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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.
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Colombian President Gustavo Petro sparks outcry over tweet reading ‘Heil Hitler’
(JTA) — Colombia’s outgoing president, Gustavo Petro, sparked fierce condemnation from Israeli and Latin American leaders after he tweeted the phrase “Heil Hitler” Sunday in response to an op-ed endorsing a candidate in the country’s upcoming presidential election.
Petro, a left-wing president in the final weeks of his term ahead of the country’s June 21 runoff election, posted the Nazi phrase in response to an op-ed supporting right-wing presidential candidate Abelardo de la Espriella.
Petro subsequently defended his use of the Nazi slogan, arguing that he was critiquing the language used by the op-ed’s author, which he said included “fascist phrases.”
His defense came after criticism from Israeli leaders and others who said the “Heil Hitler” comment was inappropriate.
Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, called on the Colombian leader to “come to your senses and apologize” before Wednesday, when he is slated to preside over a debate at the United Nations Security Council.
“President of Colombia, @petrogustavo, whatever is going on in your personal life, there are lines that must never be crossed,” Danon wrote in a post on X. “Using Nazi slogans is a disgraceful low from which there is no coming back.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry also decried the post, writing on X that it was a “total loss of moral compass and an indelible stain on Colombia’s legacy.”
The episode comes amid shifting norms about the use of Holocaust analogies and language in political discourse. After being considered out of bounds for a long time, people on both the right and the left have increasingly shed those norms amid growing political polarization and extremism around the world.
The “Heil Hitler” post was not the first time Petro has landed in hot water for invoking the Holocaust. In the wake of Oct. 7, Petro drew backlash from Jewish and Israeli leaders for likening the actions of Israel to Nazi Germany. On social media, he has repeatedly called political rivals Nazis, including last month when he wrote in a post on X that Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, had behaved like a “true Nazi” after he posted videos taunting detained activists from a Gaza-bound aid flotilla.
In 2024, Petro also severed diplomatic ties with Israel, accusing the country of commiting genocide in Gaza, an accusation Israel has denied. Espriella, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, has vowed to renew diplomatic ties with Israel.
On Monday, 24 Latin American lawmakers signed onto a statement condemning Petro’s rhetoric, warning that his repeated use of references to Naziism risked distorting Holocaust memory.
“The use of references to Nazism must not become a rhetorical tool to discredit political or ideological positions. Democratic leaders have a responsibility to promote a respectful public debate that is conscious of the weight of words,” the statement read.
The statement was initiated by the Coalition of Latin American Legislators Against Antisemitism, which is led by the Combat Antisemitism Movement. The signatories included lawmakers from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay.
Shay Salamon, CAM’s executive director of Latin American affairs, said in a statement that Petro’s invocation of the phrase reflected a “troubling record of antisemitic expressions and conduct” by the Colombian leader.
“When a leader uses the authority of his office to stigmatize the Jewish people or trivialize their historic suffering, silence is no longer an option,” Salamon said.
The post Colombian President Gustavo Petro sparks outcry over tweet reading ‘Heil Hitler’ appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel looms large as Maine heads to the polls in Graham Platner’s Senate primary
(JTA) — As Graham Platner wrapped up his campaign for the Maine Democratic Senate nomination Tuesday, he ended it the way he began: by taking aim at AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby and political funder.
The Democrat’s first online ad, released in August, boasted that, unlike his competitors, he would never get AIPAC’s endorsement because he believed Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. Last week, he suggested that AIPAC funding meant his Republican opponent was “bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu,” drawing allegations of antisemitism from a range of Jewish groups.
Along the way, Platner has courted multiple rounds of controversy over Israel and Jews. And in the race’s final days, new reports about Platner’s past behavior toward women have fueled anti-Israel rhetoric among some of his supporters — and further splintered Democratic support for the oyster farmer and political neophyte whose spirited run for office has alarmed many Jewish leaders.
Now, Mainers are heading to the polls with Israel and antisemitism allegations looming large.
Platner, 41, ran as a populist promising to inject progressive energy into a Senate race where both the incumbent Republican and the establishment Democratic pick, Gov. Janet Mills, are in their 70s. (Mills suspended her primary campaign as Platner soared in polls, but she remains on Tuesday’s ballot.) In an election cycle when anti-Israel rhetoric is surging on the left, Platner — who has Jewish extended family, including a stepbrother who lives in Israel and works on Israel policy issues for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies — embraced the stance by making genocide accusations a key part of his stump speech.
That has earned him support in some corners. In a viral video from a rally over the weekend, a Platner supporter dismissed concerns about his tattoo of the Totenkopf symbol, a skull-and-crossbones image worn by Nazi concentration camp guards, which Platner tattooed over earlier this year amid criticism even as he insisted that he hadn’t known it was a Nazi symbol.
Then the supporter asserted that if Platner had a different tattoo, it would have been a dealbreaker for her: an Israeli flag.
“I don’t support genocide, and he doesn’t either, and that would show that he’s being inconsistent,” the woman told the New York Sun.
The exchange exacted disbelief from some. “Are you kidding me? A tattoo of the Israeli flag is worse than a Nazi symbol?” tweeted Democratic Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who is Jewish. “This should not be welcome in the Democratic Party!”
Pro-Israel donors have responded accordingly, shoring up the war chest of Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
“Susan Collins’s latest financial report just came out. A staggering one-third of her money raised this quarter came directly from AIPAC,” Platner tweeted on June 1. “Senator Collins is bought and paid for by Benjamin Netanyahu, and she votes accordingly.”
Collins has described herself as broadly “pro-Israel” but also recently provided a crucial vote for a measure to end the joint U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. OpenSecrets, the nonpartisan campaign finance information website, confirmed to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that its analysis of public Federal Election Commission data showed that a third of donations to Collins in the previous quarter were gifts from individuals who used the pro-Israel lobby as an intermediary. Collins also received a small donation directly from the group’s super PAC.
Still, Platner’s tweet ignited sharp criticism for suggesting that AIPAC represented Israeli influence, rather than donations by American supporters of Israel.
The Anti-Defamation League said the remark “invokes classic antisemitic rhetoric” and added, “Such accusations call up the age-old dual loyalty trope that casts Jewish Americans as more loyal to Israel than their own country.”
The Nexus Project, an antisemitism watchdog that is more forgiving of some forms of criticism of Israel than the ADL, also criticized the tweet.
“The insinuation that the government of Israel is ‘buying’ or directly controlling any politician who receives AIPAC funding or any American political donor that donates through a pro-Israel conduit is reductive and wrong,” Jonathan Jacoby, Nexus’ president, told JTA in a statement.
Undeterred, Platner on Saturday again invoked AIPAC while going after a member of his own party: Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, a staunch Israel supporter. Fetterman had recently criticized Platner in harsh language, telling CNN, “When I was growing up, if someone had a clear Nazi tattoo on them, you probably could conclude that they’re a Nazi sympathizer.”
Fetterman, Platner said in response, had “become a stooge for AIPAC and the Republican party.”
Reached for comment on the phrasing of his AIPAC remarks, a Platner campaign spokesperson said, “Whether it’s private equity, billionaires, corporations, super PACs, etc., Graham is committed to getting money out of politics.”
Amid the mounting scandals, Platner met with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer last week to shore up support for his candidacy among Democratic leaders. Speaking with reporters afterward, Schumer — who is Jewish, considers himself a leader on fighting antisemitism and had said he would support Platner’s campaign after Mills dropped out — repeatedly dodged questions about his confidence in Platner.
Some anti-Israel voices claim that the criticism reflects a conspiracy by Israel to prevent Platner from taking office.
“If you want a handy list of people who work for Israel, look at everyone criticizing Graham Platner now, especially Democrats,” the progressive influencer Cenk Uygur tweeted on Friday. “I get why Republicans want to tear him down. But Democrats attacking their own candidate only happens when they are ordered to do so by their handlers.”
His supporters, meanwhile, went on the offensive after a report in The New York Times cited multiple ex-girlfriends who said he had engaged in abusive and bullying behavior during their relationships.
The story featured as its most prominent voice Lyndsey Fifield, a Republican operative and former staffer at the conservative Heritage Foundation. In the article, Fifield claimed that Platner had known about his Totenkopf tattoo when he was dating her despite the candidate’s public insistence that he hadn’t recognized its Nazi origins. Platner had called his tattoo “my Totenkopf” while with her, Fifield told the Times, sharing a text in which she referred to the tattoo as a Nazi symbol before Platner said he was aware of what the tattoo represented.
Platner “has a Nazi tattoo on his chest,” Fifield texted her friends last summer, according to the Times. “It’s a Totenkopf … I will personally go campaign for Collins.”
Speaking to Maine’s public radio after the Times story ran, Platner denied Fifield’s claim. In another interview with MS NOW, Platner struggled to sort out the timeline of Fifield’s text to her friends about his tattoo, which occurred before he said he knew about the tattoo’s origins. Reached for comment, a Platner campaign spokesperson pointed to a previous interview the candidate held with JTA, in which he noted his “direct family connection to Judaism” and positive associations with Jewish religious tradition. Platner has also cast doubt on Fifield’s account, alleging that she is the sole source for reports about his knowledge of his own tattoo.
Reached for comment, Fifield told JTA by email, “I’ve been a vocal Zionist since college. I’ve been a proud conservative since then as well. Both of those things were true when I dated Graham.” Fifield is also close with the Jewish conservative commentator Bethany Mandel, with whom she formerly co-hosted a podcast.
To JTA, Fifield added, “If not being an antisemite is enough to fuel a mob of conspiracy theorists, it says something very dark about our culture.”
Some of Platner’s defenders have suggested the Times article was fueled by pro-Israel adversaries. Online, pro-Palestinian commentator Mehdi Hasan called Fifield “an anti-Palestinian racist and bigot,” sharing a tweet of hers in which she mocked the concept of “a Palestinian museum” and wrote, “What are their accomplishments, inventions, or other notable figures apart from terrorists and bombs made from the water pipes Israel gave them to pipe in free water for their people?”
Others have pointed out that the reporter who wrote the article, Katie Glueck, was co-president of Students for Israel at Northwestern University when the chapter won an “Activist of the Year” award from pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC in 2009.
“The most shocking part of this story is that the NYT had a former AIPAC Activist of the Year (Katie Glueck) write a piece devoted to detailing unsubstantiated claims from a professional Republican activist (Lyndsey Fifield) on how a left Democratic Senate candidate who has promised to take on Israel (Platner) was a lousy boyfriend and sold it as a legit journalistic scoop,” tweeted Marcus Stanley, the director of studies at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, an anti-interventionist think tank.
In a statement to JTA, a New York Times spokesperson defended Glueck’s participation in the article.
“Katie Glueck has covered politics for over a decade and is one of the best journalists in media at producing incisive coverage of candidates and campaigns,” the Times’ Charlie Stadtlander wrote in an email. “She approached this article about Graham Platner’s past personal conduct with the same independence she brings to all of her reporting.”
Stadtlander added that the Times stands behind its reporting “of the accounts from Ms. Fifield and the other women, who provided a revealing look at the behavior of a major candidate for the U.S. Senate.”
The drumbeat of criticism has tempered excitement among some Democrats about Platner and his potential to flip a Senate seat. Even California Rep. Ro Khanna, a leading critic of Israel in Congress, offered indirect criticism of Platner and his defenders on CBS News’ “Face the Nation” over the weekend, where he said Platner’s supporters shouldn’t go after his accusers and “should not attack the New York Times reporters who wrote this story.”
“I know those reporters. They’ve written things critical of me. That’s what journalists do,” Khanna said. “Our party doesn’t attack the press. Our party believes that you treat women with equality and respect in all aspects of their lives.”
Still, he continued to signal support for Platner, saying that “he’s taken accountability for that period of his life.” Khanna also spoke at a rally for Platner in Maine over the weekend.
While Platner does not have many prominent Jewish supporters in Maine, and has seen the Jewish Democratic Council of America pointedly withhold its own support of his bid, one of his most visible Jewish allies in the state says he will stand by him.
“I’m still very much in Camp Platner,” Steven Koltai, the chair of J Street Maine who helped organize a Passover seder with the Platner campaign, told JTA following the latest revelations.
Koltai suggested that Platner’s past behavior paled in comparison to the president’s: “Thanks to President Trump, the bar for public office in America has been set at a level that even a subterranean earth worm could overcome.”
Asked about Platner’s comments regarding Collins and AIPAC specifically, he signaled a degree of difference with his candidature: “Of all Senator Collins’s votes, her votes on aid to Israel are very low on my list of complaints about her voting record.”
Platner is expected to sail through the primary. Most recent polls suggest that he and Collins are running neck and neck heading into November.
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The Yiddishist Yeshiva is open for registration
ס׳האָט זיך לעצטנס געשאַפֿן אַ נײַער סאָרט לייענקרײַז דורך פֿייסבוק, וווּ מע לערנט תּורה אויף ייִדיש צוזאַמען.
אינעם לייענקרײַז, וואָס הייסט „די ייִדישיסטישע ישיבֿה“, לייענט מען חומש מיט רש״י — סײַ אויפֿן אָריגינעלן לשון־קודש סײַ אויף ייִדיש־טײַטש. „די גרופּע איז אָפֿן פֿאַר אַלע מינים מענטשן,“ האָט דערקלערט דער לינגוויסט און ייִדיש־אַקטיוויסט לייזער בורקאָ, וועלכער האָט אָרגאַניזירט די גרופּע. „פֿרויען און מענער, ייִדן און נישט־ייִדן, געי און ׳גלײַך׳. נײַע תּלמידים דאַרפֿן פֿאַרשטיין ייִדיש גוט, אָבער זיי דאַרפֿן נישט האָבן קיין תּורהדיקן הינטערגרונט.“
די גרופּע טרעפֿט זיך יעדן דינסטיק דורך פֿייסבוק. נאָך מער פּרטים אָדער כּדי זיך צו פֿאַרשרײַבן, שטעלט זיך אין קאָנטאַקט מיט בורקאָ, אויפֿן אַדרעס leyzertag@gmail.com אָדער דורך פֿייסבוק.
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