The Divine in the Human – Parshat Vayeshev

Humans may seem similar to most other mammals. After all, they have legs and arms, eyes and ears, heart and lungs, blood and guts, etc. They also have feelings – loyalty, sadness, excitement, etc. They eat food – some are herbivores, some carnivores and some omnivores. They communicate with each other. On some level, they seem to be very similar to human beings.

Yet they are not. They have no awareness of being. A dog can be angry but cannot say 'I am angry'. There is no sense of time – no planning for tomorrow (cute movies about animals with human characteristics aside). Humans were the only beings created with "the likeness of God".

This comes up again in this week's reading, Parshat Vayeshev.1 We read that when the Chief Butler and the Chief Baker, upset over enigmatic dreams from the previous night, presented their dreams to Joseph, Joseph answers that God is the owner of dream interpretation, and then immediately adds tell me your dreams.2 On the one hand he claims God is the expert, and then right away he turns around and says tell me your dreams. Either Joseph is playing God, showing false modesty or is doing something else in his answer.  Perhaps he could have told them to pray for guidance or interpretation, but noooo… he offered his own services. Rabbi Ovadiah Seforno, the great Italian commentator, explains that there is in fact a part of the divine within us by virtue of our being created in His image. So, not only was Joseph not being immodest, he was in fact attempting to use all of his capabilities, including that divine part within, to help the forlorn chiefs.

We are all created with a divine part. Even for those who don’t subscribe to the Torah explanation, psychologists have long posited that we are not only body and mind but also have a spirit which is connected to the great beyond,3 an extra dimension of being as it were. It is a higher, more spiritual plane that is ever present and always calling upon us to step up and reach out and live a meaningful existence. It is our choice whether to step up or not.

We can live a more divine life if we but choose to do so. We cannot be truly divine all the time - after all, we are only human. But we can definitely aim to be on that level where we can fully and more profoundly explore and enhance our own humanity.

Click here for another logoParsha article on Parshat Vayeshev

Notes

  1. My thanks to my friend Doug Mandel who shared this thought with me.
  2. Bereishit 40:8
  3. Psychiatrist Dr. Viktor Frankl, author of Man's Search for Meaning, describes this at length in his book Man's Search for Ultimate Meaning

 

Have A Great Shabbat!laughing

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