Growing Up

Several months ago, my family was all home and we were all having dinner together. My nine year old was confidently talking about things he had no idea about and the fact that he was doing that was driving my fourteen year old crazy. “How can you say that when you have no idea what you’re saying?”

My twenty year old was amusedly watching what was going on. She remembered how when she was about fourteen she also couldn’t stand it when her younger sibling (the now fourteen year old who was about nine at the time) used to talk as if she knew stuff that she really didn’t have a clue about. At the time I would tell her that she’s only nine and not to get upset about it, but at fourteen, my daughter couldn’t hear that and simply fumed, just like this fourteen year old fumes.

At nine it’s about me.

At fourteen it’s about what’s not right.

At twenty it’s about perspective.

At fifty six it’s about trying to eat a meal in peace already.

The brothers hated Yoseph. They hated him for the coat that their father, Yaakov, gave him. They were jealous of him because of the relationship he had with their father. They hated him for his dreams, and how he spoke about them.

The Torah says that Yoseph was a youth.

The Sforno says that the Torah tells us that Yoseph was young and inexperienced and therefore could not foresee where his behavior would lead; even though he was very intelligent he was not mature and he lacked experience.

As parents, we have to be able to recognize age appropriate levels of development. It’s appropriate for a nine year old to feel his oats. It’s appropriate for a fourteen year old to want fairness and it’s appropriate for a twenty year old to begin developing perspective.

Yoseph was a youth and saw life from that level, but after being sold, after spending twelve years in prison, after going through tests, and eventually finding himself responsible for an entire nation’s economy; Yoseph was able to see life from a much broader perspective.

When he finally revealed himself to his brothers he understood that what transpired between them happened for a reason. You sold me. God sent me here. God made me the leader. All the details, in the perspective of the ultimate outcome, made sense.

I’m sure, to some degree we were all wounded by our parents and/or by our siblings. Life happens. We get angry. We get jealous. We might even do some pretty stupid things to get even. And our reaction makes sense from the developmental level we are on.

Being self absorbed as a young child is cute. Getting nuts over what’s right or wrong at fourteen is admirable. Discovering perspective at twenty is also part of the journey.

As adults our opportunity is to not only transcend each level’s perspective, but to embrace them as necessary stages of growth that we all pass through.

Being created on the last day, we embody all that came before. We are the entire environment that evolved before us. We are the stages of growth we have grown through. And to truly understand this is to have compassion for all the stages of life and all the levels of development that came before.

Will you guys grow up already and will someone please pass the potatoes.

Have great Shabbos,

Simcha