Is the glass half empty, half full, or…….??

Who isn’t familiar with the famous question of whether the glass is half empty or half full, and thereby determining whether one is pessimistic or optimistic? In both cases, we are focusing on the liquid. 

I propose a more open minded approach to the glass with liquid, one that does not focus on the quantity of liquid, but rather looks at the container itself, the glass.

What if we saw the glass as neither half empty nor half full, but as a container that perhaps isn’t the best size for the amount of liquid it needs to hold? And what it we saw that glass as neither half empty nor half full, but as a container that is refillable?

See how that shifts our thinking? Did you feel a shift in energy at those two thoughts? I did.

In our Torah portion for this week, we are in the story of Joseph, the portion we call Vayigash. Previously, as the story goes, when Joseph was a teen, he had been sold into slavery by his jealous brothers. He served as a slave in Egypt, but ended up in prison for seducing his boss’s wife, a false accusation.  He went from slavery to imprisonment. Hardly an improvement!

Last week, our Torah story picked up at that point, with Joseph in prison and gaining a reputation for interpreting dreams. On this reputation, he is brought to Pharoah. Joseph interpreted Pharaoh’s two dreams and predicted seven years of prosperity followed by seven years of famine. Thereafter, Pharaoh placed Joseph in charge of food collection and distribution for the entire country of Egypt as they prepared for the coming 7 years of abundance followed by 7 years of famine. 

Eventually, Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt to buy food during the famine. Joseph recognizes them, but they do not recognize Joseph as the brother they sold when he was but a teen. Joseph wants to see his father and younger brother, so he arranges for them to come back by "accusing" them of spying. Joseph holds Simeon "hostage" while the rest of the brothers return to Canaan to retrieve Benjamin and return. The brothers return to Egypt with Benjamin, and for more food. Joseph continues the test, this time falsely "accusing" Benjamin of stealing and declaring that Benjamin must remain his slave. It's a ruse by Joseph to test the sincerity of his brothers who have not yet recognized who he is.

This is where our story opens this week, and continues the saga. Judah pleads with Joseph to free Benjamin and offers himself as a replacement. And this is where our opening bit about the glass half empty/half full comes into play.

In psychology, we use the term “reframing.” Reframing is when we shift our thinking about our situation. Some people will tell you this is when we need to start looking at the glass as half full rather than half empty. But there are many ways to shift our thinking, not just the black and white of half full/half empty, such as the two additional reframes I proposed above: that the glass is a container that perhaps isn’t the best size for the amount of liquid it needs to hold, and that the glass is neither half empty nor half full, but a container that is refillable. Those are beautiful reframes that do not require us to put a glossy coat of false happy varnish over a challenging situation.

In our Torah story, Joseph models for us a beautiful reframe. He turns to the very same men, his brothers, who were so jealous of him they conspired to kill him and cover it up, but were talked out of murder and instead sold him into a life of slavery in a foreign country. Any way you look at that, it’s hard to put a glossy coat of false happy varnish on it, isn’t it? 

For those who say that the glass is half full because “Joseph is still alive; they didn’t murder him; and look what good he can do now?” misses the point of what it was like to be a slave in a foreign country, and then, a prisoner. That is not a glass half full situation. It is, instead, a situation where the glass is empty, but it is yet refillable; where the glass is small, yet filled with hope. In a larger glass, it would look almost empty of hope, but in the right-sized glass, it is filled with hope.

This notion of a refillable empty glass is one of great hope. This is an example not that he saw his glass half full instead of half empty, but that he saw his glass as refillable. In today’s Torah story, Joseph does this very kind of reframing. 

When the other sons of Jacob plotted to kill Joseph, Reuben and Judah led the charge to spare Joseph’s life, and Judah argued, instead, to sell him into slavery. Eventually, the others accepted Judah’s reasoning. (Later, Judah stepped up and took ownership publicly of his part in the incident with Tamar, saving her and her two unborn sons from death.) Over and again, we see Judah stepping up and being true to his name, from the root word yadah, to throw or to cast, to give thanks, to acknowledge, to confess, to admit. Often, we avoid admitting and taking ownership of our errors. In our story today, Judah again steps up and takes ownership, being willing to put himself into slavery to spare the life of his younger brother, Benjamin. He lost one brother from jealousy and bad decisions; he was not going to let it happen to Benjamin as well.

Moved by Judah’s passionate plea to let Benjamin return home to their father, Joseph turns to his brothers, who still do not know it is Joseph, and he finally reveals himself: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that G!d sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no plowing and reaping. But G!d sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but G!d.”

Note what Joseph is doing here. He is reframing events so that the brothers will not have to live under an unbearable burden of guilt for having deceived their father, causing him years of undiminished grief, and selling Joseph into slavery. By reframing the situation, by not limiting himself to the image of a half full or half empty glass, but seeing his glass as refillable, he was able to free himself from an emotional prison, the prison of perpetual resentment toward his brothers.

Sometimes, there is no way around the “glass is half full” parts of life. Rather than forcing ourselves to gloss over the awful times we go through, we can reframe it like Joseph and Judah did, by seeing the glass as a container that perhaps isn’t the best size for the amount of liquid it needs to hold, and that the glass is neither half empty nor half full, but a container that is refillable. These are beautiful reframes that do not require us to put a glossy coat of false happy varnish over a challenging situation. 

Whether in the depths of grief, serious or terminal illness, pain, loss, abuse, rape, murder, slavery, human trafficking, war—none of these are “glass half full” situations. We need to be realistic. And, we can also reframe them not by saying they happened to "teach us lesson," but by looking for the tiniest glimmer of hope, knowing that in a glass the right size, this tiny amount of hope or forgiveness is enough. It is neither too much nor not enough. Furthermore, our glass is refillable; we can build more hope and forgiveness on top of the tiny bit we have. Perhaps today we can’t see it, but we hang our hats on neither the half empty nor the half full, but, that as empty as our glass might seem, it is refillable.

It is Shabbat once again. May we reframe whatever challenging and difficult situations we've been through or find ourselves in currently, may we accept that our glass is refillable, and move forward from there.

Shalom uv'rachah!