Thread by @rabbisacks

Here is my essay on #Vayeshev, "The Angel who did not know he was an Angel": 🇬🇧 bit.ly/2szKDGy / 🇮🇱 bit.ly/2Z00mej / 🇪🇸 bit.ly/2rZXOR1 / 🇫🇷 bit.ly/2PxrgHi / Family Edition bit.ly/36OSW0a / Listen spoti.fi/33Npq9s. #ShabbatShalom

THREAD -> In this week's parsha, we read how Joseph arrived at Shechem where he expected his brothers to be, but they were not there. He might well have wandered around for a while and then, failing to find them, gone home.

Then we read the following: A man found [Joseph] wandering around in the fields and asked him, “What are you looking for?” He replied, “I’m looking for my brothers. Can you tell me where they are grazing their flocks?”

“They have moved on from here,” the man answered. “I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dothan.’” So Joseph went after his brothers and found them near Dothan. (Gen. 37:15-17)

I know of no comparable passage in the Torah: three verses dedicated to an apparently trivial, eminently forgettable detail of someone having to ask directions from a stranger. Who was this unnamed man? And what message does the episode hold for future generations, for us?

I believe the anonymous man – so the Torah is intimating – represented an intrusion of providence to make sure that Joseph went to where he was supposed to be so that the rest of the drama could unfold. He may not have known he had such a role. Joseph surely did not know.

To put it as simply as I can: he was an angel who didn’t know he was an angel. He had a vital role in the story. Without him, it would not have happened. But he had no way of knowing, at the time, the significance of his intervention.

The message could not be more significant. When heaven intends something to happen, and it seems to be impossible, sometimes it sends an angel down to earth – an angel who didn’t know he or she was an angel – to move the story from here to there.