Phil’s best friend in college was Jack. Jack Daniels that is. He would take Jack everywhere with him, in a natty little hip flask that Jack Daniels included in their holiday gift pack during Phil’s freshman year. By junior year, Jack started getting a little possessive of Phil’s time. He wanted to hang out with him in the morning before classes, in between classes, and then pretty much every evening all week. Jack would get jealous whenever Phil tried to stay away for more than a few hours. He would cause Phil all kinds of grief, including but not limited to jitteriness, headaches, and social discomfort. Phil would always come back to Jack.
When Phil graduated, he wanted to get a real job, the kind that could one day pay for a mortgage and a family, but Jack was not in for that ride. “Those jobs all want you to work 60 hours a week, and that is going to take you away from me!” Phil’s complicated relationship with Jack interfered with all of his interviews, most prospective employers didn’t like smelling Jack on Phil’s breath. So Phil got a part time job as a stock boy in Walmart, and made just enough to take care of Jack’s needs.
Three years out of college things got ugly. Jack took over the wheel when Phil was driving home from the bar late one night, and crashed head-on into a car with a family of five. Luckily there were no fatalities, but Phil and three of the other car’s riders were messed up pretty bad. As soon as Phil was discharged from the hospital, he was escorted by a few members of the law enforcement community to the local courthouse. He was charged with vehicular assault, reckless endangerment, driving under the influence, and speeding. Phil managed to get out on $20,000 in bail, but not before he was given an electronic tracking anklet courtesy of the Department of Justice. Phil was done with Jack.
He came home and poured every last bit of Jack down the drain. He then drove straight to a local church for his first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Ten minutes later, he found himself saying the words he vowed he would never say, “I’m Phil and I’m an alcoholic.” But the people in the program were surprisingly non-judgmental, even after hearing his story, and soon his fellow program members began to replace Jack. They were the people he connected with in the morning for his daily check in, they were the people he would hang out with at night. They didn’t mind him getting a better job, and even encouraged him to go back to school for a master’s so that he could advance further. Things were looking up for Phil.
There was one problem, and that was the Nino’s Liquor Store just two blocks from Phil’s apartment. The lights inside were always so shiny, and he could see the rows and rows of his old friends standing proudly on the shelves. He did miss Jack, especially when he was tired or lonely, and he would often slow his car down as he passed the store, wondering how Jack was doing. What did Jack look like in his new holiday box? Was there a special sale, or a promotional bottle? His friends from the program kept telling him to drive home using a different route, but there was something comforting about passing Jack on his way home. He could reminisce about all the good times they shared, his old friend was always there if things got really tough.
It was a particularly cold and windy evening, with the rain coming down in slanted sheets, when Phil decided to just walk into the store to see if they changed the aisles around, they definitely did that from time to time. He wasn’t planning on taking Jack home with him, maybe he would just get some of those crackers they sold in the back of the store. He wasn’t planning on taking Jack home with him…
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Many studies have been done on self-control; and it has been clearly documented that good self-control is correlated with higher incomes, greater levels of happiness, and general success in life. Most of the studies focus on the effects of self-control, not necessarily the tools needed to boost self-control. But the Wall Street Journal a few years ago reported the findings of a study conducted by Florida State University that discovered an important trait that causes increased self-control, a trait that is much easier to acquire than self-control itself.
In the study, researchers first asked the participants a series of questions about their habits to determine their levels of self-control. The participants were a representative sampling of society at large, with roughly half of them displaying above average self-control, and about half displaying below average levels. The participants were told they would be solving a challenging word puzzle and could work in a noisy student lounge or wait for a quiet lab that wasn’t immediately available. The people with a high level of self-control chose to wait at a much higher rate than those with low self-control.
In another version of this study, the participants were given an intelligence test. They were offered two formats, a simple black and white interface, or a more beautiful color version, but the color version would have artwork cycling through the sides. The majority of those with high self-control chose the simple uncluttered format, while those with low self-control mostly chose the prettier format despite the distractions that would be on the screen.
Even in wealth studies, it was discovered that people who had part of their paycheck automatically debited into a retirement account were far more likely to be able to retire comfortably than people who were faced with making the right choice every month and actively moving money from their bank account into their retirement account.
This led the researchers to coin a term they call “proactive avoidance,” the trait of going out of one’s way to ensure that their self-control isn’t tested. The idea is that self-control is not as strong as we would like it to be, and the more we are proactive in avoiding tests to our self-control, the more self-control we will have in our reserve tanks to fight the battles we need to fight.
In Judaism, this concept is not new at all. The Torah talks about the Nazir, a man who takes upon himself a vow that among other things he will not drink any wine nor ingest any grape products for a specified amount of time. Regarding the Nazir, the Sages of the Talmud tell us in multiple locations (e.g. Shabbos 13A), “Go, go, we say to the Nazir, around and around, but to the vineyard don’t come close.” This means that although the Nazir is only forbidden from drinking wine or eating grapes, not from walking through a vineyard, still we tell him to take a circuitous route around the vineyard, as measure of proactive avoidance, to ensure that his self-control is not tested any more than it has to be.
In 2017, the world learned that Mike Pence, then the Vice President of the USA, had a long standing rule that he would not dine alone with any woman other than his wife. Many commentators were outraged, and called the practice and the person all sorts of names ending with ist, and ism. It was demeaning, it was infantilizing, it was religious bigotry, it was all sorts of terrible things. But then the #MeToo moment happened, where it was discovered that many people who had easy access to morally harmful things often did morally harmful things. There was backlash and a lot of publicity give to culprits in all arenas, from politics and academia, to the worlds of business, entertainment and sports. And soon after, Bloomberg reported that many Wall Street firms had taken up the “Mike Pence” practice. Evidently “proactive avoidance” is a policy that works to stop bad behaviors!
There have been a number of surveys done to determine how widespread “emotional entanglements” are between married people and people of the opposite genders. The numbers range from 40% to 91%, and regardless of where the exact number is, it is clear that there is a real and present danger. Not every emotional entanglement leads to more pronounced forms of infidelity, but almost all infidelity starts with emotional entanglements. Go, go, we say to the Nazir, around and around, but to the vineyard don’t come close.
In today’s modern era, there has been an unprecedented increase in access and availability. Of what? Of everything. Food is abundant, gossip goes viral in moments, objectionable material is just a click away. Triggers for anyone struggling with anger, gluttony, lust, greed, or laziness abound, and more than ever, we need to use proactive avoidance. No one has super human self-control, but the smartest people know to avoid having to dip into the self-control well all the time.
We all know what we struggle with, we all know our personal Jack, almost all of us are frequently upset at ourselves for failing in the exact same way, again and again. If we can use proactive avoidance, figure out the ways to be tested less often, we will find ourselves winning a lot more in life. Not because we win a lot of battles but because we set up our lives so that we don’t fight a lot of battles. With the help of Hashem, we will become powerful.
Go, go, we say to the Nazir, around and around, but to the vineyard don’t come close.
Parsha Dvar Torah
In this week’s parsha we read about how Joseph, now the viceroy of Egypt, reveals his true identity to his brothers. He then sends them back to Israel to their father Jacob, with the request that the whole family move down to Egypt where Joseph will be able to support them throughout the seven year famine. However part of the message that Joseph sends back to his father seems strange; “G-d has made me a lord over all of Egypt” (Gen 45:9).
Understandably, Joseph is trying to persuade his father to come down to Egypt, but does he think that telling his father of his vast power is going to impress Jacob? Does he think that Jacob will be more inclined to move his holy family to a country filled with materialistic pagans just because his son has a good job and lots of power?
Rabbi Yaakov Neiman (of blessed memory), answers this question with an important lesson. What Joseph was trying to show his father was not the great power he had, but his perspective on that great power. When the average person gets a raise or a promotion, they will usually attribute it to their boss, the Human Resources department, or more often, their own hard work. “I got the raise for closing a major deal.”
Joseph, on the other hand, shares none of these illusions. When he describes the incredible promotion he got, he makes it abundantly clear that he recognizes how he got his job. “G-d has made me a lord over all of Egypt” takes on a whole new meaning when we understand that the stress is on the first part of the sentence. Now Jacob would see that despite his meteoric rise to power and despite being immersed in a culture whose leaders usually made deities out of themselves, Joseph was able to maintain his faith and recognize that everything comes from G-d. Hopefully, once Jacob would see that one could retain their Jewish beliefs and perspectives in Egypt, he would be willing to move his family down to Egypt.
This message resonates today more than ever. People are being hired and fired, promoted and demoted in a chaotic economic environment the likes of which we have never seen before. It is important for us to recognize who is the Ultimate Boss, the One who really decides our career path, and Whom we should talk to when we need a bit of career help, or to give thanks for our success.
I have a close friend who truly exemplifies this idea. Six months ago, he joined one of the oldest and largest insurance companies in America. Since then he has devoted himself to his work with incredible zeal and has actually shattered all of the company’s records for an employee’s first six months. He has already won the coveted Rookie of the Year title, and will soon be going to the company’s annual conference where he will be awarded at the company dinner and given the honor of addressing thousands of employees in the industry.
The other day (as he was trying to sell me another policy), we were talking about his upcoming trip and his speech. He told me that he not only plans on proudly wearing his kippah at the dinner, but that in his speech, plans on thanking G-d for his incredible success and acknowledging that his accomplishments were possible only through G-d’s help. The Kiddush Hashem (sanctification of G-d’s name) that this speech will bring about is immeasurable. In a room filled with thousands of people whose motto is “In Green We Trust,” the most successful of them will remind everyone Who truly determines our success.
Our forefather Joseph blazed a pathway for us, teaching that, despite the prevailing culture’s perspective on success, we can maintain our perspective. We need to follow him down that road to the ultimate success; a life lived with an awareness of G-d and all He does for us!
Parsha Summary
This week’s parsha, Vayigash, starts off at the charged moment where we left off last week. Yosef’s special silver goblet had been “found” in Binyamin’s sack, and he was hauled back to the palace to become a slave. The ten other brothers are not willing to see their brother taken. They follow him down, and stand to plea before Yosef. Notably, it is Yehuda who speaks with Yosef because he was the one who guaranteed Binyamin’s return. Yehuda launches into a long explanation as to why it is imperative that Binyamin be allowed to go back to his father. He explains that if Binyamin doesn’t return, their father is liable to die from the anguish.
At this point, Yosef decides that it is the right time to reveal himself to his brothers so he orders all the Egyptians out of the room (so that they not witness the brothers’ humiliation upon realizing the enormity of what they had done). Then he says, “I am Yosef, is my father still alive?” The implication is – why were you not concerned with our father’s health when you sold me and let him think I was killed by a wild animal? The brothers were so disconcerted that they couldn’t speak. But Yosef was not one to rub salt in old wounds. As soon as he saw that his brothers were contrite, he consoled them, telling them that selling him was all part of a divine plan so that he would be able to support the family throughout the remaining years of the famine.
Yosef asks that his family come down to Egypt where he would provide them with fertile land and food. Pharaoh seconds the motion. Yosef sends the brothers back with bountiful supplies and special wagons which were symbolic of the last Torah lesson Ya’akov gave Yosef. These wagons were meant to show Ya’akov that Yosef was still on the straight and narrow.
Ya’akov hears about Yosef’s situation, and he sees the wagons indicating his son’s spiritual position, and his spirit is revived. On the way down to Egypt, G-d comes to Ya’akov at night and tells him that He will be with him, and will make sure that his descendants come out of the land of Egypt.
The Torah then recounts the lineage of Ya’akov’s progeny. It also mentions that Ya’akov sent Yehuda ahead of him to Goshen (possibly the first Jewish ghetto ever), the place the Jews inhabited in Egypt to set up a Yeshiva. He did this because he recognized that the only way the Jewish people would be able to maintain their Jewish identity in Egypt is if they have significant Jewish education, a realization that rings very true today.
Ya’akov and Yosef have a tearful reunion after a 22 year separation. At this momentous occasion, Ya’akov recites Shema, indicating that every joyous occasion should be experienced with G-d. When the family goes to meet Pharaoh, Yosef instructs his brothers to tell Pharaoh they are shepherds, as this way he will leave them alone (whereas had they told him they were warriors he would try to draft them). Pharaoh and Ya’akov share pleasantries and bless each other.
The parsha concludes by telling us how Yosef managed Egypt during the famine. He was the only person who had any grain, so everyone sold him their land. He told everyone they could have land as long as they moved (this way his family wouldn’t feel out of place when they settled in a new place), and that they had to give one fifth of their crops to the Pharaoh as tax. Back then they didn’t charge a Social Security tax, and today they shouldn’t either because there is very little likelihood that I’ll get the benefits by the time I retire, what with the S.S. crisis. But that’s a discussion for a different time. That’s all folks!
Quote of the Week: The best way out of a problem is through it. – Samuel Fremont
Random Fact of the Week: The trunk of the African baobab tree can grow as large as 100 feet in circumference.
Funny Line of the Week: The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face!
Have a Nifty Shabbos,
R’ Leiby Burnham
