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From ‘how to’ to ‘why bother?’: Michael Strassfeld writes a new guide to being Jewish
(JTA) — “What the son wishes to forget the grandson wishes to remember.” That’s known as Hansen’s Law, named for the historian Marcus Lee Hansen, who observed that while the children of immigrants tend to run away from their ethnicity in order to join the mainstream, the third generation often wants to learn the “old ways” of their grandparents.
In 1973, “The Jewish Catalog” turned Hansen’s Law into a “do-it-yourself kit” for young Jews who wanted to practice the traditions of their grandparents but weren’t exactly sure how. Imagine “The Joy of Cooking,” but instead of recipes the guide to Jewish living had friendly instructions for hosting Shabbat, building a sukkah and taking part in Jewish rituals from birth to death. Co-edited by Michael Strassfeld, Sharon Strassfeld and the late Richard Siegel, it went on to sell 300,000 copies and remains in print today.
Fifty years later, Rabbi Michael Strassfeld has written a new book that he calls a “bookend” to “The Jewish Catalog.” If the first book is a Jewish “how to,” the latest asks, he says, “why bother?” “Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century” asserts that an open society and egalitarian ethics leave most Jews skeptical of the rituals and beliefs of Jewish tradition. In the face of this resistance, he argues that the purpose of Judaism is not obedience to Torah and its rituals for their own sake or mere “continuity,” but to “encourage and remind us to strive to live a life of compassion, loving relationships, and devotion to our ideals.”
Strassfeld, 73, grew up in an Orthodox home in Boston and got his master’s degree in Jewish studies at Brandeis University. Coming to doubt the “faith claims” of Orthodoxy, he became a regular at nearby Havurat Shalom, an “intentional community” that pioneered the havurah movement’s liberal, hands-on approach to traditional practice. He earned rabbinical ordination from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College when he was 41 and went on to serve as the rabbi of Congregation Ansche Chesed on the Upper West Side and later the Society for the Advancement of Judaism, the Manhattan flagship of Reconstructionist Judaism.
“To be disrupted is to experience a break with the past and simultaneously reconnect in a new way to that past,” writes Strassfeld, who retired from the pulpit in 2015. This week, we spoke about why people might find Jewish ritual empty, how he thinks Jewish practices can enrich their lives and how Passover — which begins Wednesday night — could be the key to unlocking the central idea of Judaism.
Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.
Jewish Telegraphic Agency: I wanted to start with the 50th anniversary of the “Jewish Catalog.” What connects the new book with the work you did back then on the “Catalog,” which was a do-it-yourself guide for Jews who were trying to reclaim the stuff they either did or didn’t learn in Hebrew school?
Michael Strassfeld: I see them as bookends. Basically, I keep on writing the same book over and over again. [Laughs] Except no, I’m different and the world is different. I’m always trying to make Judaism accessible to people. In the “Catalog” I was providing the resources on how to live a Jewish life when the resources weren’t easily accessible.
The new book is less about “how to” than “why bother?” That’s the challenge. I think a lot of people take pride in being Jewish, but it’s a small part of their identity because it doesn’t feel relevant. I want to say to people like that that Judaism is about living a life with meaning and purpose. It’s not about doing what I call the “Jewishly Jewish” things, like keeping kosher and going to synagogue. Judaism is wisdom and practices to live life with meaning and purpose. The purpose of Judaism isn’t to be a good Jew, despite all the surveys that give you 10 points for, you know, lighting Shabbat candles. It’s about being a good person.
So that brings up your relationship to the commandments and mitzvot, the traditional acts and behaviors that an Orthodox Jew or a committed Conservative Jew feels commanded to do, from prayer to keeping kosher to observing the Sabbath and the holidays. They might argue that doing these things is what makes you Jewish, but you’re arguing something different. If someone doesn’t feel bound by these obligations, why do them at all?
I don’t have the faith or beliefs that underlie such an attitude [of obligation]. Halacha, or Jewish law, is not in reality law. It’s really unlike American law where you know that if you’re violating it, you could be prosecuted. What I’m trying to do in the book is reframe rituals as an awareness practice, that is, bringing awareness to various aspects of our lives. So it could be paying attention to food, or cultivating attitudes of gratitude, or generosity, or satisfaction. My broad understanding of the festival cycle, for example, is that you can focus on those attitudes all year long, but the festivals provide a period of time once in the year to really focus on, in the case of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, for example, saying sorry and repairing relationships.
In “Judaism Disrupted: A Spiritual Manifesto for the 21st Century,” Michael Strassfeld argues that the challenge of each generation’s Jews is to create the Judaism that is needed in their time. (Ben Yehuda Press)
Passover is coming. Probably no holiday asks its practitioners to do so much stuff in preparation, from cleaning the house of every trace of unleavened food to hosting, in many homes, two different catered seminars on Jewish history. Describe how Passover cultivates awareness, especially of the idea of freedom, which plays an important part thematically in your boo
The Sefat Emet [a 19th-century Hasidic master] says Torah is all about one thing: freedom. But there’s a variety of obstacles in the way. There are temptations. There’s the inner issues that you struggle with, and the bad things that are out of your control. The Sefat Emet says the 613 commandments are 613 etzot, or advice, that teach us how to live a life of freedom. The focus of Passover is trying to free yourself from the chains of the things that hold you back from being the person that you could be, not getting caught up in materiality or envy, free from unnecessary anxieties — all these things that distract us or keep us from being who we could be.
The Passover seder is one of the great rituals of Judaism. We’re trying to do a very ambitious thing by saying, not, like, “let’s remember when our ancestors were freed from Egypt,” but rather that we were slaves in Egypt and we went free. And at the seder we actually ingest that. We experience the bitterness by eating maror, the bitter herb. We experience the freedom by drinking wine. We don’t want it just to be an intellectual exercise.
Unfortunately the seder has become rote. But Passover is about this huge theme of freedom that is central to Judaism.
I think some people bristle against ritual because they find it empty. But you’re saying there’s another way to approach rituals which is to think of them as tools or instruments that can help you focus on core principles — you actually list 11 — which include finding holiness everywhere, caring for the planet and engaging in social justice, to name a few. But that invites the criticism, which I think was also leveled at the “Catalog,” that Judaism shouldn’t be instrumental, because if you treat it as a means to an end that’s self-serving and individualistic.
Certainly rituals are tools, but tools in the best sense of the word. They help us pay attention to things in our lives and things in the world that need repair. And people use them not to get ahead in the world, but because they want to be a somewhat better person. I talk a lot these days about having a brief morning practice, and in the book I write about the mezuzah. For most Jews it’s become wallpaper, but what if you take the moment that you leave in the morning, and there’s a transition from home to the outside and to work perhaps, and take a moment at the doorpost to spiritually frame your day? What are the major principles that you want to keep in your mind when you know you’re gonna be stuck in traffic or a difficult meeting?
And a lot of traditional rituals are instrumental. Saying a blessing before you eat is a gratitude practice.
But why do I need a particular Jewish ritual or practice to help me feel gratitude or order my day? Aren’t there other traditions I can use to accomplish the same things?
Anybody who is a pluralist, which I am, knows that the Jewish way is not the only way. If I grew up in India or Indonesia and my parents were locals I probably wouldn’t be a rabbi and writing these books.
But a partial answer to your question is that Judaism is one of the oldest wisdom traditions in the world, and that there has been a 3,000-year conversation by the Jewish people about what it means to live in this tradition and to live in the world. And so I think there’s a lot of wisdom there.
So much in Jewish tradition says boundaries are good, and that it’s important to draw distinctions between what’s Jewish behavior and what’s not Jewish behavior, between the holy and the mundane, and that making those distinctions is a value in itself. But you argue strongly in an early chapter that that kind of binary thinking is not Judaism as you see it.
Underlying the book is the notion that Rabbinic Judaism carried the Jewish people for 2,000 years or so. But we’re living in a very different context, and the binaries, the dualities — too often they lead to hierarchy, so that, for example, men matter more than women in Jewish life. And we’ve tried to change that. We are living in an open society where we want to be more inclusive, not less inclusive. We don’t want to live in ghettos. Now, the ultra-Orthodox say, “No, we realize the danger of trying to live like that. We don’t think there’s anything of value in that modern world. And it’s all to be rejected.” And it would be foolish not to admit that in this very open world the Jews, as a minority, could kind of disappear. But I think that Judaism has so much value and wisdom and practices to offer to people that Judaism will continue to be part of the fabric of this world — the way, for example, we have given Shabbat as a concept to the world.
You know, in the first 11 chapters of the Torah, there are no Jews. So clearly, Jews and Judaism are not essential for the world to exist. And that’s a good, humbling message.
OK, but one could argue that while Jews aren’t necessary for the world to exist, Judaism is necessary for Jews to exist. And you write in your book, “If the Jewish people is to be a people, we need to have a commonly held tradition.” I think the pushback to the kind of openness and permeability you describe is that Jews can be so open and so permeable that they just fall through the holes.
It certainly is a possibility. And it’s also a possibility that the only Jews who will be around will be ultra-Orthodox Jews.
But if Judaism can only survive by being separatist, then I question whether it’s really worthwhile. That becomes a distorted vision of Judaism, and withdrawing is not what it’s meant to be. I think we’re meant to be in the world.
Your book is called “Judaism Disrupted.” What is disruptive about the Judaism that you’re proposing?
I meant it in two ways. First, Judaism is being disrupted by this very different world we’re living in. The contents of the ocean we swim in is very different than in the Middle Ages. But I’m also using it to say that Judaism is meant to disrupt our lives in a positive way, which is to say, “Wake up, pay attention.” You are here to live a life of meaning and purpose, and to continue as co-creators with God of the universe. You’re here to make the world better, to be kind and compassionate to people, to work on yourself. In my mind it is a shofar, “Wake up, sleepers, from your sleep!” “Judaism Disrupted” says you have to pay attention to issues like food, and justice, and teshuva [repentance].
You were ordained as a Reconstructionist rabbi. Do you think your book falls neatly into any of our current denominational categories?
[Reconstructionist founder] Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan’s notion of Judaism as an evolving religious civilization is the one that I feel closest to. But I feel that the denominational structure isn’t particularly useful anymore. There’s basically two categories, Orthodox and the various kinds of liberal Judaism, within a spectrum. The modern world is so fundamentally different in its relationship to Jews and Judaism that what we’re seeing is a variety of attempts to figure out how to respond. And that will then become the Judaism for the next millennium. It’s time for a lot of experimentation. I think that’s required and out of that will come a new “Minhag America,” to use Isaac Mayer Wise’s phrase for the emerging custom of American Jews [Wise was a Reform rabbi in the late 19th century]. And we don’t need to have everybody doing it one way. As long as people feel committed to Judaism, the Jewish tradition, even if they’re doing it very differently than the Jews of the past, they will be writing themselves into the conversation.
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UNRWA vs. UNHCR: How the UN Created a Permanent Refugee Class
Palestinians pass by the gate of an UNRWA-run school in Nablus in the West Bank. Photo: Reuters/Abed Omar Qusini.
For more than 70 years, the United Nations has administered two refugee systems operating under the same flag but guided by fundamentally different moral compasses. One system exists to end refugeehood. The other exists to preserve it.
The contrast between the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) is not a technical footnote in international policy. It is one of the central reasons the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains frozen in place.
The events of October 7 brutally exposed what many have warned about for decades: UNRWA is no longer a humanitarian agency in any meaningful sense. It is a political instrument that has helped entrench radicalization, prolong suffering, and ultimately enable war.
UNHCR, established in 1950, was designed with a clear mission: provide temporary protection and pursue durable solutions. Its success is measured by how many refugees stop being refugees.
Over the decades, UNHCR has helped tens of millions of people rebuild their lives; Europeans after World War II, Vietnamese people, Balkan refugees, Rwandans, Syrians, Afghans, and most recently Ukrainians. Resettlement, integration, and naturalization are not failures under UNHCR’s framework; they are the goal.
UNRWA, created a year earlier for a single refugee population, operates on the opposite logic. Its mandate does not aim to resolve refugeehood but to maintain it indefinitely.
Palestinians are the only group in the world whose refugee status is automatically inherited, generation after generation, regardless of citizenship, residence, or living conditions.
The numbers tell the story. Roughly 700,000 Arabs were displaced during the 1948 war launched by Arab states against the newly declared State of Israel. Today, UNRWA claims nearly six million Palestinian refugees. Refugee populations are supposed to shrink as lives stabilize. This one grows exponentially. That is not humanitarian failure, it is institutional design.
This design has consequences. When refugeehood becomes an inherited political identity rather than a temporary legal status, grievance replaces hope. Dependency replaces empowerment. Conflict becomes a resource to be managed rather than a tragedy to be ended.
UNRWA’s budget, influence, and relevance depend on the persistence of the conflict. Peace would render it obsolete. Integration would reduce its scope. Resolution would end its mandate.
Nowhere is this more evident than in education. UNRWA operates hundreds of schools, shaping the worldview of generations of Palestinian children. Education should be a bridge to coexistence.
Instead, repeated investigations and reports have documented curricula that erase Israel from maps, glorify “martyrdom,” deny Jewish historical ties to the land, and frame violence as both justified and inevitable. Antisemitic tropes and conspiracy theories have surfaced again and again. This is not accidental oversight. It is tolerated, minimized, and excused as “context.”
The moral collapse of this system was laid bare after October 7. In the aftermath of Hamas’ massacre of Israeli civilians, evidence emerged that UNRWA employees were directly involved in the attack. Others were found to have celebrated the killings. Weapons were discovered in or near UNRWA facilities. Terror tunnels were uncovered beneath UNRWA schools. Hostages were reportedly hidden or moved through civilian areas linked to UNRWA infrastructure. This was not infiltration from the outside. It was contamination from within.
If UNHCR staff had participated in mass murder or aided a terrorist organization, the agency would have been dismantled immediately. Yet UNRWA survived on explanations, damage control, and the insistence that the problem lay with a few individuals rather than a compromised system. That argument no longer holds.
The tragedy is that Palestinians themselves have paid the highest price for this failure. UNRWA did not prepare Gazans for self-governance or peace. Hamas prepared Palestinians for war, and UNRWA looked away.
October 7 was not an aberration. It was the inevitable result of a system that monetized suffering and normalized extremism for decades.
The solution is not complicated, but it requires moral clarity. Palestinians deserve the same humanitarian standards applied to every other refugee population on earth. That means ending UNRWA’s exceptional status and transferring responsibility to UNHCR. It means redefining refugeehood as a temporary condition, not a hereditary identity. It means de-radicalizing education, dismantling terror infrastructure, and replacing grievance with opportunity.
One world cannot operate two refugee systems and still claim moral credibility. One system resolves crises. The other perpetuates them.
If the international community truly cares about peace, dignity, and human rights, both Israeli and Palestinian, it must finally acknowledge that UNRWA is part of the problem, not the solution.
Sabine Sterk is CEO of the foundation, “Time To Stand Up For Israel.”
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The Houthis Aren’t Done — Are We?
Smoke rises in the sky following US-led airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Feb. 25, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Adel Al Khader
The US Navy spent over $1 billion and suffered an additional $100 million in equipment losses and damages during Operation Rough Rider, countering the Houthi threat in the Red Sea. Yet Iran’s Yemeni proxy remains heavily armed and prepared to resume its attacks.
Over the past two years, the Houthis continued to fire their extensive stockpile of Iranian missiles and drones at Israel and maritime targets despite repeated US and Israeli airstrikes against them. As the Houthi threat to regional security and Red Sea trade persists, the United States can work with Israel to prepare for any potential future operations if the Houthis resume attacks by expediting the sale of necessary military equipment to Israeli forces, and collaborating with Israel to improve intelligence on critical Houthi targets to neutralize.
Protecting global freedom of navigation through international waterways, safeguarding maritime trade, and supporting Israel’s security remain core US interests. Yet, the Iranian-armed and funded Houthi terrorist group has compromised these interests over the past two years by firing hundreds of drones and missiles at both Israel and ships transiting the Red Sea.
The Houthis’ violent assault on US Navy and commercial shipping assets in the region prompted several rounds of US airstrikes, including Operation Rough Rider, which resulted in US forces carrying out over 1,100 strikes against the group’s infrastructure in early 2025. However, since the May 6 agreement between the Houthis and the US — which bans Houthi attacks against American ships but does not prohibit targeting other commercial vessels or Israel — the terrorist group has fired over 150 projectiles at Israel and ships transiting the Red Sea, including several that injured Israeli civilians and sunk two commercial vessels.
While these attacks prompted retaliatory Israeli strikes on the terror group, including one operation that killed several Houthi senior leaders in August, the Iranian proxy remained undeterred and fired nearly 50 projectiles in September alone.
The current pause in Houthi attacks is not the time to rest; instead, the United States and Israel should strengthen their readiness for future operations against the enduring threat that the well-armed Houthis pose to regional stability, security, and maritime trade. With Iran continuing to strengthen its proxy during this pause by funneling it more weapons to replace those it has fired or lost, the United States should work with Israel to prevent this arms proliferation and prepare for any potential offensive operations against the Houthis if they resume their regional assault.
To start, US and Israeli forces should take advantage of the current ceasefire to refine their intelligence gathering and counter-terror strategies, particularly by establishing a comprehensive list of Houthi targets in case of resumed attacks. Before the Houthis began firing at ships and targeting Israel, countering their activities was not a priority for the US or Israeli militaries and intelligence agencies. The limited effectiveness of these airstrikes further exposed this lack of focus. The Houthis’ persistent ability to launch attacks throughout the war, coupled with Iran’s ongoing proliferation of advanced weaponry, underscores critical intelligence gaps that both the United States and Israel must address to anticipate and effectively prepare for future military operations.
For example, Israel’s operations in the fall of 2024 against Hezbollah, and Operation Rising Lion against Iran’s nuclear and military targets, vividly illustrated a military campaign’s effectiveness when leadership prioritizes planning and intelligence preparation during peacetime. Unlike the situations in Gaza or against the Houthis, Israel spent years meticulously preparing for large-scale operations in Lebanon and Iran, and this preparation enabled it to achieve rapid and decisive results. To position US and Israeli forces for similar levels of success, it remains crucial for both to collaborate on acquiring intelligence for targets while the Yemen front remains quiet.
With Israeli aircraft needing to fly thousands of miles to conduct strikes in Yemen — even further than the distance to Iran — the United States would improve Israeli operations in both countries by expediting the delivery of KC-46 aerial refueling aircraft to Israel. These advanced aircraft have better range, refueling capacity, and defensive capabilities than Israel’s current fleet of over 50-year-old Ram tankers, based on Boeing 707s. Israel is currently set to receive the first of four KC-46 aircraft it has purchased by the end of 2026 and requested two more in August, but expediting the sale and delivery of these refuelers would position Israel’s forces to sooner carry out more effective counter-terror operations if the Houthis resume attacks. In addition, the United States should begin training Israeli pilots immediately on how to operate these aircraft, ensuring they are ready to carry out any future missions in Yemen once the new refuelers arrive.
The United States and Israel must remain vigilant, despite the relative calm. With the Houthis still a capable threat to regional stability, now is the time to prepare for any future conflict with Iran’s Yemeni proxy.
VADM Michael J. Connor, USN (ret.) is Former Commander of United States Submarine Forces and a participant in the Jewish Institute for National Security of America’s (JINSA) 2018 Generals and Admirals Program.
Sarah Havdala is a Policy Analyst at JINSA.
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The Story of Joseph: True Strength Is Shown in Restraint, Not Using Power Over Others
A Torah scroll. Photo: RabbiSacks.org.
You may be surprised to hear that the first novel ever written, The Tale of Genji, wasn’t European, or even Western, but Japanese. It was composed more than a thousand years ago by a quirky lady in the imperial court of Japan, Murasaki Shikibu, a woman with an uncanny eye for human weakness and emotional nuance.
I’ve been reading it recently, in preparation for an upcoming visit to Japan, and it is surprisingly modern in its portrayal of the characters. I had been bracing myself for stiffly described royal shenanigans and melodramatic intrigue, but that isn’t what this book is at all.
The Tale of Genji is highly readable, portraying the life of a minor royal, Genji, who, despite being deliberately sidelined in the imperial succession, wields enormous behind-the-scenes influence: socially, politically, and emotionally. His presence opens doors, his favor reshapes lives, and his disapproval can quietly undo people. In time, he rises to become Honorary Retired Emperor (Daijō Tennō), but long before that, his power is almost unrivaled.
Imperial Japan of the early Middle Ages was a world where status determined everything, and a careless word or fleeting encounter could alter a life in the most unexpected ways. More importantly, the most powerful figures were not always the emperor or his heirs, but court notables like Genji, who ran the court’s affairs like chess grandmasters.
One of the most unsettling relationships in the book is Genji’s long and complicated bond with Lady Murasaki, whom he first encounters as a child and later raises within his household. He oversees her education, shapes her tastes, and becomes the unquestioned center of her emotional universe.
Genji is keenly aware that the imbalance in their relationship grants him enormous power over Lady Murasaki’s inner life, and at crucial moments, he restrains himself, hesitating to dictate her future or to press his authority in ways that would leave her entirely without agency.
These pauses really matter. They do not erase the asymmetry of the relationship, nor do they free Lady Murasaki from dependence, but they do limit the harm that his overwhelming dominance might otherwise inflict on the course of her life.
A similar pattern appears later in the novel, when Genji reaches the height of his political influence and effectively controls the machinery of court life. His patronage determines appointments, and his presence subtly distorts the balance of power around him. Increasingly conscious of this, Genji begins to withdraw from the center of political life.
The retreat is gradual and motivated by many factors, but it is both deliberate and voluntary. By stepping back, he reduces the extent to which his personal influence dominates the system. Court rivalries do not disappear, but they lose both their urgency and spite, and the political order becomes less tightly centered on a single figure. Genji comes to understand that power, when held in check, is less corrosive than when it is relentlessly exercised.
The reason Genji is such a compelling figure is that he never feels like a literary device or a moral symbol. Clearly modeled on a court patrician of the era in which the book was written — perhaps a composite of several historical figures whose names are now lost — he emerges as a fully dimensional human being: gifted, cultured, and often admirable, but also inconsistent, self-indulgent, and prone to misjudgment.
What is attractive about Genji is not his moral perfection, but his relatability. He understands, sometimes with painful clarity, that his actions ripple outward, shaping lives long after the moment has passed. He reflects, hesitates, withdraws, and more than occasionally restrains himself — not because he must, but because he senses the weight of what he does.
And what makes reading The Tale of Genji particularly intriguing is how familiar the narrative feels to anyone steeped in the narratives of the Hebrew Bible. Time and again, we encounter the same dynamic: a figure of immense influence operating just below the throne, shaping outcomes while remaining formally subordinate to the king.
Examples from the Hebrew Bible, such as Joseph in Egypt, David navigating the court of Saul, the volatile triangle of Haman, Esther, and Mordechai under Achashverosh, and Daniel in the courts of Nebuchadnezzar, Belshazzar, and Darius, illustrate this theme. In each case, real power is not ultimately exercised by the crowned monarch but by those who understand how proximity to authority can quietly determine the fate of nations and individuals alike.
And particularly as we read the closing portions of Bereishit, the parallels between Genji and Joseph become increasingly striking. Like Genji, Joseph operates at the heart of a royal court, navigating the palace of Pharaoh and controlling the affairs of Egypt while carefully shaping the outcome of his relationship with those most vulnerable to his power — his brothers.
Joseph is not the formal ruler of the realm, but he is the man who effectively runs it. His control over Egypt — and over the fate of everyone in his orbit — is absolute. What distinguishes Joseph is his acute awareness of that power. He does not stumble into influence or discover its consequences by accident. From the outset, he understands that every move he makes will affect the lives of others.
And so, even as he deliberately orchestrates events and manipulates circumstances to bring about the outcome he seeks, he remains strikingly intentional and sensitive about how that power is exercised — determined that his extraordinary authority should never cross the line into abuse.
The Malbim in his commentary on Parshat Vayigash notes that Joseph’s first instinct at the climactic moment he reveals his identity to his brothers is not to announce who he is in the presence of others. He sends everyone out of the room, stripping himself — very deliberately — of the public trappings of power. The revelation is not staged as a triumph or as a vindictive reckoning, but as an intimate act of repair.
By removing the court, Joseph ensures that his brothers are not confronted like criminals in a spectacle of humiliation, but as family members standing before a long-lost brother who has forgiven them. It is a breathtaking act of moral self-restraint: the conscious refusal to allow power to turn vulnerability into disgrace.
In his commentary, Rav Hirsch repeatedly emphasizes that Joseph never confused political authority with moral authority. He may govern Egypt, but he refuses to govern his brothers’ souls through fear or domination.
It is against this backdrop that Genji’s restraint feels so familiar. He, too, seems to sense the danger of unchecked influence, which is why he attempts — imperfectly and often too late — to step back when power threatens to overwhelm the dignity of those whose lives he affects.
The difference, however, is telling: where Genji only gradually discovers the moral cost of dominance, Joseph instinctively anticipates it, acting decisively to ensure that his authority becomes a tool for repair rather than a weapon that harms.
Power always reveals more than it conceals. The question is not whether we will ever find ourselves in positions of influence, but how alert we are to what that influence can do to others. The Tale of Genji shows how easily power can drift into damage, even in the hands of a reflective and sensitive person.
Joseph shows us something rarer and far more demanding: the discipline to anticipate that danger, and to restrain oneself before any harm is done.
In telling the story of Joseph’s behavior toward his brothers, the Torah teaches that the measure of a person is never found in outcomes alone, but in how carefully human dignity — and one’s own integrity — are preserved as we pursue them. Remember: true strength is shown through restraint, not domination.
The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.