Why do we find ourselves in certain places and in different situations? If you think about it, often it wasn’t really our conscious choice to be there. It just happened to turn out that way.
Little do we know that behind the scenes, there is always an invisible hand guiding our steps.
King David wrote in Psalm 37, “The steps of man are directed by God.” King Solomon said it in his own way in Proverbs 16. “In their hearts humans plan their course, but the Lord establishes their steps.”
The bottom line? We think we know where we’re going and why, but it doesn’t always turn out that way. There is a higher plan (not necessarily of our own making) guiding and directing our path in life.
In this week’s Torah reading, we begin the famous, dramatic tale of Joseph and his brothers. The whole story was initiated when Jacob asked Joseph to go and check out how they were doing with the flocks in the fields. The brothers were already angry—jealous of Joseph—and plotted to kill him. In the end, he was thrown in the pit and then sold into slavery down in Egypt.
The story will unfold later with Joseph having risen from prisoner to prime minister of Egypt. When the brothers come down to purchase grain during the years of famine, they will appear before him and, after an intricate charade, will finally be reunited with their long-lost brother, Joseph. He will then bring Jacob and the whole family down to Egypt, where he promises to sustain them.
But how did it all start? With these words of Jacob to Joseph: “He (Jacob) said to him (Joseph), ‘Go now and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.’ So, he sent him from the valley of Hebron, and he came to Shechem.”
The obvious question is: Why would Jacob send Joseph into the lions’ den? Surely, he was aware of the animosity of the brothers to Joseph.
Rashi explains that there is much more to this than meets the eye. In fact, Hebron was situated in a mountainous area, not a valley at all. What, then, does the “valley of Hebron” mean? Says Rashi: “He sent him in consequence of the profound counsel of that righteous man who is buried in the depths of Hebron.”
In other words, this entire narrative took place to fulfill that which was told to Abraham by God generations earlier, that “your descendants will be strangers in a foreign land (Egypt).”
It was an elaborate design—an intricate scheme for God’s promise to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham to be set into motion. This was the very beginning of how the Jews would find themselves in Egypt, later become slaves, eventually leave Egypt in triumph as a free nation, and at Mount Sinai, become “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” with a universal mission and purpose. It all began with Jacob sending Joseph to see how his brothers were doing.
The little brother who was lost in a strange and distant land would become the chief engineer of Divine Providence and the “vast eternal plan” of the Almighty. Who could have known what was really playing out in this little tale? The ways of Providence are infinite, unknowable and often unfathomable.
How and why did Jews emigrate to the bottom of Africa? Or Down Under to Australia? Or, for that matter, to places like Alaska, Hawaii or Uruguay? In some instances, of course, Jews were fleeing Europe and found safe refuge elsewhere. But clearly, God wanted Torah and Jewish life to reach even the furthest continents and most remote locations.
Growing up, I never dreamed that I would be living in South Africa. But the Lubavitcher Rebbe sent us there back in 1976 and, thank God, we’ve never looked back.
All of us can probably share personal stories of the twists and turns in our own lives and how things turned out in ways we could never have imagined.
Here are just two of my own. It was around 1977 when we were still new in Johannesburg. Out of the blue, I developed double vision. The doctors were quite concerned, and I was admitted to the old Princess Clinic for a battery of tests. One neurologist literally put the fear of death in me with his dire diagnosis. In the end, it was only a loose nerve that healed itself with some simple eye exercises.
But why did I have to experience this? What was it all about?
Well, it turned out that my roommate in the hospital was a gentleman named Mervyn Stein. He was recovering from encephalitis and also had double vision, so we were both wearing eye patches. I remember that when Professor Harry Reef came in to see us, he asked: “Is this some kind of Jewish status symbol?” A bunch of Moshe Dayan wannabees?
In the morning, when I put on my tallit and tefillin, and prayed the morning service, Mervyn became quite nostalgic, remembering his own late grandfather who, too, would pray regularly. I helped Mervyn with the tefillin, and this was the beginning of a spiritual awakening that led him to become a fully observant Jew, a leader in his own community, and later, even the chairman of the Union of Orthodox Synagogues in South Africa. As far as I am concerned, that was the reason I had double vision and needed to find myself in the Princess Clinic.
Many years ago, I was asked by South Africa’s former chief rabbi, Cyril Kitchener (“C.K.”) Harris, to fly to Gaborone, Botswana, to consecrate a small patch of land as a Jewish cemetery and then officiate at the funeral of a British professor who had been living there.
Frankly, it wasn’t a simple task to find a minyan of Jews in Gaborone. But they came out of the woodwork. They weren’t religious or even traditional, but they heard that they were needed and arrived. We dedicated a Jewish cemetery—it was tiny, maybe 10 graves, but it became a sacred Jewish burial ground. I led the seven circuits, reciting the special prayers with the minyan following behind me.
Then, I conducted a fully Orthodox funeral service. In attendance were 10 Jews and a few hundred Tswanas, the local African people, including the dean and faculty members from the University of Botswana. I explained everything in English, and they were not only interested and intrigued but very respectful. This story of Jacob and Joseph formed part of my eulogy. It was an experience I hadn’t planned or ever envisioned, but it remains one of the most memorable ones in my rabbinic career.
The ways of providence are indeed infinite and unknowable. Wherever we may find ourselves, we should remember that we are walking in the steps ordained by God. Knowing there is a higher plan and a higher purpose always helps.
