Favoritism- Vayeishev

Favoritism...This should be interesting. A person could have a favorite brother, sister, cousin, uncle, aunt, friend or maybe student. Let's flashback to elementary school where behaving or misbehaving was common sense not a decision. Whether good or bad, one kind of person always gets more attention. In this case, having a favorite student would seemingly only hold back everyone else.

In this week's parsha, Yaakov had a favorite son named Yosef and treated him more special than the others. He taught him more than the others and gave him a special jacket. This had it's negatives, because the brothers were jealous and therefore treated Yosef differently. Does this make Yaakov a bad parent? What lesson is there for us?

A lesson we can take from this is that the only way to affect every person is according to their needs. This doesn't necessarily mean that it is favoritism. Yosef needed a little more attention, and therefore Yaakov gave it to him. We need to have an open mind to consider all situations.

So too with a classroom and different levels of learning. Sometimes we see a teacher, parent or friend paying more attention to someone else, and now we know why. So as we move forward, let's try to stay focused on giving lessons according to the level of the person receiving. Hopefully, with that Hashem will give us the attention we need to transform the world.

Good Shabbos All the best Avroham Y Ross