Thread by @rabbisacks

Here is a thread from my Covenant & Conversation essay on #Vayechi. You can read it in full here: bit.ly/2Ls26pB & download the accompanying Family Edition here: bit.ly/2GvgVcs. #ShabbatShalom

The great truth about the role of time in our lives is that we live life forwards, but we understand it only looking back.

What we become depends on our choices, and we are often free to choose this way or that. But what we become shapes the story of our life, and only in hindsight, looking back, do we see the past in context, as part of a tale whose end we now know.

If life is like a narrative, then later events change the significance of earlier ones. That is what the story of Joseph and his brothers is telling us.

We cannot change the past, but we can change the story people tell about the past. But that only happens when we ourselves change.

We can only change the world if we can change ourselves. That is why the book of Genesis ends with the story of Joseph and his brothers. It tells on an individual level the story that the book of Exodus tells on a national level.