Parshat Vayeishev — When the Work of Becoming Is Tested Inside a Home

Introduction — When a Spiritual Journey Enters the Realm of Relationships

“וַיֵּשֶׁב יַעֲקֹב…”

— “And Yaakov settled.” With these quiet words, the parsha opens a new chapter in Yaakov’s life.

Vayishlach ended with Yaakov standing in the aftermath of his long night of struggle, renamed and reshaped. He emerges as Yisrael — someone who has faced his fear honestly, confronted his past directly, and discovered a strength that comes from remaining present in the very place he once wanted to flee.

But as the Sfas Emes teaches, inner transformation does not complete itself in the private spaces where it begins. A person may experience clarity alone, yet the truth of that clarity is tested only when it enters the realm of relationships. What we discover within ourselves must eventually be lived with the people who know our history, who stir our old reflexes, who carry their own wounds, and who reflect back to us the parts of ourselves we have not yet integrated.

It is against this backdrop that the Torah says, “Vayeishev Yaakov — And Yaakov settled.” Rashi explains that Yaakov longed for tranquility after decades of turmoil. But the Midrash adds that tzaddikim are not granted rest by stepping away from complexity. Genuine spiritual rest is not the absence of struggle; it is the ability to bring the strength forged in earlier struggles into the challenges that follow.

The Sfas Emes deepens this further. The desire for quiet often appears when a person reaches new clarity — yet that clarity must now be tested. The work Yaakov did in the night must meet the demands of the day. Growth cannot remain theoretical. It must take shape within the lived reality of human connection.

And this is where the narrative now turns: from the inner struggle of one man to the emotional landscape of an entire family. Yaakov may feel ready for calm, but the Torah does not open with calm. Vayeishev begins instead with tensions simmering inside his home — longing and rivalry, misreading and insecurity, unspoken wounds and fragile hopes. The very struggles he wrestled with alone now reappear in the lives of his children. What he faced internally returns externally, not as punishment, but as the natural continuation of his spiritual journey.

This marks a deliberate shift. Vayishlach tells the story of Yaakov becoming Yisrael — a person discovering new inner strength. Vayeishev asks what happens to that strength when he returns to the people who shaped him, who remember who he once was, and who carry their own fears and expectations. It is one thing to grow in solitude; it is another to bring that growth into a home where old patterns still linger.

Vayeishev is therefore the parsha where inner transformation meets the complexity of daily life. It is the moment when private clarity enters a world that is unfinished, emotionally layered, and deeply human. The Torah reminds us that spiritual development is not proven through inspiration alone. It is proven when we try to live differently with the people closest to us — the ones who evoke our tender places and require us to show up with maturity.

Growth becomes real only when it can withstand the imperfect, demanding relationships in which it must ultimately take root.

I. “Yisrael Loved Yosef” — The Emotional Dynamics That Shape a Family

“וְיִשְׂרָאֵל אָהַב אֶת־יוֹסֵף מִכָּל־בָּנָיו”

— “Yisrael loved Yosef more than all his sons.”

The Torah opens this section with striking honesty. The verse is difficult not because love is problematic, but because the uneven expression of love reshapes the emotional atmosphere of a home. It influences how siblings see one another, how they interpret a parent’s actions, and how secure each child feels in their place within the family.

The Ramban explains that Yosef reminded Yaakov of Rachel, the great love of his life. Loving Yosef was, in part, an extension of loving her. But the Torah also hints at another layer. Yosef was simply different — more sensitive, more inward, more expressive, more attuned to meaning and possibility. The Midrash describes him as drawn to dreams and self-expression, not only to the rugged physicality that shaped his older brothers’ world.

Yaakov recognized something in Yosef — a spark, a potential, a likeness — that he did not perceive in the same way in his other sons. His attunement to Yosef’s uniqueness was sincere, but incomplete. He did not yet see how the focused attention he offered one child cast shadows elsewhere in the family.

This tension becomes embodied in the ketonet passim, the multi-colored coat. Midrash Rabbah teaches that it symbolized Yaakov’s affection, pride, and even the spiritual legacy he hoped Yosef would carry. But it also became a visible marker of difference — a reminder that one child occupied a unique emotional space.

The Or HaChaim notes that even subtle signs of preference, especially when tied to a child’s uniqueness, can awaken deep emotional wounds that may not surface until years later. A child who feels cherished may experience uplift; a sibling watching from the outside may experience displacement.

None of this was intentional. Yaakov never meant to elevate one child at the expense of the others. He loved Yosef with the tenderness of someone who had suffered profound loss and saw in this child both comfort and promise. But children do not experience a parent’s intentions. They experience the impact — the tone, the glances, the small patterns that accumulate over time. And impact, not intention, shapes the emotional reality of a home.

When one child becomes too seen, even for understandable reasons, others can begin to feel unseen. The Torah’s shift from calling him “Yaakov” to “Yisrael” hints at a father trying to navigate emotional dynamics that are moving faster than he realizes. What he experiences as connection, his sons experience as comparison. What he sees as attunement, they receive as exclusion. Their sense of belonging — their place in the constellation of the family — becomes uncertain.

As these dynamics accumulate, the balance within the family begins to tilt. There is no dramatic turning point and no intention to wound. Instead, Yosef’s difference, Yaakov’s concentrated attention, and the brothers’ simmering insecurity slowly reshape the emotional landscape. These are not crises, but small, everyday interactions — the kinds that quietly shape how each child understands their worth, their place, and their relationship to one another.

Over time, the unnoticed gaps widen. The unaddressed tensions settle into the background. And without anyone intending harm, the groundwork is laid for the conflict that will soon emerge.

II. Dreams and Misreadings — When Identity Outpaces Maturity

“וַיַּחֲלֹם יוֹסֵף חֲלוֹם… וַיַּגֵּד לְאֶחָיו”

— “Yosef dreamed a dream… and he told it to his brothers.”

From the beginning, the Torah shows Yosef speaking with the eagerness of someone who senses a larger purpose but has not yet developed the awareness to understand how his words will land. He is not trying to provoke his brothers. He is simply excited, and he does not yet appreciate how his excitement sounds to siblings who already feel overshadowed.

The Sfas Emes teaches that dreams can appear before a person has the maturity to carry them. Rav Kook adds that when a young person’s potential surfaces early, it often unsettles those around them — not because they reject the child, but because they are unsure what this emerging identity means for their own place within the family. Through this lens, the tension in Yaakov’s home becomes easier to understand.

The brothers hear Yosef’s dreams as a claim to superiority. What Yosef intends as sharing becomes, in their eyes, a threat. Yosef, in turn, hears their reactions as resistance, not recognizing the insecurity beneath them. Yaakov sees only typical sibling tension, unaware that something deeper is beginning to form. Everyone is responding to something real, yet each is misreading the emotional reality of the others.

The Torah captures this shift in one concise line: “וְלֹא יָכְלוּ דַבְּרוֹ לְשָׁלוֹם” — “They could not speak to him in peace.” Rashi explains that this reflects a relationship already strained. The problem is not overt hostility; it is a gradual weakening of trust and safety that makes honest conversation increasingly difficult.

The core difficulty here is not malice. It is misreading. One brother shares something personal, and it is heard as arrogance. A young man shows a tender, sensitive part of himself, and those around him experience it as a threat. Another brother speaks or reacts from insecurity, and the family interprets it as rejection. These moments are small, often subtle, and deeply human — yet they begin to reshape how each person feels inside the home.

Most fractures in families do not begin with dramatic confrontations. They begin with misunderstandings that no one pauses to clarify, emotional needs that remain unnoticed, and interpretations that settle into place long before anyone realizes what they are becoming.

By the time the distance is clear enough to name, it already feels ingrained. What started as a simple misread has now shaped the emotional tone of the relationship, leaving everyone unsure of how it happened — and unsure of how to repair it.

III. “Vayimtza’ehu Ish” — God’s Quiet Guidance When a Child Feels Lost

Yosef sets out to find his brothers, and the Torah describes him simply as wandering in the field. Then it adds one understated phrase: “וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ” — “A man found him.” Rashi, quoting the Midrash, identifies this “man” as the angel Gavriel. The Torah is signaling that Yosef is not only physically disoriented. He is being guided — quietly, steadily, and without realizing it — toward the moment that will alter the course of his life.

Chassidic thought reads this as a window into how divine guidance often works. The Baal Shem Tov teaches that times of wandering can feel confusing or directionless, yet those very moments sometimes carry the beginnings of a deeper encounter. What feels like random movement may, in hindsight, reveal itself as a path carefully shaped for us. The anonymity of the “man” underscores this idea: divine support often appears ordinary in real time and becomes recognizable only afterward.

There is also a psychological dimension to Yosef’s wandering. His inner world is developing faster than the environment around him. As the Piaseczna Rebbe writes, when a young person senses their potential before they have the language or structure to hold it, confusion often emerges first. Aimlessness can be the earliest sign of an internal shift — the beginning of a search for identity, belonging, or direction. Yosef is not rebelling and not avoiding responsibility. He is standing at the threshold of becoming someone he does not yet fully understand.

It is precisely in this vulnerable, unsettled space that “a man found him.” Yosef does not reach clarity through his own insight; the next step arrives through what appears to be a simple encounter. The message is grounded and realistic: God meets a person at the point where their own understanding ends. Divine guidance does not promise ease, but it does promise presence — a quiet assurance that the next step is not taken alone.

And yet, the path Yosef is guided toward is not one anyone would choose. This short encounter leads him directly into betrayal, descent, and eventually the rise that will define his destiny. The Torah is not offering a romantic vision of divine intervention. It is offering a sober one: guidance is not the same as comfort. It is the gift of direction, even when the direction is difficult. Yosef’s wandering becomes the doorway through which his story begins to unfold — not despite the confusion, but through it.

IV. The Pit — When a Soul Falls Into Emptiness

The rupture in the narrative arrives without warning: “וַיַּשְׁלִכוּ אֹתוֹ הַבּוֹרָה… וְהַבּוֹר רֵק, אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם.” The Torah emphasizes the emptiness — a pit without water — and the Midrash adds that it was filled instead with snakes and scorpions. The image conveys a stark truth: when there is no nourishment, no stability, and no sense of safety, something harmful fills the void. A pit without water is never neutral. It becomes a place where fear and instability settle easily.

In Torah language, water represents connection, meaning, and emotional containment. To say the pit had no water is to describe an experience stripped of everything that once steadied Yosef. This is more than a physical fall. It is the collapse of the relational world that shaped him. He is not simply thrown into a hole; he is plunged into an emotional state where belonging, continuity, and safety disappear at once.

For the first time, Yosef experiences himself as truly unseen.

The brothers who know him best do not notice his terror. The father who understands him most does not know he is missing. Life above the pit continues, unaware of the fear unfolding below. The image becomes a stark metaphor for what many young people feel when they experience sudden disconnection: misunderstood, unprotected, and cut off from the relationships that once held them. The danger is real, but so is the disorientation — the jarring realization that the world they relied on no longer feels available.

The Sfas Emes teaches that every soul encounters moments in which earlier supports fall away before new clarity can emerge. These moments are not abstract. They feel confusing, painful, and frightening, yet they often become the ground from which deeper strength eventually grows. The descent itself does not diminish a person; it forces capabilities to surface that could not develop in calmer times.

But in the moment, none of this is visible. Yosef has no access to the larger arc of his story. He does not know that this shattering will later refine his leadership or deepen his resilience. All he knows is that he has been cast into a place he never chose, stripped of everything familiar, and left alone with uncertainty. At this point in the narrative, the pit is simply a pit — cold, empty, and destabilizing.

And it is from this lowest and loneliest point that Yosef’s long descent begins — the descent that will carry him toward the next stage of becoming, even though he cannot yet see where it leads.

V. The Descent to Egypt — Hidden Ascent Within Darkness

The Torah describes the next stage of Yosef’s journey with striking simplicity: “וְיוֹסֵף הוֹרַד מִצְרָיְמָה” — “And Yosef was brought down to Egypt.” On the surface, it appears as a simple change in location. But Chazal understand this moment as far more significant. According to the Zohar, this descent is not a break in Yosef’s story and not a pause in his potential. It is the first small step in a process that will one day shape the destiny of his family and, later, an entire nation. What looks like collapse is, in truth, the earliest stage of an unfolding none of the characters can yet perceive.

The Sfas Emes frames this through the principle of yeridah l’tzorech aliyah — descent for the sake of ascent. This teaching does not suggest that suffering is inherently elevating. It simply acknowledges that certain forms of growth emerge only when familiar supports fall away. When a person is placed in an environment that no longer reflects back who they have been, they are forced to develop capacities they did not yet know they possessed. Egypt becomes not only the site of Yosef’s exile, but the arena in which his deeper resilience and leadership begin to take form.

Rav Hutner writes that genuine greatness does not arise from uninterrupted success. It is shaped by the very struggles that unsettle a person’s confidence and force them to rebuild from within. Yosef could not grow into his future role in the comfort of his father’s home, where he was understood and instinctively protected. His development had to occur in places where he was misread, pressured, and required to navigate new expectations. These experiences do not undermine his earlier dreams; they create the person capable of fulfilling them.

From the outside, this descent looks like the shattering of everything Yosef once imagined for his life. And from the inside, it likely felt even more disorienting. The loneliness is real. The instability is real. The Torah does not soften the emotional weight of this transition. Instead, it draws our attention to the gap between Yosef’s youthful confidence and the harsh reality he now faces — a gap that any human being would struggle to bridge.

This tension lies at the heart of Vayeishev. The parsha is filled with instability, rupture, and what appear to be backward steps. Yet these very moments become the foundation of a hidden ascent. Nothing about that ascent is visible to Yosef. There is no sign that anything redemptive has begun. But the Torah invites us to consider that even when a life seems to be unraveling, something deeper may already be forming beneath the surface.

Yosef’s descent marks the beginning of a long journey that will one day lead to healing, leadership, and reconciliation. But in this moment, none of that is accessible to him. All he knows is that he has been brought down — suddenly, painfully, and without explanation. The light that will eventually redefine his story already exists, but it remains concealed within the darkness that surrounds him.

VI. Yehuda and Tamar — Descent, Responsibility, and the Birth of Redemption

The Torah introduces this episode with striking directness: “וַיֵּרֶד יְהוּדָה מֵאֵת אֶחָיו” — “And Yehuda went down from his brothers.”

Chazal teach that this was not merely a physical descent but an emotional and spiritual one. The brothers held Yehuda responsible for the sale of Yosef, and he carried that weight quietly within himself. The space he creates is not simply geographical. It reflects a man who no longer trusts his own judgment, a leader whose confidence has given way to doubt. His withdrawal becomes a way to avoid what he cannot yet face.

The narrative continues: “וַיֵּט עַד־אִישׁ עֲדֻלָּמִי” — “And he turned aside toward an Adullamite man.” The verb וַיֵּט suggests drift — the subtle, almost unconscious turning of someone who is emotionally unmoored. Yehuda builds a family and makes significant decisions, yet the text hints that he is doing so from a place of instability. His sons’ actions — described as “רַע בְּעֵינֵי ה'” — mirror the unraveling within him. The clarity with which he once led is gone, replaced by an inner disarray that now shapes the world around him.

It is into this vulnerable space that Tamar enters. She is not a disruptor; she is a quiet, steady presence holding onto a future that Yehuda can no longer see. When Yehuda hears she is pregnant, his initial reaction is harsh and reactive: “הוֹצִיאוּהָ וְתִשָּׂרֵף” — “Bring her out and let her be burned.” Yet Tamar does not expose him or respond with accusation. Instead, she sends him the items he gave her — the seal, the cord, the staff — with a single phrase: “הַכֶּר־נָא” — “Please recognize.”

These words are anything but incidental. They are the same words the brothers used when they presented Yosef’s bloodstained coat to Yaakov: “הַכֶּר־נָא הַכְּתֹנֶת בִּנְךָ הִוא.” The very phrase Yehuda once used to conceal truth now returns as an invitation for him to confront it. The deception he helped orchestrate comes back in a form he cannot ignore, and in that moment the past he tried to escape stands directly before him, asking for recognition — not only of Tamar, but of himself.

Yehuda’s response becomes one of the most transformative moments in the Torah. He does not deny, rationalize, or retreat. Instead, he says simply: “צָדְקָה מִמֶּנִּי” — “She is more righteous than I.” With these words, he does something no one has done before in the Torah: he takes full responsibility without defensiveness or delay. Chassidic masters see this as the turning point of his life — the moment when Yehuda shifts from a leader of circumstance to a leader of integrity. His strength begins to come not from authority, but from the courage to face his own truth.

This moment of honesty reshapes the narrative. Tamar gives birth to Peretz, ancestor of David HaMelech, and the lineage of Jewish kingship begins specifically from the place where Yehuda chooses humility over pride. Redemption emerges not from triumph, but from a moment of internal clarity — from the quiet bravery of a person willing to be changed by truth.

Seen in this light, the story of Yehuda and Tamar is not an interruption in Yosef’s descent. It completes the emotional architecture of the parsha. Yosef discovers who he is in exile; Yehuda discovers who he is through accountability. Yosef grows by surviving what others do to him. Yehuda grows by confronting what he has done. Both brothers move downward before they rise, preparing each for the moment — still far ahead — when their paths will converge again.

And as Yehuda’s “הַכֶּר־נָא” echoes the earlier deception of Yosef’s coat, the narrative turns back to Yosef — now in the house of Potiphar — where he will face a test not of responsibility, but of identity, character, and the quiet strength of remembering who he is.

VII. Yosef and Potiphar’s Wife — Identity as Moral Anchor

The Torah narrates the next stage of Yosef’s journey with deliberate calm: “וַיְהִי אַחֲרֵי הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה…” — “And it was after these things…” After the upheaval of betrayal, the terror of the pit, and the disorientation of being sold into a foreign world, Yosef now faces a test of an entirely different nature. The danger is no longer external. It is internal — a test not of survival, but of identity.

Inside Potiphar’s home, the Torah describes the persistent attempts to draw Yosef into sin. The pressure is constant, quiet, and private. No one is watching. No one would defend him. No one from his past is present to remind him who he is. In this environment, Yosef’s refusal stands out not because he is unaffected, but because something within him remains anchored even as everything familiar has been stripped away.

Chazal teach that at the decisive moment, when he nearly faltered, Yosef saw “דְּמוּת דְּיוּקְנוֹ שֶׁל אָבִיו” — the image of his father. This is not a sentimental memory or the idealized fantasy of a boy yearning for home. It is the sudden reawakening of identity — a reminder of where he comes from, of the values inscribed in him long before Egypt, and of the spiritual lineage that remains alive within him despite distance, loss, and dislocation. What arises in that moment is the inner world formed quietly in his youth, now surfacing with unexpected clarity.

For Yosef, this becomes a turning point. Every external structure that once supported him — family, language, culture, belonging — is gone. Yet the internal imprint of Yaakov’s teachings remains. The Piaseczna Rebbe writes that true education is what endures when the visible structures around a child collapse. That is precisely what we witness here. Yosef’s refusal is not merely an act of willpower; it is the expression of a foundation laid patiently in his father’s home. His integrity becomes a form of rootedness — evidence that something stable within him has survived the rupture of exile.

Ironically, this act of clarity leads not to reward but to imprisonment. The downward movement of Yosef’s life continues, almost mercilessly. Yet the Torah presents this not as a contradiction to his righteousness but as a deeper revelation of his character. Yosef’s greatness does not emerge from ease or affirmation. It emerges from the clarity he carries into circumstances that seem to deny his worth. Each descent exposes another layer of who he is becoming. Each challenge demands a renewed commitment to the person he refuses to stop being.

The capacity that anchors him in Potiphar’s home — holding onto identity in the face of pressure, loneliness, and uncertainty — becomes the same capacity that will later enable him to stand before his brothers, the very people who cast him aside, and choose reconciliation over revenge. The moral strength revealed here becomes the groundwork for the emotional strength required in the chapters ahead.

Viewed in this way, the episode in Potiphar’s home is not a detour in Yosef’s story. It is part of the slow, often hidden construction of the inner world that will one day sustain him — and through him, an entire nation. The Torah teaches that leadership is not forged by public victories or dramatic displays of strength. It emerges from private decisions, from moments no one else sees, and from the quiet courage required to hold onto one’s identity even when the world feels unsteady and unfamiliar.

Yosef’s resistance becomes one of the essential building blocks of the character that will eventually enable him to rise, to forgive, and to reconnect with the family that once cast him aside.

VIII. Parent Reflection — What Vayeishev Teaches About Seeing Our Children Clearly

One of the quiet teachings of Vayeishev is how easily people who genuinely care about one another can misread what they are seeing. A look, a reaction, a tone of voice — the parsha shows us how frequently the characters interpret one another from the outside, without recognizing the inner experience driving the behavior. Once an interpretation settles, it begins to shape the relationship in ways no one intended, creating distances that no one meant to create.

For parents, this becomes a deeply relevant reminder. Children rarely communicate their needs in clear, polished language. They communicate through intensity, withdrawal, defensiveness, sudden emotion, or unexpected quiet. Without meaning to, we often read these signals through the lens of our own fear, fatigue, or insecurity. What we hear as disrespect may be anxiety. What we experience as anger may be hurt. What looks like apathy may be overwhelm. And the behaviors that push us away may, in truth, be early attempts — sometimes clumsy, sometimes raw — to pull us closer.

Parenting asks us to slow that process down. Before interpreting, we pause. Before reacting, we look again. We remind ourselves that beneath every behavior is an inner experience we have not yet heard. Our role is not to solve every emotional knot on the spot, but to create enough safety that our children feel able, one step at a time, to let us into their emotional world at their own pace.

Vayeishev also reminds us that children pass through seasons when their inner path is not obvious to anyone — least of all themselves. They may appear unsettled, restless, or unsure, as if wandering in a field without direction. This is not always a sign that something is breaking. Sometimes it is simply a stage of becoming, when a child is outgrowing an old version of themselves and has not yet stepped into the new one. In those moments, what they need most is not certainty from us, but steadiness — a parent who stays present, curious, and emotionally available even when the child cannot yet name what is happening inside.

Perhaps most importantly, Vayeishev teaches that a child’s descent — whatever form it takes — is not the final chapter of their story. A difficult season does not mean a child is lost. A moment of collapse does not define their identity. A stretch of struggle does not erase the deeper goodness unfolding within them. Our task is not to prevent every stumble or rescue them from every pit. It is to ensure that when they reach for us — whether directly or silently — they find someone who has not stepped back.

In this sense, Vayeishev offers parents a gentle invitation: See your child before you interpret them. Stay close even when you don’t yet understand. Allow room for the unfolding you cannot yet see. It is in that space — patient, grounded, and compassionate — that real connection and real growth take root.

And when we begin to see our children with this kind of steadiness and curiosity, something else begins to shift as well: we start to see the larger arc of their growth. We notice the parts that do not announce themselves in the moment, the places where confusion is preparing the way for clarity, and the stretches where descent is quietly shaping resilience. And as we learn to see our children this way, we inevitably learn to see ourselves this way, too. Our own missteps, our uncertainties, our fears about getting it wrong — these, too, become part of a longer story still unfolding.

Parenting is not a straight line of insight and confidence. It mirrors the journey of the parsha itself: moments of misreading, moments of return, and moments in which something deeper is being formed beneath the surface. With this awareness, we can enter Vayeishev’s closing movement not only as readers looking at ancient figures, but as participants within our own unfolding stories — trusting that what feels fractured may be the beginning of transformation, and that the hidden work taking shape within our families is leading us toward places we cannot yet see.

IX. Conclusion — The Quiet Work of Learning to See Each Other

Vayeishev opens with a father longing for rest and ends with a son carried into exile. On the surface, the parsha moves from stillness to disruption — from the hope of stability to the shock of dislocation. Yet beneath that turbulence lies a quieter movement: a family beginning, almost without realizing it, to learn what it means to see one another with honesty and depth.

Yaakov’s transformation after wrestling with the angel is real, but he is still learning how to bring that inner clarity into the emotional world of his home. The brothers’ pain is real, but remains unspoken. Yosef’s potential is real, but not yet shaped by the maturity his future will require.

The spiritual arc of Vayeishev is therefore a hidden one. The descent that appears to tear the family apart becomes the very descent that will later make healing and redemption possible. What looks fractured is, in truth, the beginning of a longer story in which relationships will be repaired and identities will deepen.

The Torah does not present these developments as sudden turning points. Instead, it allows us to see how growth often unfolds — quietly, gradually, through moments no one chose and misunderstandings no one recognized at the time.

Vayeishev teaches that growth rarely emerges from the calm and predictable spaces we long for. It is born in the uncomfortable moments we would rather avoid: in misreadings that force us to listen more carefully, in emotional distances that ask us to show up with greater presence, and in experiences that push us to see ourselves and each other with new clarity.

The pits, the wanderings, the jealousies, the silence — these are not interruptions in the story. They are the story. Through them, the possibility of deeper connection begins to take shape.

And so, even when a story feels broken, Vayeishev insists that it is not abandoned. Something quieter and deeper is always at work, guiding the narrative toward places the characters cannot yet imagine. A hidden path unfolds beneath events that feel painful on the surface. The light that will one day illuminate the story is already present, even if it remains concealed within the darkness of this week’s parsha.

As we step into Miketz next week, the first hints of ascent begin to appear. Yosef’s descent — painful, unwanted, and disorienting — becomes the foundation of his rise. This shift reminds us that no darkness is final, no rupture is beyond repair, and no pit is the end of the story. It is often within the descent itself that the earliest signs of redemption quietly begin.

Have a Wonderful Shabbos!!!

Yaakov Lazar