Maureena’s Torah Reflections
Parashat Vayeshev. Genesis 37:1-40:23
Come now, let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits. Then we will say that a fierce animal has devoured him, and we will see what will become of his dreams (Gen. 37:20).
Joseph held no bitterness towards those who caused him to suffer. He refused to ask why he suffered. He knew that to ask the why of suffering was to go down the wrong road, while to search for ways to respond to suffering lead to life.
There once lived a rabbi by the name of Levy Yitzhak who prayed this
prayer to God: “How could I bear to ask why everything happens as it does. I do not beg you to reveal to me the secret of your ways—I could not bear it. But show me one thing; show it to me more clearly and more deeply; show me what this, which is happening at this very moment means to me, what it demands of me, what You, Ruler of the world, are telling me by way of it.”
Prepared by Teresa Pirola
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“Since the spiritual patrimony common to Christians and Jews is thus so great, this sacred synod wants to foster and recommend that mutual understanding and respect which is the fruit, above all, of biblical and theological studies.”
Declaration on the Relation of the Church to Non-Christian Religions: Nostra Aetate, No. 4