Jewish Recovery Thought - Vayigash

“And he [Joseph] fell on his brother Benjamin's neck and cried, and Benjamin cried on his neck.”
Genesis 45:14

This week's portion tells of Joseph's dramatic reunion with his brothers. He embraces them all, but with Benjamin he weeps. One could say that this is because Benjamin was Joseph’s only full brother from the same mother and, furthermore, that Benjamin was the only one who was not involved in the plot to sell Joseph. But tradition explains yet a deeper reason for their weeping.

Joseph mourned prophetically over the Holy Temple in Jerusalem which would one day be built in the land apportioned to the tribe of Benjamin while Benjamin cried over the Sanctuary at Shilo which he foresaw would stand in the territory apportioned to the tribe of Joseph. Since both holy houses were destined to be destroyed, each brother wept for the other’s loss.

This interpretation raises a question: Why did each one cry over the other's future calamity? They faced similar fates. Why then did they not both cry for themselves?

Where the answer lies is in the world of difference between how we must regard our own disasters as opposed to that of our fellow. When we see someone else facing self-destruction, we can offer love, encouragement and support so that they might have more strength to see themselves out of their mess, but, ultimately, we cannot solve their problems for them. It is the individual who holds the key to finding his or her own solution. Thus, when we have truly done everything we can reasonably do and disaster is still looming, the only thing left to do is cry; not with tears of anger or frustration, mind you, but tears of genuine sympathy and compassion. We do not speak condemningly and we do not judge. Neither are we aloof or unfeeling. We simply admit that the final outcome is not up to us. We pray, we release with love and we cry because there is nothing else left to do.

When it comes to our personal destruction, however, we dare not tearfully resign ourselves to our own demise. There is no time for weeping. We must act, for we have no right to give up hope and to shirk responsibility for ourselves.

At the risk of oversimplification, it may be said that our disease is nothing more than a gross amplification of human nature. If as human beings we tend be relentless in our hopes to change others while easily despairing in the face of our own woes, then we alcoholics have perfected this into an art form. When it comes to others, we are masters of manipulation, entanglement and complicated relationships. When dealing with ourselves, however, we are quick to give up, bemoaning the fatality of our own destiny and generalizing catastrophe as every little difficulty sets off an impulse to rush headlong into the coward’s refuge of oblivion. Our recovery has meant honing the exact opposite tendencies. We have learned to be gracefully compassionate toward others while being insistently demanding of ourselves.