Years ago when I was in High School, and I am sure this is probably true for anyone educated in America, we were responsible for reading the classics as well as memorizing famous poems. Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken, was one of my favorite poems because I always felt that it encapsulated many of the decisions I had to make in life - when you are standing at the crossroads, which way do you go? It seems that as we journey from our youth to adulthood, putting one foot in front of the other, we sometimes, or maybe always, do not know where that road will take us. Indeed, it is only when we look back do we see that our steps took us in the direction we were meant to go on. We gain clarity, 2020 vision, with hindsight. We often worry or stress over the difficulties we are facing, and who doesn’t have struggles in life, and sometimes we wonder why? Where is this all leading to?
As we study the ups and downs of Yosef Hatsadik’s life, depending at what point in the story we stop, we may come to different conclusions. Did Yosef have a blessed life or a life filled with strife? He had his father’s doting love but his brothers’ jealousy, he had beautiful features which got him into trouble with Potiphar’s wife, he was a dreamer yet very practical when it came to the Egyptian economy, he was a prince and a slave, a prisoner and a viceroy. All of the failures led to ultimate success. Indeed, it was through Yosef, that Hashem’s blessing to Avraham, was first realized “Through you, all the families of the land will be blessed” (Bereishit 12:3). The story of Yosef is the story of life. We cannot understand where we are headed, which road is the right one to be on, until we look back. I’ll bet that when you do look back on your own journey you will be able to see and feel Hashem’s guiding hand throughout. Whether it a mistake that leads to a better understanding, an embarrassing situation which leads to better behavior, a job change which leads to greater financial or personal success, a break-up in a relationship which leads you to a strong loving tie with a “significant other”, all of these incidences are yad Hashem at work. Yes, we stand on the crossroad, and we make the decision (after all we do have bechira chofshit) but when we take those hesitant steps down the road we can feel more confident because even if the road seems broken, it is the derech that Hakadosh Baruch Hu has chosen us, and indeed that makes all the difference.
Have a Shabbat Shalom and a Chanuka Sameach.
Rochelle Brand, Ed.D
Head of School
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Comments