When I was about 12 years old there were many times I went to shul. My family did not expect me to, I went because I wanted to. This continued into the summer. At camp I continued to try to daven. Once the head counselor called me out of davening. He said I was talking, and that he knows my family is not so religious. He said that even though I don’t value davening it’s not fair to interrupt the other boys that do. I was so angry, felt so misjudged. I was talking but the other boy was involved as well. It was only briefly, and he tried to size me up based on that one moment. He didn’t take into account all the effort I had been putting in.
In this week’s parsha, Yosef is described as a shepherd and a young boy (na’ar). On the other hand it says he was a wise son. This is a contradiction: how can you be both? The medrash asks: Why does the Torah describe Yosef as a shepherd when he was actually a talmid chacham? The reason why we know that Yosef was a talmid chacham is because later on the Torah describes Yosef as a ben zekunim: “Yaakov loved Yosef because he was his ben zekunim.” Rashi says according to Onkelus: Yaakov gave over all his Torah to Yosef and therefore Yosef was now a talmid chacham. So there were two ways to view Yosef: Yaakov saw his son as a talmid chacham, and Yosef’s brothers saw him as a na’ar; a young boy who was egotistical and a troublemaker.
How come when the Torah describes Yosef it says it straight out: he was a shepherd and a na’ar? The Torah does not use the same clear language when it describes Yosef as a talmid chacham: the Torah uses hints and a hidden language which then has to be clarified by Onkelus and Rashi. Ben zekunim could mean three things: a son born in old age, a talmid chacham, and that he looked exactly like Yaakov. The answer is that it’s easy to see a person’s age and profession when you first meet someone. You see what the person does for a living and how old they look and you end up judging him accordingly. It’s harder, however, to see the person’s spiritual qualities.
How come Yaakov saw the spiritual side of Yosef, but the brothers didn’t? The Kli Yakar asks: How come Yaakov loved Yosef so much? How come he never saw Yosef as a na’ar? The answer is that whenever Yosef was around Yaakov, he acted like a zaken and a talmid chacham, but when he was with his brothers he acted like a young boy.
According to the Kli Yakar it appears that it wasn’t the brother’s fault for not seeing the special and holy side of Yosef. We know, however, the Torah does not exempt them totally. Why not? In the sefer Taam Ve’Daas, it explains that Yaakov loved Yosef so much. It’s obviously not because he physically looked the same. That would not be reason enough to love him more than the other brothers. The explanation is that Yosef was similar in spiritual prowess and that level is apparent on a person’s face to holy people who can pick up on this. Yaakov Avinu picked up on this. It is possible the Torah expected the brothers to see the real value in Yosef and treat him accordingly.
What can we learn from this? We have to learn to look deeper into people we are friends with and those we first meet. It’s not always about the job or the age or the way a person looks. There are deeper parts to people that we don’t know about or that they don’t show us. Let’s take time to see beneath the surface and to see the whole person.
