This week’s Torah portion is Vayigash: Genesis 44:18 – 47:27
As we approach the month of January in the Gregorian calendar, we Americans find ourselves inundated with exhortations to make New Year’s resolutions. But here’s a sobering thought: research indicates that barely one in ten people maintain their resolutions through an entire year. Yet countless individuals commit themselves to self-improvement each January. Are we as a species delusional about our capacity to change, or is real change possible?
For we Jews, these questions generally are at the heart of our spiritual preparation during Elul, the final month of the Jewish calendar, as we prepare ourselves for the work of teshuvah demanded by the High Holy Days. Nonetheless, given that we American Jews live in two civilizations, the start of the Gregorian New Year is a good time to reflect on the human capacity for change.
This first Book of the Torah begins with Adam and Eve transgressing God’s command not to eat from the fruit of the tree in the Garden of Eden. When God asks “Ayeka” — where are you? — Adam and Eve offer no remorse or reflection on their transgression. Perhaps as the first humans, they didn’t understand that growth is possible. Rather than owning up to their choices, they shift blame onto the other and are expelled from Eden.
Medieval thinker Rabbi Joseph Albo suggests that their fundamental error wasn’t the act itself — which may have been unavoidable — but rather their refusal to accept accountability afterward.
And the pattern continues when we witness Cain demonstrate similar failings. Following Abel’s murder, he responds with evasion: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” These early Genesis narratives illuminate our central challenge as humans: are we able to acknowledge our failures and wrongdoing and subsequently commit to a path of genuine change?
This week, as we come toward the end of Sefer Bereshit, we see this very question lived out through the actions of Joseph and his brother Judah. Last week’s Torah portion, Miketz, concluded with Joseph in disguise to his brothers, but now with enormous power over them. He has orchestrated the events in which he has planted a stolen goblet in the bag of his brother Benjamin and is now threatening Benjamin’s enslavement, at the same time allowing his other brothers to depart for home. But then something remarkable happens. Judah comes forward and offers to substitute himself instead of his brother Benjamin.
Judah’s willingness to sacrifice his own life for his brother represents a radical change in his previous behavior. Earlier, he had suggested trafficking Joseph into bondage. Now, confronting Benjamin’s threatened captivity, Judah shows that he has changed. The old Judah would have harbored resentment about his father’s favoritism of Benjamin. Instead, this version of Judah refuses to be defined by his past. By protecting Benjamin, he claims a new identity. He now safeguards the well-being of his brother and their father. Through this choice, he reverses Cain’s legacy — genuinely becoming his brother’s keeper.
Judah’s action allows Joseph’s evolution to follow. Seeing the genuine remorse of Judah, Joseph now reveals himself to them and offers reassurance and forgiveness — without requiring an apology. He tells his brothers that their actions were part of a divine plan that allowed him to be in a position to provide food during the famine that ensued.
Jewish tradition honors Joseph as Yosef HaTzaddik — Joseph the Righteous One — precisely because of his capacity to change: from a narcissistic youth fantasizing about universal submission, into becoming a person who is capable of seeing himself as a thread within a larger tapestry.
In this way, the Book of Genesis traces an arc — from humans who begin seemingly incapable of reflection or repair, to their descendants Judah and Joseph, who stumble, suffer, and ultimately, mature. Through this progression, the Torah provides an essential framework for what it means to live a moral life: we possess agency, we will inevitably fll short, and yet, we carry within us the capacity for responsibility and growth.
Though we Jews focus our introspection on Rosh Hashanah and the Yamim Noraim, there is something profoundly moving about New Year’s resolutions. They activate a deep recognition: we aren’t fixed entities — we can deliberately pursue growth and transformation. Even if many of us will not end up fulfilling our resolutions this January, our tradition reminds us that we have moral agency, and that indeed, we carry within us the divine given capacity to change.
Rabbi David Glanzberg-Krainin is senior rabbi at Beth Sholom Congregation in Elkins Park.