Parashat Vayeshev: The Bullies Among Us

(delivered by Rabbi J.B. Sacks on December 16, 2022)

Tears can be good or bad. The worst tears of all accompany a child’s death. In this week’s portion, Vayeshev, Jacob experiences such tears when his older sons bring him the blood-soaked “coat of many colors,” which Jacob personally made for Joseph. Assuming Joseph’s death, Jacob declares, “I shall descend in mourning to She’ol,” the netherworld. She’ol comes from the root “to question.”  Jacob cannot make sense of his tragic loss. His grief inconsolable, Jacob shall never stop questioning why and wondering “what if.”

Many years later Jacob learns that Joseph did not die. Reuniting in Egypt, tears of grief become tears of joy. Many parents, however, do not get Jacob’s opportunity, and many youth do not receive the teenage Joseph’s new start in life. On April 22, 2022 an anonymous teen posted: “I started getting bullied for being deaf when I was 10 years old….Then I started having suicidal thoughts, and I still have depression really bad to this day.”

A post from March 7, 2022: “When I was eight years old, I started getting bullied because I am a Colombian and Cuban American. A girl said to me, ‘I don’t like you, cause’ you’re not white.’ I thought it was nothing at first, but then it escalated. She started to call me names, make fun of me, and then she tried to push me down the school stairs. I’m scared.”

In Benton, Louisiana, five bullies worked in concert with each other to bully ninth-grader Levi Creech at Benton High School in person, by text, and by phone. Levi’s parents met with school counselors at least three times due to the bullying. On August 27, Levi had enough: he committed suicide.

Isabella “Izzy” Tichenor, the only Black student in her class at Foxboro Elementary School in North Salt Lake City and on the spectrum for autism, was bullied by students who said she smelled, who made fun of her skin color, eyebrows and used racist slurs against her. For months, Izzy’s parents alerted the school to this bullying. Foxboro Elementary School is part of the Davis School District that was reprimanded just last year by the U.S. Department of Justice for failing to address widespread racial discrimination and was ordered, as part of a settlement agreement, to change its policies, offer more training and establish a new department to handle complaints. That apparently did not happen. Izzy, like Levi, committed suicide.

A Kaiser Foundation study found that 86 percent of children ages 12 to 15 receive unbearable teasing or bullying at school, making bullying more prevalent in our schools than smoking, alcohol, drugs, or sex.

The cases I just cited are about in-person bullying, but cyberbullying is a real problem, as well. In fact, newer technologies and platforms enable bullies to wreak more havoc while remaining anonymous. Ninety-five per cent of teenagers are connected to the internet, and some 87.5% of those state that they have seen cyberbullying occur online. Half do not know their attackers’ identity. Some 58 percent have not told any adult, even their parents, about this.

This week’s Torah reading, Vayeshev,^[1] accurately portrays the dynamics of bullying. Joseph’s brothers align themselves against Joseph, creating the power imbalance bullies need. For Levi Creech, it was five bullies; for Joseph it was eleven.

Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers,^[2] but, once the bullying commences, he remains home.^[3] Like Joseph, victims of bullying avoid school (or the workplace) due to the emotional and physical toll.

Bullies envy and resent their victims. Jacob favors Joseph by making that darn coat; the brothers envy the love and attention Joseph gets. Joseph’s dreams reflect a deeply felt desire to upset the power imbalance, but they also fuel his brothers’ resentment.

Bullies blame their victims. Ramban^[4] claims that Joseph painted his eyes and colored his hair, so Joseph’s style and attention to it become their pretext. This aligns with the report that 61% of victims state that they are bullied for their appearance.

Alternatively, Joseph’s brothers may think he is gay or transgendered. Mental Health America reports that in the U.S. anti-gay slurs occur every 14 minutes. In such a climate, bullying prospers.

Bullies anger easily and quickly resort to force, and show no remorse. Three times the text informs us that Joseph’s brothers react to him with “hate.”^[5] When Joseph arrives in Dothan they quickly conspire to kill him.^[6] Joseph’s brothers cast him into the pit and then, immediately afterwards, sit down to enjoy a meal.^[7] No remorse.

Finally, bullies do not respect others’ authority. Joseph reports his brothers’ behavior early on–indeed in the second verse of this week’s reading,^[8] but Jacob does not act. He may not fully believe Joseph’s reports or understand their implications, and he does not, perhaps cannot, consider his own role in enabling the bullying. Tim Field, the activist on workplace bullying, taught that “bullies thrive wherever authority is weak.” Joseph’s brothers do not worry when Joseph tattles; they know their father favors Joseph, but they also know their father is weak.

So Joseph is left with nowhere to turn. Yet he remains true to himself. Nowhere does he change his style, his looks, or his speech to fit in. He realizes that he is created in G!d’s Image, so he need not change. The rabbis’ epithet “Joseph HaTzaddik” has been traditionally understood to mean that Joseph is “righteous.” It’s hard to understand, however, how that fits in here.

Of course, bullying is neither right nor righteous. Nothing justifies bullying. The victims are always innocent. So when our tradition calls Joseph “HaTzaddik,” it does not mean “righteous” here, but, rather, “innocent,” blameless within the household’s prevailing dynamics of bullying.

In tomorrow’s haftarah the patient G!d rejects us for one sin only: allowing “the selling of the innocent [again, tzaddik] for money” and the “trampling of the heads of the poor into the dust of the ground.”^[9] The family dynamics of bullying in Joseph’s time later, in the time of the prophet Amos, became a cultural marker that defined the entire Israelite community.

The Torah and Haftarah readings of Vayeshev show that bullying has long-term effects on families and communities. So, what shall we do?

• Let’s implement a “no teasing” policy in our homes, schools, and synagogues.
• Let’s establish safe zones for those who exhibit differences, especially in personal style.
• Let’s tolerate no discriminatory language (e.g. “that’s so gay”).
• Let’s remind our children that God created them just fine, and that bullying is not OK.
• Let’s speak with appropriate school personnel and hold them accountable. And accountability means responsibility to set up appropriate systems to at least limit the amount and extent of bullying.
• Let’s give our youth the tools that exist to instantly notify us when facing online bullying.
• Finally, let’s begin an honest and holy communal cheshbon hanefesh (stock-taking) to explore what cultural and social cues have empowered the bullies among us.

This sad scourge of bullying has shown us that too many of our youth find suicide preferable to life, and too many parents find themselves, as Jacob, faced with senseless loss and inconsolable grief.

Please, G!d, no more tears of Jacob, and no more despairing, lost Josephs.

Shabbat shalom.

^[1] Genesis 37.

^[2] Genesis 37:2.

^[3] Genesis 37:12.

^[4] This is an acronym for Rabbi Moses ben Nachman (1194-1270). Also known as Nachmanides, he was a philosopher, physician, Kabbalist, and biblical commentator. He lived most of his life in Girona, Catalonia. He made aliyah in 1267, reestablishing Jewish life in Jerusalem. He died in Akko.

^[5] Genesis 37:4, 5, 8.

^[6] Genesis 37:17-19.

^[7] Genesis 37:24-25.

^[8] Genesis 37:2.

^[9] Amos 2:6-7.