Vayeshev
The Sfat Emet on Parashat Vayeshev, read on Shabbat Vayeshev · Chanukah — with one of this week's three questions for the two of you.
Vayeshev tells the start of the Yosef story. He is sold by his brothers, thrown into a pit, dragged down to Egypt. From the inside, the pit looked like only the pit. Sfat Emet, attentive to the long arc, hears the parsha differently. Every descent in our lives is, secretly, a kind of transportation device — the ground gives way precisely so we can be moved to where we are needed next. Yosef in the pit could not have known he was on the way to becoming the viceroy who would save his family from famine. The descent had a destination. So with our own descents. So with the descents of the people we love.
Looking back: was there a 'pit' in your own life that turned out to be the road to somewhere you needed to go? What helped you survive the inside of it?
The full week — the passage itself with its source, the other two questions, and the closing verse of hope — lives in the app. Together Tomorrow on the App Store.