In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeishev (Gen. 37:1 – 40:23) Jacob’s
older sons are pasturing their father’s flocks at Shechem, and Jacob sends
Joseph, his favored son, out to join them.
He can’t find them, and is wandering in the fields when he sees a man
who asks him what he is looking for. He
says he is looking for his brothers and the man says, “I heard them say they
were going to Dothan”. Joseph went to Dothan,
and we know the rest of the story. His
brothers take his coat of many colors from him, throw him in a pit to die, and
he is picked up by a traveling band of traders who bring him to Egypt. So begins the history of the Israelite people
in Egypt, which will end with exodus, redemption and revelation, and the eternal
covenant between God and the people of Israel.
Without the unnamed man who Joseph met in the fields of
Shechem these crucial events may never have come about. Maimonides comments that he was no ordinary
man, but an angel sent to make sure that Joseph completes his task. Like Joseph, we don’t know where our journey
will lead. We may not recognize the angels
along our path who guide our destiny. We are even less likely to recognize when
we act as an angel for another person.
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