A few years ago, 31-year-old Daniel Cohen was stabbed in an Arab terrorist attack in his pancreas. Daniel was rushed to the hospital, and during surgery, the doctors discovered he had a cancerous tumor in the area in which he had been stabbed. Not only did Daniel survive the attack, but the attack also saved him from a cancer he didn’t even know he had—a tumor that could have taken his life. 

The terrorist was caught and brought to trial. Imagine the following scenario: Instead of remaining silent and expecting a long prison sentence, the terrorist insists on speaking. "I saved his life!" he claims. "If I hadn’t stabbed him, he would have died from cancer. And now, look—he’s alive!" Obviously, such a claim would be ridiculous. His goal was to kill!  He had no idea he was doing Daniel a "favor." Let’s pause for a moment and ask ourselves:  Isn't that a good point? Maybe it doesn't matter, after all - the terrorist did save his life!

After Jacob’s death, Joseph’s brothers were afraid. They worried that Joseph would now take revenge on them for everything they had done to him, especially selling him as a slave. But Joseph reassured them, saying: "You intended to harm me, but G-d intended it for good." With these words he comforted his brothers, while they begged him to forgive them for their actions. Joseph’s response is not easy to understand. If someone robs another person, but the victim later gets a big insurance payout, would anyone suggest that the victim should ‘forget’ the robbery? Would he forgive the thief so quickly? If that’s how things worked, no bad action would ever matter!
But Joseph was saying something deeper: how  bad actions can turn out for the good. His brothers had bad intentions. They sold him as a slave because they wanted to harm him. Yet, that harm led to something good—the birth of the nation of Israel, which we are a part of today. 

However,  even though everything is part of G-d’s plan, this doesn’t mean a person should avoid responsibility. As it says in Pirkei Avot: "Everything is seen [by G-d] in advance, but free will is given." This means that every person has the freedom to choose between good and evil. A robber, even if his actions lead to the victim getting a lot of insurance money, still must be punished. The fact that the victim received compensation doesn’t excuse the robber’s crime. The sin of selling Joseph was a terrible sin! We can’t just say, "Well, because of it, Joseph became a ruler in Egypt, and the nation of Israel was created." It was still a terrible crime. At the same time, we can understand that we are granted free will to choose good and be rewarded, or to choose evil and be punished. Yet G-d is in control of the bigger picture. He directs the events of the world. To bring the nation of Israel to Egypt—where they would grow from seventy people to millions and become a real nation—was part of G-d’s plan. This plan had been told to Abraham hundreds of years before. Joseph told his brothers: "I believe and know that G-d meant for this to be good. But you only see the small picture. Your view is limited. There is a much bigger picture, and only after many years can we understand things clearly and see them in the right perspective. Right now, what you did seems very bad. But in the long term, over generations, it has a much deeper meaning." 

Joseph was able to see the bigger picture. He understood that all the suffering he went through was ultimately for his benefit and for the benefit of the nation of Israel. He knew that even though it seemed unfair at the time—there was a plan from G-d. And so, Joseph told his brothers: "You only wanted to get rid of me. You sold me after trying other ways to get rid of me. But in the end, it was all for the best! G-d turned it into something good, but you couldn’t see that. From your point of view, it was a sin, and sins deserve punishment. But I, who see G-d’s hand in all of this, forgive you completely." 

Sometimes, we go through hard times in life that we don’t understand. We ask ourselves “why is this happening? Why am I going through this? Why can’t life just be…good?”

We need to remember a time when we thought something was the worst thing that ever happened to us, only to realize later that it was actually the best thing that ever happened to us....

If we adopt Joseph’s incredible ability to look beyond the here and now—to see a broader, deeper perspective—that what we are going through right now, whether it’s a bad grade, a relationship that ended, or any kind of failure, is ultimately for our benefit—even if we don’t, and we likely won’t, see it at the moment- we will only grow from it. 

Noam, Grade 11