NOTES for Gen 37:3-4

Love in the fallen world has a surprising and at first sight quite inexplicable property: provoke hatred. This hatred can be the answer to love, and maybe also the consequence of envy, as in the case of Joseph and his brothers. But, be that as it may, such a reaction to love provokes in every case embarrassment: because there is nothing bad in love itself, it never brings damage to anybody, if only it is of course in particular about love, and not about its spiritual substitutions, bearing sometimes the same name of love. Genuine love is always if not the light, then the reflection of the Kingdom; it is neither destructive, nor intrusive. But even such love in the fallen world can provoke hatred to the one who loves, and to the one that is loved. Sometimes it seems to the one who hates that he hates the one who is loved because this one is not entitled to the love that he receives, that it is given to him undeservedly.

Besides, the one who hates does not usually understand that deserved love in our world spoiled by the fall is impossible: nobody of the sinners deserves love by definition. The problem here is above all in the fact that love and hatred simply exist in different worlds, living by different laws. Hatred is possible only in our ruined world, and genuine love - only in the Kingdom. From this the non-junctions of perceptions: the man living in a not transformed world cannot understand how it is possible to receive something undeservedly. He knows that in the world, which is known to him and which for him is the only one, no one receives anything just like that, everything must be paid for, and even presents have to be paid for. It is incomprehensible for him, how somebody can receive something, without completely deserving it, just because he is loved.

It is not surprising: because in the fallen world what is called love, is not it in fact: according to the laws of this fallen world it must be "mutual", more exactly, mutually beneficial. The appearance of genuine love in the fallen world makes absurd all its arithmetic and depreciates all achievements. It is not surprising that the first reaction from the side of those who achieved something in this world is in particular hatred, the more, the more achievements. To get rid of this hatred, it is necessary to accept the laws of the Kingdom and to learn to live according to them, and not according to the laws of "this world". Or… try to get rid of those who love, and of those that are loved. Such is the choice of each facing genuine love. Just as with any other manifestations of the Kingdom.

Jealousy is one of the most terrible sins, the most severe form of envy. When we are jealous, we reconsider love, we trade it, we begin to deal with it as with an object, which we can measure, which can be big or small, which can be better or worse. Love should not be compared, it is never similar to itself and it always remains love. When we are jealous of the father, the mother, or of God - we deprive ourselves of adoption. Being jealous of the brother or the sister, we don’t want to call him/her brother or sister, and it means that we are already not the sons, nor daughters. Only love towards brothers and sisters lead to the Father.

Envy is one of the most widespread human sins. Jealousy is the same, since it too is envy, envy of another person's love. The tenth commandment of the Decalogue forbids envy. And not without reason, but because envy destroys the house. It is directed toward such destruction. When a person envies something, he always envies another person's house; this is the meaning of the tenth commandment. And this is no surprise: a house is not simply a dwelling. It is a spiritual space. A space in which relationships are built, binding together those who live in the house. Relationships of love, binding the members of the household. The envious person does not always understand this, but if he does understand it, the responsibility is all the greater.

When envy is directed toward what belongs to a person, that is not yet so terrible. Though it is still bad. It is bad because, refusing to build his own house, the envious person dreams of someone else's. He wants to become the master of the house, pushing out those who created that house. And this is a spiritual catastrophe above all for the envious person himself, because by doing this he renounces his own house. He renounces responsibility for his life before God. For that very life which God gave to him and to him alone so that he himself would build his own house.

But it is still worse if a person envies someone else's relationships. Someone else's love. Here it is no longer simply another person's house, another person's living space. Here it is another person's soul. Love always presupposes the joining of souls. Not an emotional or intellectual joining, but a vital one. In the Bible, the soul is not a structure, but a process, a stream. A stream of life. And love is two streams merging into one. Directed by the will of those whom love joins together.

And the envious person intrudes into this stream in order to change its course. To redirect it toward himself. Regardless of the desire of those who live in it. By force, cunning, manipulation - by any means, but in such a way as to become the center himself. This kind of envy is the most terrible; it strikes at the very heart of relationships, destroying them or at least trying to destroy them.

Taken to the end, envy can even make the envious person a murderer, wanting at any cost to pull everything toward himself. But the most terrible thing is that in doing this the envious person also destroys his own spiritual life: he no longer has either strength or time left for relationships with God. In killing the one he envies, he kills himself. Not physically, true, but spiritually. But such a death is still more terrible, because it is irreversible. And even the resurrection at the end of time can become for such a murderer a resurrection of condemnation.

Another new genre stands before us. It is an ancient novel, where in one narrative, taking up about ten biblical chapters, an adventurous, suspenseful story, an instructive tale, legends about famous ancestors, and sacred history are intertwined. It is a kind of insertion of an artistic biography, the story of a person, into the story of a people and of God's promise. Through the personal fate of Joseph and his brothers, the story of Abraham's people continues to unfold and the promise of their great future is fulfilled. Here, on the personal level, we will see many noble and base actions, human resourcefulness, and help from God: the Bible comes down from the exalted legend of the patriarchs into the thick of human life, with all its falls and rises, hopes and failures, tears and happiness. Embracing the full range of literary genres, Scripture also embraces the whole life of the reader, tying adventures and trials together with a higher, more-than-human meaning.

For now, we are offered a kind of prologue: a boy with an unusual prophetic gift ends up in a foreign country because of his brothers' envy. The chief hero of the novel, God, is already at work, saving Joseph's life and guiding him along a path known to Him alone...

When reading today's passage, one cannot help feeling two things at once. On the one hand, Joseph's behavior, as described in the story, does not arouse sympathy in a normal person. Indeed, when and who has ever liked tattletales and flatterers? Yet Joseph appears before us in exactly that light (v. 2). It is no wonder that Joseph inspires nothing but hostility in his brothers. And his dreams, of course, only intensify that hostility: their meaning is quite transparent, and none of the older members of the clan naturally wants to submit to the youngest, since this contradicted all the norms and customs accepted in those days (vv. 5-11). On the other hand, the brothers' hatred was caused by more than this. The older brothers undoubtedly saw Joseph as a dangerous competitor in the coming struggle for power in the tribe after their father's death. Usually the eldest became leader, but Joseph had his father's special love in his favor, and now signs of election from above were added: the gift of prophetic dreams with which Joseph was endowed was considered in ancient times a special sign of God's favor. Such a combination could well have caused Jacob to change tradition and hand power over to Joseph, even though he was the youngest. Then Joseph's older brothers decide to get rid of the dangerous rival. Not daring to shed blood, which in ancient times was thought to defile a person and bring a curse upon him, especially when innocent blood was shed, Joseph's brothers finally sell him into slavery to a passing trade caravan headed for Egypt, firmly convinced that now they have rid themselves forever of a dangerous rival (vv. 18-28). Clearly, Joseph's brothers are now moved not merely by irritation against a flatterer and informer, but by a thirst for power that stops at nothing. And this thirst prevents them from seeing the main thing: the sign from God sent through Joseph. As will become clear later, this sign pointed to events on which the life of Jacob himself and of all his descendants would directly depend. But Joseph's brothers, occupied with thoughts of inheriting power in the tribe, had no time for signs. In Joseph they saw not a man of God through whom God wanted to save the life of His people, but merely an unwanted competitor in the struggle for that very power. They thought of nothing more, and their personal antipathy toward Joseph only inflamed their hatred even more. Passions and short-term calculations prevented Joseph's brothers from seeing in him the main thing that made up the meaning of his life. Then the paths of Joseph and his brothers parted for a long time. They parted so that many years later Joseph's mission would be marked out more clearly, and his brothers would finally understand that the world extends far beyond the borders of their small tribe.

The story of Joseph is gripping and at the same time instructive. He is marked by God from childhood; otherwise the prophetic dreams cannot be explained. Joseph probably inherited this gift from his father, but one can inherit only mystical sensitivity as a special property of the psyche, not a relationship with God.

Each person establishes a relationship with God for himself and from a blank slate; it cannot be passed on by inheritance. Prophetic dreams by themselves do not yet make a person a prophet, and this is clearly visible precisely in Joseph. The issue is not only that he rather simpleheartedly tells everything to his father and brothers, for whom the dreams shown by God to Joseph were not intended at all. The issue is also that Joseph continues, even after the revelation he has received, to tell on his brothers, apparently sincerely thinking that he is doing a good thing.

It is no surprise that the brothers rather soon wanted to explain to Joseph what they thought about this matter. There was, however, something else too, something more serious. The matter concerned power, no longer in one tribe, but in a whole large clan, the clan of Jacob's descendants. Naturally, after Jacob's death. Usually the eldest inherited power, but here the situation was special. Joseph was Jacob's beloved son, and then there was also this seal of God's election...

In short, a serious rival was taking shape. Such a person has to be gotten rid of, and sooner is better than later, before he grows up and becomes aware of his possibilities. In the wilderness, if people truly want to get rid of someone, a chance to do it will come sooner or later. That is what happened with Joseph. Opinions, however, were divided: one of the brothers took pity on Joseph, and all of them, it seems, were afraid of bloodshed. Bloodshed specifically: they were ready to throw Joseph, bound, into the wilderness to die of thirst, but they feared the shedding of blood. They feared it superstitiously, feared it as one fears defilement, but they feared it. Just then, most conveniently, a caravan of merchants on their way to Egypt came by. They were always ready to buy cheaply a slave who could later be resold in Egypt at a profit. Such business troubled no one; slave trading in those days was an ordinary affair. And the brothers calmed down: they were sure they would never see Joseph again. Now, they said, let us see what his dreams are worth.