“Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.”
JK Rowling

Today’s Torah portion is about hitting rock bottom. Literally. He had been thrown into a pit, a dry well. He hit that rock bottom and was assumed dead. Our scene begins with Joseph being taken down to Egypt. “Rescued” by the Ishmaelites and taken to Egypt and sold as a slave. He is now in Potiphar’s house. Potiphar’s wife is attracted to Joseph.

The midrash asks who did the taking? Why was he taken? On the simple level, it seems easy—the Ishmaelites, right? That’s what the text says. Not so fast.

“Love is as strong as Death but Jealousy is as severe as Sheol” Midrash Tanhuma. And it explains that Jacob loved Rachel but Rachel was jealous of her sister Leah. Jonathan loved David but Saul was jealous of David. And Jacob loved Joseph. But his brothers were jealous of him because his father loved him to excess.

In the midrash, Joseph was seen as a Torah scholar, a prophet and one who nourished his brothers. He was a good person—despite some of his upbringing. And he falls. He falls far.

So the Zohar sees this differently. Every time, someone goes down to Egypt—it is a metaphor for hitting rock bottom. And the Zohar tells us that only from the depth of darkness can we see the true light. The true light that is G-d.

In the verse, “And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potifar bought him” (Beresheet 39:1), why is it written, “brought down” rather than ‘went down to Egypt’? HE ANSWERS, The Holy One, blessed be He, consented to the act OF SELLING JOSEPH TO EGYPT, so that the decree He made between the pieces would be fulfilled, as it is written, “Know surely that your seed shall be a stranger” (Beresheet 15:13). “And Potiphar bought him,” to commit sin with him, namely sodomy.

But the Zohar explains that there are reasons that G-d has to bring our ancestors down to Egypt. Perhaps it is a little too predestined in my usual theology. Yet it is informative.
God told Jacob in Genesis 46:3
”לְגוֹי גָּדוֹל אֲשִׂימְךָ שָׁם- כִּי,תִּירָא מֵרְדָה מִצְרַיְמָה- אַל; אָנֹכִי הָאֵל אֱלֹהֵי אָבִיךָ,וַיֹּאמֶר“
And He said: ‘I am God, the God of your father; fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of you a great nation”
And in Genesis 46:4 we read
”עֵינֶיךָ- יָשִׁית יָדוֹ עַל, וְיוֹסֵף;עָלֹה- אַעַלְךָ גַם, וְאָנֹכִי, אֵרֵד עִמְּךָ מִצְרַיְמָה,אָנֹכִי“
“I will go down with you into Egypt; and I will also surely bring you up again; and Joseph shall put his hand upon your eyes.’”
So we learn that every time someone goes down to Egypt, frequently to relieve hunger and famine, G-d goes with him. He is not alone.
This idea is captured in the song from Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.
Close every door to me
Hide all the world from me
Bar all the windows
and shut out the light
Do what you want with me
Hate me and laugh at me
darken my daytime
and torture my night
If my life were important I
Would ask will I live or die
But I know the answers
Lie far from this world

Close every door to me
Keep those I love from me
Children of Israel are never alone
For I know I shall find
my own peace of mind
for I have been promised
A land of my own

Children of Israel are never alone. G-d goes with us. That is the consistent promise of the Torah. G-d goes with Abraham when he moves from Haran to Canaan. G-d is with Hagar when she is at the well, and later when she puts her son under a bush, sure that he will die. G-d goes with Eliezer when he tries to find a bride for Isaac. G-d goes with Jacob when he flees back Haran and dreams of angels ascending and descending a ladder. G-d is with Moses when he discovers the burning bush and later when Moses is promised that G-d will go with Moses and lighten his burden and give him rest.

And yet, each of these ancestors has a dark moment of the soul. They have to experience those in order to climb out of the pit. On a website called Zohar.com, run by the Kabbalah Center, that organization that Madonna supports, they said about Joseph,

“In the course of spiritual development, we sometimes have to fail in order to build a greater vessel that can hold all the Light that awaits us as we ascend to the next level. This is what happened to Joseph when he was “brought down to Egypt.” Egypt is a code word for darkness and disconnection from the Light of The Creator. Reading these passages helps attune us to the angelic hierarchies and the spiritual energy forces they transmit. These forces give us power to rise when we fall, strength to stand after we stumble ““ and this serves to increase the size of our vessel, so that we can receive even greater Light in our lives. These verses also help us expand our vessel so that it is not necessary for us to fall quite so far down or to stumble quite so often.”

This is language that is echoed in 12 Step programs. The idea that someone with an addiction problem needs to hit rock bottom before climbing back up. Rock bottom is a time that causes an addict to reach the lowest possible point in his or her life. Like Joseph in our Torah story today. For each person struggling with addiction, this looks different. It is that sense that life cannot get any worse. They are alone. Isolated. Removed. As Jacob is first in the pit and then in jail.

But today’s portion comes as an anecdote. Joseph becomes a leader in jail. He continues his role as a dream interpreter. People remember him. When his friends get out of jail, they recommend him to no less than the Pharaoh to interpret the Pharaoh’s dreams. He becomes the vice-roy of Egypt. It is a classic rags to riches story.

JK Rowling, now the richest woman in the world, is a rags to riches story too. Before Harry Potter, she was a single mom on public assistance. Her understanding of this cycle, her own personal failures, even after Harry Potter, especially on a trip to Portugal, enabled her to write a non-fiction book based on her commencement speech to Harvard. Very Good Lives: The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination. She says about herself, “Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than I was and began diverting all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.”

As a marketing consultant, I worked with the Technology Licensing Office of MIT. They taught that 90% of start-up businesses fail. In fact, they expect students and professors to have at least two businesses fail before they have a successful one. Having a business fail can feel like being thrown into the pit. It can seem devoid of light. It can feel like hitting rock bottom. But slowly, slowly, those students climb back out of the pit. Like the song, “Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again.”

Chanukah begins tomorrow night. The Festival of Lights, its very name means rededication. In the Talmud there is an argument about how to light the candles. Should we light them as the miracle occurred, beginning with the most amount of light like that little cruse of oil that diminished during the week or should we start in darkness and keep adding light each night of the week. The rabbis conclude that we should do as Hillel suggests. Each night we should add light. Each night we should add joy.

The message of today’s portion and our celebration of Chanukah is simple. Our tradition teaches us that no matter how bad our life seems, G-d will go with us. That we can pick ourselves up. That we can rededicate ourselves to what is important, just as JK Rowling did. Our tradition teaches us to not lose hope. Our tradition tells us to find the light. To find the joy. May it be so for each of us at this darkest time of the year.