Vayigash
When do we reach full teshuva?
Reflection by Carrie Watkins, US Community Manager
"Until this point in our story, Yosef’s brother Yehuda hasn’t been the most impressive character. This week, however, he finally pulls through. When Yosef - having framed Benyamin by putting a golden cup in his bag. accuses Benyamin of stealth, Yehudah steps in and says, `please let me remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers` (Gen 44:33-34). In a heroic act of teshuva (repentance), he refuses to sell Benyamin into slavery in Egypt, something he did to Yosef years ago. This time, he puts himself on the line, breaks the pattern, and repairs his old mistake.
According to the Rambam, full teshuva is reached not when a person apologizes or regrets a wrongdoing, but when they’re confronted with the same situation again, and change their behavior (Hilchot Teshuva 2:1). Yosef - in what can be interpreted as an act of love and faith - crafted for his brothers a parallel situation to their original misdeed, giving them an immeasurably valuable gift - the opportunity for full teshuva. Yehudah rose to the challenge.
A psycho-emotional Hasidic lens on this story asks us to find the Yosef and the Yehudah in our own internal experiences.
Are there parts of ourselves or our stories we’ve put into exile - like Yosef’s brothers did to him - that we’ve refused to acknowledge, in the hope they’ll go away? Have we then found those parts - jealousies, yearnings - re-emerge in old patterns that don’t serve us: the same unhealthy relationships, the same unfulfilling jobs, the same negative thought patterns? It’s so easy to judge ourselves negatively for continuing to fall into those patterns.
What if, learning from this week’s parsha, we hold space for the possibility that we end up in those patterns not out of self-sabotage, but because our inner Yosef is setting us up - lovingly even! - for the possibility of teshuva? What if we return again, and again, precisely because we believe in our own ability to return, to complete teshuva? It might not happen right away, but each situation might be an act of faith and love, and an opportunity, when the time is right, to return to ourselves."