Working on our Middot

Tefila

Sat, Dec 25 2004, 9:32 pm

Payback
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Rina fidgeted uncomfortably as she sat together with her friends at the posh birthday party of their classmate Rachel.

Their whole class had been invited to the party but Rina, Michelle and Tova all felt extremely unwelcome. You see, Rachel was a new girl in class who had only recently come to town and when she had first arrived Rina and her friends had begun taunting her. Rachel always wore very smart clothes and had a fancy packed lunch. She stood out from the rest of the class, and they did not treat her nicely.
When she had invited them to the party Rina had refused to go but her parents had said that she should because she was a new girl and it would be rude not to accept the invitation. So now, here they were sitting at her birthday party.

The birthday cake had arrived and Rachel got up to say a little birthday speech.

'This weeks' Torah Portion is Vayechi and in we learn about the greatness of Joseph', she began saying, as she looked around the room.

'When Jacob died, and Joseph and all his brother were living in Egypt, the brothers became very afraid that Joseph would treat them badly for the way they had sold him as a slave twenty odd years earlier - so they all came begging Joseph not to treat them harshly'.

'To this Joseph replied, "Do not fear my brothers, for when you thought you were doing bad to me, actually G-d was doing something good, because if I had not come down to Egypt then I would not have been able to save the land from famine, and then we would have all starved, so you see - even though you thought you were treating me badly, in fact you were doing us all a favor".

Rachel looked at Rina and her friends as she continued, 'This surprised Joseph's brothers, for they thought that he would wait until their father Jacob died and then he would pay them back for all their evil, but in fact he did not do anything of the sort, and he only treated his brother with the greatest of respect.'

'This is a lesson to all of us, that when somebody is mean to us or they treat us badly, we must try to see the good, and always remember that everything is in the hands of G-d'.

Rachel finished talking and cut the cake and gave out a piece to each of her classmates.

Rina was impressed with Rachel's speech and when she handed her the plate with the birthday cake she said to her, 'You know something Rachel, I'm very sorry me and the others were mean towards you, you have taught us a very valuable lesson in life - which we will hopefully never forget. We were acting our of jealousy... and jealousy just isn't cool!'. Rachel smiled, and gave Rina another slice of cake.
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