:23)
Yeah.
Patrick Mason (14:37)
And they're inheriting a lot of this. And so how does this family deal with conflict as the story begins?
Rabbi Sam Spector (14:49)
And you're right, a lot of that is inherited. Let's look at who Joseph's dad was, Jacob. Did he have a good relationship with his brother Esau? No, they wanted to kill each other until they reconciled. And what about his dad? Well, his dad was Isaac, and he had conflict with his brother Ishmael, which led to Ishmael being thrown out into the desert and expelled. And Isaac's father was Abraham, and there's questions about Abraham and the story of the binding of Isaac, we don't read that, that Isaac and Abraham spoke after that anymore. so, here's Abraham who stood up for the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and then when God says, sacrifice your son Isaac, you go, okay. So, there might be conflict there too. So, intergenerational conflict, and there's also a story, when it comes to Joseph's brothers, we get some insight into who they are.
Rabbi Sam Spector (15:44)
In particular, two of the brothers, when their sister Dina has some sort of sexual interaction with a guy named, a prince named Shechem. And Shechem then asks Jacob, can I marry your daughter Dina? And Jacob's sons are furious about this. And two of them, Shimon and Levi, they tell the Shechemites, well we will let Shechem marry our sister Dina if Shechem and all of the people of his kingdom circumcise themselves. And they go ahead and do that. I mean, I think that's kind of a big ask, you know. My friend said, hey, would you do this so I can be with this one girl? say, that's a big ask, man. But anyways, they all do it. But while they are in pain and recovering, Shimon and Levi, they go and they kill Shechem and all of the Shechems.
And Jacob is furious about this because he says, now nobody's going to trust us. There's no trust here. And so, you you put target on our backs. again, I'm sure your listeners who are tuning in expected to hear that great story from the Bible, ⁓ but it's there. ⁓
Patrick Mason (16:54)
Sometimes that gets skipped over in Sunday School.
Rabbi Sam Spector (16:56)
Yeah, I teach a class sometimes for young adults called Stories They Never Taught You in Sunday School. So that being one of them. But the point is that Shimon Levi here, they...
Innocence avoid conflict until they don't they don't have a discussion with Shechem. They also we call this story the rape of Dina. But we hear everybody's perspective on the matter except for Dina's, we don't ever hear from her. What happened or how she's feeling and so it seems like these brothers often avoid conversations now when it comes to Joseph. Jacob makes the same mistake his dad did which was he shows visible favoritism to one son over all the rest, and that's Joseph, and gives Joseph this beautiful coat of colors and spoils him. And that builds resentment. But also, Joseph...
doesn't necessarily carry himself in the best way too. Because his brother, Joseph has this incredible talent for interpreting dreams. And when his brothers say, you interpret this dream for us? He's very honest with them and says, this dream means that I am going to have power over all of you and you'll bow down to me. And they didn't like hearing that. So.
Joseph, while he's a victim in this story, and he was honest, he doesn't go out of his way to really always show compassion or sensitivity to how his brothers might be feeling or their feelings of insecurity of being obviously less than Joseph. And so how do they handle this situation? They say we're going to kill him and then they decide you know what we're not going to kill him we are going to fake his death and beat him up fake his death tear up this coat put animal blood on it tell our dad that he got eaten by wild beasts and sell him into slavery and so that's what they do again there's never a conversation that we read about where Jacob's sons are telling their father, it hurts our feelings when you show blatant favoritism. How do you think this makes us feel? You experienced this from your dad, how did that make you feel?
Jennifer Thomas (19:05)
I want to ask you a question because rabbis often play two very important roles. One you've just done beautifully, which is they illustrate narratives in scripture and the Torah and like share the wisdom. They also, at least the ones that I've known have played a really important role in counseling and kind of healing, you know, their synagogues, right? Their groups of people that are struggling with real life problems. So if you were in this situation,
Rabbi Sam Spector (19:13)
Right.
Jennifer Thomas (19:27)
And you saw this kind of conflict brewing in a family, what are the pieces of advice that you might give to each party to help them, I mean, I think you're approaching that, but to help them actually deal with this conflict much more productively in ways that would be less likely to result in violence or enslavement.
Rabbi Sam Spector (19:45)
Yeah, one is, have you talked to this person about how you're feeling? I just had yesterday a congregant who quit our synagogue. Why? Well, among the many complaints he had was he didn't care for me and this was news to me.
I'm thinking of myself. I'm thinking of myself. I would wish I had known, I told him this, I wish I had known you, that there were things about me that you didn't care for or that you had problems in the community that had been brewing because if I had known that, then I would have addressed that and we could have rectified this situation and now you feel it can't be rectified.
That's often what we see in family conflicts too, is that instead of having a conversation, people let things boil under the surface that the other person might be completely unaware of.
and then it creates a type of drama. Also something I tell, encourage people think about is to put yourself in the other person's shoes. What might they be going through right now? How might they be feeling or experiencing this or why do you think that they're reacting this way? To Jacob's credit, mean, Jacob doesn't seem like the greatest dad to 11 of his 12 sons, but maybe...
Even though he had this pain himself, maybe he said, this is what it means to be a dad, is I pick a favorite. And we need to understand Jacob's narrative as well of this was the role model he had.
Patrick Mason (21:16)
Yeah, I like that. the most prominent approach to conflict or conflict style. And this this is across cultures is conflict avoidance. And, and I think I love the way that you're highlighting that and, and in an extreme case like this, where people refuse to ever talk about their issues, it builds up, it builds, it builds, it builds, it builds and then it blows up, right? In this moment of incredible jealousy, resentment, and then very bad decisions by the brothers.
Rabbi Sam Spector (21:45)
Yeah. Well, and then we see this whole thing again where again, Joseph is falsely accused of a crime, is thrown into prison, and then he's forgotten about in prison. And all these things, it's just like, could all of these things been avoided had people stopped and asked questions? Or like I gave with the example of Dina, nobody asked Dina what happened or how she's feeling. Could so much conflict have been prevented had we taken this time to stop?
And rather than jump to conclusions or make assumptions or assume the absolute worst in somebody else's intentions to have asked some questions along the way.
Jennifer Thomas (22:28)
So I'm super interested and I'm kind of taking a left swerve here, but I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. So you talked about initially this element of the word shalom that is related to payment and making restitution.
I think there's a flip side to that that we see in this story that is so interesting to me. And when the brothers like get to this point of absolute conflict with Joseph where they're like, we want to be rid of him. We're so angry, we're frustrated, we're jealous, we're being displaced. They themselves demonstrate different ways of managing this problem. Like Ruben's like, I don't want to get my hands bloody, but I still want this problem solved. So let's just throw him in a pit, walk away, leave it alone. Let nature take its course. And then...
Which is interesting, right? And then you've got Judah, who's like, why?
Rabbi Sam Spector (23:10)
Especially Ruebensrubin means the son that sees. Like the Rubin means sight. So any word from what we're looking at. Yeah.
Jennifer Thomas (23:16)
Sight, right so he's doing the opposite he's denying that he's like yeah exactly I'm just I'm not gonna monkey he's the monkey that's like la la la I can't see it we're not killing him and but I'm also really interested in the fact that Ruben he not only he he does something that's almost worse somehow like he's willing to like let his whole brother's life be destroyed but he wants to profit from it he's gonna figure out a way to profit from
Rabbi Sam Spector (23:23)
Yeah.
Patrick Mason (23:42)
Judah.
Jennifer Thomas (23:43)
or Judah. What did I say? Reuben the first time, then Judah. Sorry. And Judah is like, no, no, no, let's not do this thing. Like there's nothing in it for us if we just like abandon him or leave him or killing. Let's figure out a way to profit from this. So that's kind of the flip side of peace when this this compensation is used to manipulate and hurt other people. And I'd love to kind of hear your thoughts about that, about, know, how do we do that to other people and how can we avoid seeing other people and the problem that they're, you know, just seeing other people through a value-based system where we just want to monetize them or like, you know, get something out of them.
Rabbi Sam Spector (24:15)
Sure. So one of the greatest Jewish theologians of the 20th century was a man named Martin Buber. And Buber wrote a book called I Thou. And what he talks about is great book. There you go. And so what he talks about basically is do we see people as a means to an end or do we see them as holy vessels? And like
Jennifer Thomas (24:24)
Such a great book.
Rabbi Sam Spector (24:38)
When I look out at a forest also, do I see every tree and how it plays a special role? It might offer a home to an animal or something like this or shade. Or do I just see all the trees as one singular object? we can look at that today. Like when I go to Smith's to go grocery shopping, I'm actually a fairly introverted person. I'm professional extrovert. And so I love to go to the self-checkout line so I don't have to interact with anyone. But sometimes I go to when that's closed or too fulled up, I go to the checkout stand.
My interaction with the checkout person is that they say, how's your day going? Fine. Did you find everything you're looking for? Yep. Okay. Your total is $74. All right, tap. Here you go. And then I go about my way. And I don't really think too much about that person. And I might as well have been interacting with a machine. And my interaction with that person was purely a means to an end for me to get my food and leave.
And, but if I stop and like actually care to know something about that person, how's your day going? Has it been busy around here? And learn something about them and see beauty and holiness in them and that they're creating God's image and likeness and that they are like, one of the blessings of COVID-19, one of the few blessings that came from that horrible time was people recognized those grocery store as heroes. Like these people are essential without them we don't have food and saw value in them in a way they maybe never had before. So that I think that's how we do that unfortunately with Judah here and this story with Joseph.
He and his brothers are seeing Joseph as a means to an end or a problem as opposed to something that a person that has holiness in them. And Joseph later sees that holiness in them too.
Patrick Mason (26:36)
So let's talk about that. How does this happen? So Joseph is clearly the hero of the story as we go through and we'll have to probably skip some of the details. But how does he get to a place in the midst of being subjected after having been subjected to all of this and multiple layers of rejection, false accusations?
you know, languishing in prison when all the guy had to do is like, Hey, Joseph guy, right? You know, all of these indignities. what do you see in Joseph's character in his approach? What are the, what are the tools? What are the internal sort of character traits that allow him that when his brothers show up, I mean, he's got to think for most of that time, his family is basically dead to him just like he's dead to them. He doesn't even know if they're still alive, right? Is my father still alive? All these kinds of things, right?
Rabbi Sam Spector (27:28)
Right. Right.
Jennifer Thomas (27:30)
If he even wants to know, he's a better person than I am. I think I'd be like, all right.
Patrick Mason (27:32)
Exactly. Right. And so when they do show up, he does all these tests and so forth. But but but but all of that with an eye toward, you know, instead of like killing them or selling them off, you know, at the first instance, there's something in him that at least there's there's a reservoir that that allows him to begin this process of reconciliation that then will play out over over a few chapters. So what do you see in the character of Joseph that allows him to do that?
Rabbi Sam Spector (27:57)
So Joseph, I mean, where Joseph becomes, how he becomes so powerful is he has foresight and he's visionary. And I think that's particularly when it comes to conflict. Sometimes I'll be going into a meeting with someone that know is going to, there's a high potential for conflict.
And so something I try and do before I go into that meeting is ask myself, what is the goal that I want to accomplish in this meeting? You know, do I want this person out of my life forever? Is that the goal? That might be the goal. Or do I want us, do I want to be understood? Do I want to understand them? Do I want to come to a place of reconciliation? I, you know, and so thinking through beforehand, what is the goal? And that, that's something that Joseph does very well as a visionary. He also is a person who has so much optimism. If I were him and issues I don't know that I could have that type of hope or faith, but he does. He always believes, well, maybe tomorrow will be the day I'm set free. there was another great theologian of 20th century, Victor Frankel, who survived Auschwitz. And two things that Victor Frankel said about how he survived Auschwitz was, one,
He recognized that you cannot control always your situation or your circumstance or other people. You can only control how you respond to it. And secondly, he said, if you have the why, you will figure out the how.
And so Joseph could figure out his why, why he wanted to still be here. And he found a way to do it. And he was in situations he couldn't control, but he could control his attitude. But finally, with Joseph also.
He was able not only to be forgiving or to see holiness in those who didn't see it in him, but Joseph on top of that was a person who was able to find blessings through what appeared to be a curse.
And one of things that he recognized to his brothers was, look, had you not been so horrible to me, had you not done these awful things to me, I wouldn't be in this situation that I'm in today to be able to save our family. Like had they been great brothers to him, his family would have perished and that would have been the end of the Jewish people. We would have died out after four generations.
And he says, because you did this to me, I'm now in this position of power where I can make a choice and I can help our family. Had Joseph also said, you know what?
⁓ You guys were horrible to me. I'm not going to help you or I'm even worse. I'm going to punish you. Have you executed whatever that also would have been the end of our story? but He chose forgiveness And also could see blessing in his circumstance It is the reason that I'm here today
Jennifer Thomas (30:41)
Hmm.
Patrick Mason (30:49)
Can I ask? Yeah, can I ask? And this will take us a little bit away from reconciliation. But, you know, while I'm on a Zoom call with the Rabbi, I want to ask a big theological question. ⁓
Jennifer Thomas (30:49)
I love that, yeah.
Rabbi Sam Spector (31:00)
Go for it.
Patrick Mason (31:02)
Do you—and this matters for people who find themselves in conflict and especially at the wrong end of harm and suffering, that yes, they can find meaning and purpose and growth in it. ⁓ Does God intend it? So as you said, had Joseph stayed at home, had there been a big happy family, the family dies of famine. Does God intend his brothers to be mean and horrible to him so that he can in turn save them?
Rabbi Sam Spector (31:12)
Yeah. Well, I personally like, so in Judaism, it used to be like theologically, when bad things happen, it's because either a greater good will come of it, like we see here, or because God is punishing us for being disobedient. The Holocaust really changed that theology in Judaism because...
Yeah, what greater good could come of that and particularly, apart of the six million Jews who were killed, one and a half million were small children and who sometimes died horrific agonizing deaths. And so what good could come from something like that? ⁓
Patrick Mason (31:50)
Mm-hmm. And what had they done to merit such suffering?
Rabbi Sam Spector (32:09)
Yeah, exactly. That's the next thing is what could they have done to merit that? And so where I come down on it is that the Torah is very clear that people are given free will. And otherwise there would be no point to all the commandments. We just do them or I shouldn't face consequences if I go punch somebody. I shouldn't go to jail for it. God made me do it. Like we have free will.
Jennifer Thomas (32:33)
It's for a greater good. I punched him for the greater good. Yeah, trust me.
Rabbi Sam Spector (32:34)
Yeah, sometimes I feel that way, but I needed to get beat up. we are given free will. So Joseph's brothers were given free will in this chance and they made the wrong decision.
Joseph, like we learned Judaism, if you saw those cartoons when you were a kid, like a little angel on your shoulder telling you to do the right thing and the little devil saying, no, do the wrong thing, there's something kind of like that. called the Yitzir HaTov and the Yitzir HaRa, the inclination for good and the inclination to do bad. And Joseph's brothers listened to that Yitzir HaRa with their jealousy and their anger. And Joseph fortunately chose to listen to that Yitzir HaTov when there was probably the inclination to do good when there was probably a part of him that's like now's my chance to make them suffer. And so that's how I see that.
But I think God wants us to be adaptable and survive. And perhaps that means finding reconciliation. Again, I talk about the Holocaust and the Jewish people. The Germans can never atone for what they did. But Germany to this day is one of Israel staunchest allies and also had stayed at Israel, I'm not trying to be overly political here, but just saying this is circumstances of the Jewish people, and they looked at, because there were Jews, by the way, Menachem Bacon was one of them who said we should never have peace with Germany, we should never work with Germany because of what they did. And there were people who felt that way as well when it came to peace with Egypt or peace with Jordan. And that means that we aren't being visionary and forward-looking and yeah exactly we don't get that completion so yeah.
Jennifer Thomas (34:07)
It means that you're constantly at war, right? That it doesn't, yeah. So I have something funny. This is a weirdness. So follow me on my journey. Anyone who listens to this podcast knows I go on weird journeys. So it doesn't surprise them. It might surprise you, ⁓ So one of the things that strikes me in this story is that Joseph is given this vision that is supposed to be, I'm assuming a good thing, right? That God is giving him a vision of his own potential, his capacity, the role that he could potentially play for good in the world.
Patrick Mason (34:22)
It's very productive, by the way. These are good journeys.
Jennifer Thomas (34:41)
And he interprets it a very specific way. So he's like, what this means is that I'm at he center of the universe and you all are going to worship me.
if Joseph had had a more developed, emotionally sophisticated, righteous vision of leadership. And if instead of getting that dream and saying, my purpose is to rule over others, if he had been, my purpose is to serve my family, or my purpose is to become the salvation of my family, do you know what I mean? That this whole story might have arched differently.
And one of the things that I think that I wonder is if over time Joseph was good at interpreting dreams and he became better at interpreting dreams through his suffering. Because I know that this has happened in my own life, that through suffering, my own suffering, I become more compassionate, I become more temperate, I become more humble. And if Joseph had a lot of time in that cell to sit and wonder.
Holy Hannah, that dream did not mean what I thought it meant. I am not in a position of glory and nobleness. I wish that, I want that dream to come true, but I want it to be, put me in a position of being able to serve. So anyway, I would just love to hear your idea of what good leadership looks like and how leadership and the tenor of leaders and the way they act and the way they define themselves can actually lead us away from or into conflict? And what examples you've seen of that either scripturally or in historically with the Jewish people?
Rabbi Sam Spector (36:15)
Yeah, yeah, mean, something that I think every husband has maybe heard at some point in his life is it's not what you said, it was the way you said it. And I hear that quite often, at least when I'm projecting. But I think that with Joseph,
Perhaps it was, like you said, it was how he messaged that. yeah, mean, what we see, so an example that comes to my mind scripturally in leadership is that of Korach. So Korach is a person in the Torah who challenges Moses's leadership. And in Judaism, we actually encourage challenging of leadership. It makes my job kind of difficult sometimes.
Rabbi Sam Spector (37:10)
It's not that he does it, that's the problem in my opinion, it's that it's the way he does it. He doesn't say first try and come to a place of understanding Moses and having compassion for Moses or showing appreciation for all Moses has done. He comes to a place rather where he says, I should be the leader, I should be in charge, I would do better. Moses hasn't done anything for us. And we don't see that it's all I, I, I,
He's not talking at all about his plans, how he's going to help the community, or that he wants to help his people. He's putting himself first.
As a result, that's why I think leadership is rejected, is he isn't a humble servant in the way that Moses is. And he has an agenda that seems to fit his own personal needs. We also see that good leader is somebody who can reflect and take accountability for their actions. When we look again at the State of Israel, we see that two prime ministers who resigned were Golda Meir after the failures of the Yom Kippur War and the intelligence when she was given warnings that the Egyptians and Syrians were planning a surprise attack and didn't take them
seriously enough and then Yitzhak Rabin who followed her resigned from office after it was found that he had a foreign bank account that had not been authorized. Now again by today's political standards that would be the most minor of political scandals but he said I'm held above, know, I am held to a higher standard.
I did not do this the way it should, and I've lost the ability to lead as a result. And then we see, though, that despite both of them resigning, that one, Rabin was later elected back to office in 1992, and then a poll that they did in the early 2000s of the greatest Israelis of all time, he ranked number one by the Israeli public, and Golda likewise is remembered very positively and so we don't really remember that that these two both resigned after a scandal. We remember that they showed strong leadership and also when it was appropriate they took accountability.
Jennifer Thomas (39:44)
And I think at least among Latter-day Saints, I think sometimes that is one of the mistakes we make with this story is we think Joseph was given his birthright and he was a victim all the way through. Instead of saying Joseph was given his birthright, it's entirely possible that through his own pride and error, he misinterpreted that in ways that caused conflict, right? And diminished his capacity to lead and changed the way his brothers loved him and were willing to follow him. But that perhaps over time he learned to live into that leadership, but that was a process of change. It wasn't a birthright. It was an opportunity that God gave him to say, hey, this is your potential and how can you grow into that and what's gonna be required of you to ultimately become the person that can sit on that throne and save your people.
Rabbi Sam Spector (40:25)
And did he also, with his brothers, build them up in ways that he could? I know a family where the oldest son is a Major League Baseball player and has actually been an all-star and a good Major League Baseball player.
Jennifer Thomas (40:30)
Yeah, exactly.
Rabbi Sam Spector (40:44)
One of the other sons ⁓ was a minor league baseball player, didn't make it up to the majors. And another son has Down syndrome and goes around and is a motivational speaker. And when you talk to this family, they aren't just talking about the son who's become a millionaire all-star baseball player. They are talking about each of their son's achievements. And people say, you're the one with the famous son and they'll say, which one are you talking about? And, cause they try and build all their sons up for their achievements.
Patrick Mason (41:18)
Yeah. but did they do it with 12 sons? to even remember all their names. So, no, this has been amazing. Thank you so much. as, as we move towards wrapping up, I want to just
What we ask all of our guests to reflect on is the question of how and where you personally find peace.
Rabbi Sam Spector (41:36)
That's a great question. So I'm still trying to figure out the answers to this. That's I'm going to India. But I'm trying to figure that out. So. So.
Something I'll add, I had a little fun there with the word shalom and the root of that word and other meanings that come from that. Hebrew is such a great language because it does that. My favorite word in Hebrew might be bitajon. Bitajon also has three meanings to it. One is trust. One is safety and or security. So trust, security and confidence is the third.
All three of those are necessary in order to have the other two, if you think about it. How do you trust someone if you don't feel secure around them or you don't feel confident in them? How do you feel confident in someone if you don't trust them? And how do you feel secure if you're with somebody who you can't trust and who you aren't confident in? So we have to always look at how are we building up bitajon with others and also what are we doing for them to build their bitajon with us?
And that can take a process. And I've learned this the hard way in my own life. But I remind folks that bitajon takes years and years to build and seconds to destroy. So we need to always think about that when we're thinking about conflict and peace is like, what do I do to build that? And what decision can I make in this moment that if I've spent the last five years building trust in my marriage,
and doing all that, what decision can I make in five minutes to completely undo that five years of trust or whatever relationship? ⁓ In terms of how do I find my own peace
Rabbi Sam Spector (43:11)
This is going to be, it's changed over time in different places in life, but for right now, this might be a bit of a hokey answer, but it's when I'm with my daughters and I'm holding my daughters when I put them to bed. That's where I find my peace, even when they're throwing tantrum or whatever.
Rabbi Sam Spector (44:27)
And when I told my daughter I was on TV, she said, I want to see. So I showed her a news clip. And she went, this is boring. Can we put on Peppa Pig? And it brought me back down. So that's where I find my peace and my balance and everything right now is through my daughters.
Jennifer Thomas (44:45)
I love that. Well thank you for joining us Sam it was a pleasure to have you and ⁓ we're grateful that you took us on a little journey of explaining why this is right now a story that's kind of important to your heart. It was really beautiful exploration of Joseph.
Rabbi Sam Spector (44:48)
Of course, of course. Can I add one more thing just from that story to bring in connection to my Latter-day Saints brothers and sisters too? Latter-day Saints, remind me, which two ⁓ tribes of Israel do Latter-day Saints claim to be descended from?
Jennifer Thomas (45:06)
Not all, but often, from Ephraim and Manasseh.
Rabbi Sam Spector (45:19)
Thank you. So when it, when I have only daughters, so ⁓ every Friday night, including tonight, I'm going to give my daughters a bless, the traditional blessing we give to our daughters, which is may God make you like Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. And, and.
Jennifer Thomas (45:23)
Yep.
Rabbi Sam Spector (45:35)
So with our sons, would think it would be, may God make you like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but it's not. What we say is, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. And so I always want to say, may God make you like the Latter-day Saints, I don't know. No drinking, no cigarettes, anything like that. But who are these two guys and why? ⁓
Jennifer Thomas (45:49)
Yeah. Why? Yeah.
Rabbi Sam Spector (45:57)
Well, because these actually were not brothers of Joseph and like the other tribes. These were actually Joseph's sons. And what we see with that is a cycle and a pattern that's broken there because Ephraim and Manasseh this is how the book of Genesis ends, are two brothers who love each other and are each other's best friends. After we've had throughout all of Genesis, became the first brothers, Cain and Abel, and then all the other ones I just mentioned who tear each other apart, we end with two brothers that are each other's best friends. And that's what we want for our children. So we get to see at the end of this story, this cycle broken, this intergenerational cycle broken. And that's what we want our children to be like. And I think it's pretty cool that Latter-day Saints are supposedly the descendants of those two.
Jennifer Thomas (46:33)
⁓ Sam. Yeah, and I'm just going to tell you that you have now given me a charge to be a cycle breaker. And so I love that. Thank you.
Rabbi Sam Spector (46:57)
There you go. I love that. All right, right. Thank you so much,
Patrick Mason (46:59)
Thank you so appreciate it.
Jennifer Thomas (47:02)
Thanks for listening to this episode of "Proclaim Peace." To hear more, you can subscribe on a podcast app of your choice or on YouTube. You can always find full show notes or transcriptions at proclaimpeace.org.
Patrick Mason (47:15)
"Proclaim Peace" is a partnership between MWEG and Waymakers. You can learn more about Waymakers at waymakers.us. Thanks again for listening, and we’ll see you next time.
