A sacred story,

borrowed from the Book of Genesis

(ch. 32–50)

In the midst of their misfortunes, the thought of thanksgiving to God miraculously comes to the righteous [23]. It tears their hearts out of sorrow and darkness, lifts them up to God, to the region of light and consolation. God always saves those who come to Him with simplicity and faith.

The holy Patriarch Jacob was returning from Mesopotamia to the land of Canaan, to the land of his birth, to his inheritance predestined by God [24]. Suddenly the news came to him that the angry Esau, his brother, was coming to meet him, that he had four hundred armed men with him. Even in the years of his youth, Esau, agitated by envy, made an attempt on Jacob's life. In order to avoid a premature, violent death, Jacob withdrew to Mesopotamia. He stayed there for twenty years. Time could have healed the heart of Esau, wounded by malice... no, he goes to meet his brother with an armed retinue. The large crowd and its belligerent appearance betrayed malicious intent. Time did not heal the hatred in Esau: he grew to manhood, and so did his hatred for his brother.

Jacob was afraid: he did not know what to do; he decided to divide his estate, which consisted of household members and numerous herds, into two regiments. "If the enraged Esau," he reasoned, "cuts down one regiment, perhaps his anger will be exhausted, and he will not touch another regiment." Behind the two regiments stood the wives and children of James; behind them all stood his second wife, Rachel, with her only son Joseph, the youngest of the sons of Jacob. They took the last place, as the youngest, but this place was also given to them by the peculiar prudent love of their husband and father, as the safest. The eye of love is quick-witted; the eye of jealousy is also quick-witted. Having made such an order, the righteous man hastens to the usual abode of the righteous, hastens to stand before God in reverent prayer. "I am oppressed," he confesses to God, "from all righteousness and from all truth, which Thou hast created for Thy servant: for with this rod this Jordan has crossed, and now it is in two regiments" [25]. Surrounded everywhere by misfortune, the righteous man pours out his heart before God, reconciles his calculations with fate, finds himself completely satisfied, finds that God, who commanded him to travel to Mesopotamia and return from it, has done everything according to His promise. "It weighs upon me from all righteousness, from all truth, which Thou hast created for Thy servant." Deep, true humility! It alone is worthy to stand before God, it alone is worthy to converse with God: it is never abandoned by God. God listens to him mercifully, pouring out abundant bounties on the one who prays with humility. By a wave of God, Esau's heart changed: hitherto it had burned with enmity, now it suddenly burned with love for his brother. Esau throws down his sword, runs into his brother's arms, and the two brothers weep in each other's arms [26].

Here is Jacob long in the land of Canaan. His beloved wife, Rachel, had already died by giving birth to his second son, Benjamin. Jacob had already experienced many sorrows from his violent sons, who behaved in the promised land as in a land acquired by conquest [27]. In the vicinity of his tabernacle, which was pitched near Hebron, they tended their numerous flocks, sometimes going quite far away to other, more fat pastures. Jacob was constantly at home, where both his years and spiritual progress kept him. It attracted the mind and heart of the elder to God, and therefore he fell in love with solitude in a tabernacle. There is no time and it is unnatural for such a person to go into worldly cares. Always with him was his favorite son, beautiful in soul and body, Joseph. Service to the elder-father and attention to the deep, holy teaching of the God-seeing father constituted the entire occupation, all the pleasure of the youth. The word of piety fell into his soul, as seed falls on fat ground, and soon it bore fruit: holy purity shone in the soul of Joseph. In the purity of the heart God begins to be reflected, as the sun is reflected in the mirror of still, clear waters. Joseph's virtue aroused in his brothers not emulation, but envy: this, unfortunately, happens most often in human society. The brothers invented and raised a malicious slander against Joseph - what exactly, the Scriptures are silent. But the shrewd and gracious Jacob was not deceived by the cunningly woven invention, he continued to love – to love Joseph, and as a sign of special love he gave his son a motley garment. The brightness and variety of colors were especially respected and are still respected in the nomadic East. Was not this garment a symbol of the life that lay ahead of the young man, speckled with opposite circumstances? Inspiration inspired the clairvoyant elder to depict the prophecy not with a word, but with a symbol: with motley clothing. This is where Joseph's strange adventures begin. He serves as an education, a distant Biblical shadow of our Lord Jesus Christ, and for an active life he is an example of a pious and virtuous person, subjected to various, strange disasters, during which he remains faithful to piety and virtue, is never and nowhere abandoned by God, is everywhere preserved, and, finally, is glorified wonderfully. Let us listen, let us listen to the curious tale of the wondrous and instructive adventures of the prophet-father clothed in motley garments.

Joseph's brothers,28 when they saw that their father loved him more than all the other sons, hated him: at every word they spoke to him, at every glance at him, a gloomy confusion boiled up in them. And he did not understand the illness that had seized them: his pure soul saw everyone pure and well-intentioned. With trust, he opened his heart to them. This gentle heart has already been chosen by God as a vessel of mysterious revelations. The grace of the Holy Spirit, in accordance with the youthful years of Joseph, began to manifest its presence and action in significant dreams. Strange dreams were vividly drawn by a mysterious hand in the virgin imagination. Joseph was seventeen years old when he had his first prophesied dream. With a frankness that does not suspect any evil, he recounts it to his brothers: apparently, the dream left an extraordinary impression in the soul of the young man, which needed to be explained. He {p. 17} wanted to evoke, to hear this explanation from the lips of his elder brothers. "I dreamed," he said to them, "that we were all knitting sheaves in the field; my sheaf suddenly rose up and stood upright, and your sheaves turned to my sheaf and bowed down to it." The brothers answered: "Will you really reign over us, or will you become our master?" Joseph has a new dream. With childlike innocence, as if to justify the first dream and to prove that significant dreams come to him involuntarily, independently of him, he tells the dream to his father and brothers: "I saw," he says, "that the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars worshipped me." The father, hearing his son's story, stopped the young man. "What is the dream that you saw? he told him. The experienced and spiritual father stopped his son, not because he recognized his dream as a vain dream, his own product of a soul suffering from arrogance, but in order to protect the young soul from falling into arrogance and, at the same time, by a stern reprimand, to extinguish in some way the envy and hatred in the brothers.

Thus, Christian ascetic teachers command not to pay special attention to all phenomena in general that appear to the spiritual and bodily senses: they command to observe prudent coldness and salutary caution in all manifestations in general [29]. There are dreams from God, of which Joseph's dreams serve as an example and proof, but the state of the dreamer and vision is dangerous, very close to self-deception. The sight of our shortcomings is a safe vision! The sight of our fall and redemption is the most necessary vision! The spirit is contrite and humble [30] — this is a state that is essentially beneficial, devoid of self-deception, a state that God favors! Reasoning, capable of comprehending, appreciating, and explaining visions, is characteristic of only those who succeed in spiritual struggle: it is acquired over a long period of time, it is a gift of God. St. James had this gift of God: he stopped his son, who was telling a prophesied dream, and he himself, according to the Scriptures, kept in mind his words, which bore the anointing of the Spirit.

{p. 18}

This was not the effect of the new dream on Joseph's brothers: it only increased their hatred and envy of him. One day they drove the flocks to Shechem. Jacob said to Joseph, "Your brothers are in Shechem, I want to send you to them." Joseph answered: "I am ready." "Go," continued Jacob, "see if your brethren are well, and if our sheep are well. Then come back and tell me."

Sometimes people part easily: when parting, they seem not to part, saying goodbye, they almost never say goodbye. And such a farewell is often a farewell forever; it is often followed by a long, sorrowful separation. The elder did not know, letting Joseph go, that he would not see his beloved son for a long, long time! Could he have thought that by sending Joseph to his brothers, he was sending him to murderers? He knew their hatred for the young man; but could it have occurred to him that this hatred would grow into a plan, into a conspiracy, into a determination to commit fratricide? The elder's innocence was experienced kindness — not the childish kindness that Joseph was filled with, walking straight to the knife like a lamb. The wise Jacob, with all his spiritual success, with all the experience accumulated over many years of suffering, could not imagine that his violent sons were capable of the terrible crime of fratricide. It is characteristic of the holy not to think evil of one's neighbors; it tends to consider the most open, open villains less evil than they really are. And we see many holy people who have not been deceived by obvious sin, who have been deceived by much love and their trust in their neighbors. Old man! for a long time you will part with your beloved son Joseph! Thou hast the gift of prophecy and clairvoyance; but for this time God, Who incomprehensibly arranges the fate of man, has closed the future from you with an impenetrable veil. Thou hast sent Joseph away for a few days, and thou shalt see him after many years of sorrow. And he will see the land of Canaan, the place where your tabernacle is spread, when the days of your burial come, and only for the short days of this burial! His bones will be brought here; here his numerous descendants will return with them, and with an armed hand will come into possession of the inheritance of their forefather, now the youth Joseph.

Joseph went from his father's house from Hebron, and came to Shechem. His brothers were no longer there. He did not know where to find them and began to look for them and ask questions. Suddenly, a stranger met him and asked him whom he was looking for. Joseph answered him: "I am looking for my brethren; tell me, do you not know where they are with their flocks?" The stranger answered: "They have departed from here; I heard them say among themselves, 'Let us go to Dothaim.'" According to this man, whom fate seemed to have deliberately brought to meet Joseph in order to direct him to his predestination, the young man begins again to look for his brothers, the victim of his priests, and finds them in Dothaim. From a distance they recognized him and began to conspire to kill him. In the assembly of the brothers, terrible words were heard about the brother: "Here comes a dreamer. Let us kill him and say: he was eaten by a predatory beast. Let's see what will happen to his dreams then!" But Reuben, the eldest son of Jacob, took him away from them. "Let us not kill him," he said to them, "with our own hands! Lower him into one of the ditches here; Do not lay your hands on him!" and the softened Reuben thought to return his beloved son to the elder-father. They stripped Joseph of his motley clothes and threw him into a deep, dry well, alive in a terrible grave. In the pit of Joseph, in the jaws of death.. Holy youth, your spiritual experience begins with a difficult experience! Wondrous firmness of your soul, which has endured such fierce sorrow! Firmness in adversity is given by an immaculate, irreproachable conscience. Teach us to acquire both your purity and firmness, which are powerful supports for the heart in the vicissitudes of life.

Joseph in the ditch. What do the brothers do? they sat down to eat... Ripe hatred.. When some passion matures in the soul, the soul no longer feels its mortal illness. It is more terrible to be with the heart in this depth of malice than with the body, with the angelic soul in a deep pit. The sons of Jacob committed an evil deed, as if they had fulfilled their duty: so much was their hatred for their brother. And gray eat bread [31], says the Scriptures.