Jacob had twelve sons, and his favorite was Joseph, to whom he gave that “technicolor dreamcoat.” (R. Danya Ruttenberg argues that it might have actually been more like a stripey princess dress.) Joseph recounts dreams of his family bowing down to him, which might be why his brothers can’t stand him. They consider killing him. They sell him into slavery.

In Egypt, he’s purchased by Potiphar. That’s when Torah first tells us that God is with him. (Gen. 39:2) Potiphar’s wife tries to seduce him, and then falsely accuses him of seducing her. He’s thrown in prison, where again, Torah tells us that God is with him. (Gen. 39:21) 

Abarbanel (15th c.) understands “God was with him” to mean that God was always in his mind. I noticed this year that Torah only begins to say God is with him once he’s in tough circumstances. Was God “not there” before, or was he just not aware of God until then? Did something change within him that enabled him to live with awareness of the holy? 

This week a friend pointed me to a sermon given by Doug Muder at a Unitarian Universalist church. He starts off with a metaphor I heard a lot last month: waiting to find out the election results felt like waiting for the results of a biopsy. And then he tells the story of his wife’s literal cancer journey, offering wisdom about living with uncertainty… which is something we all do. 

Facing a miserable situation like chemotherapy, there’s a temptation to say: okay, I’m going to put my head down and bull my way through this, and once I make it to the other side of this obstacle there will be happier days to come. But there’s no guarantee, and cancer makes that very clear. It’s possible that this is what the rest of life will be. What do we do with that? 

Doug writes: [W]e developed a practice that we eventually started calling “How is this day not going to suck?” Looking at the particular opportunities and limitations of each individual day, what could we do to appreciate being alive? 

Sometimes they could go for a walk. Sometimes his wife was weak from the chemo but they could go for a drive. Sometimes he could read to her in bed. They found what they could appreciate about being alive. 

Maybe because I read Doug’s sermon alongside the parsha, I thought of Joseph. He literally descends, over and over again: into a pit, into slavery, into prison. By any reasonable metric, things just keep getting worse. But as things decline, Torah tells us that God is with him. Another way to say that might be: he found access to hope. He found meaning. He found gratitude. 

I know that many of us are feeling anxiety and fear. Fear of stronger storms and more wildfires amid the rejection of climate science. Fear of the resurgence of diseases like polio and measles amid the rejection of vaccines. Fear of school shootings, like the one this week. Fear of bans on the healthcare that we and our loved ones need. Fear of discrimination and loss of civil rights. 

And I know that in many of our lives there are also personal challenges and difficulties. A diagnosis, or injustice in the workplace, or a sick family member. Sometimes these are invisible to everyone around us, which makes them feel even more difficult – “I’m going through this and no one even knows!” Like Joseph, we might feel that our circumstances are getting worse. 

So what can we learn from Joseph in this week’s parsha? It looks to me like what got Joseph through these downturns was the fact that, as Torah says, God* – asterisk: whatever that word means to each of us: God far above or God deep within, a relational God or a transcendent God, or maybe not “God” at all but rather Love or Justice or Meaning – God* was with him. 

And God* is with us, if we allow that to be true. If we notice. If we cultivate awareness of the holy. The Kotzker rebbe asked, “Where is God? Wherever we let God in.” When we choose hope, seek meaning, and cultivate gratitude, that’s one way to understand God being “with us.” We experience the world differently when we make a practice of those things.

A community member pointed out to me this week that African Americans are not new to thriving despite injustice, and can be our teachers. In the words of Rev. Gerald Durley, a contemporary of Martin Luther King: “I talk to people who are depressed… and I remind them, this is not our first [struggle].” We shall overcome someday is a fierce expression of hope. 

Hope is a discipline, and we can always engage in it, even if life has dealt us the worst hand of cards. Meaning is something we make, and in the words of Maria Popova, we “make meaning most readily, most urgently, in times of confusion and despair.” Gratitude is a practice, and every day gives us opportunities to get better at it. (“Yippee, another effing growth opportunity.”)

All of these come with the risk of spiritual bypassing, using spirituality to pretend away brokenness. Suleika Jaouad writes beautifully about this: both about seeking small joys during cancer treatment, and about the spiritual danger of toxic positivity. But lately it seems to me that many of us are erring on the side of feeling the brokenness too much, rather than too little. 

I invite us to be like Joseph. Even in tight circumstances, we can experience God’s presence with us. We can seek hope, and meaning, and gratitude. We can ask, “How is today not going to suck?” We can help each other ask, “How is today not going to suck?” – because sometimes when we can’t find hope for ourselves, we can find it for someone else. 

This is the balancing act: being present to what is, even when “what is” is difficult – and cultivating an appreciation of how lucky we are to be alive. And, like Joseph interpreting dreams for his fellow prisoners, we can attune ourselves to how we can be there for each other. Often helping someone else turns out to be the best way to lift ourselves up, too. 

May we take strength in that work in all the days to come… starting now, with the winter solstice and the return of the sun’s light.

This is the d’varling Rabbi Rachel offered at Kabbalat Shabbat services (cross-posted to Velveteen Rabbi.)