Rabbi's Sermons

Based on Rabbi Moshe Kormornick.

A man collapses in the street, barely conscious. Paramedics arrive and rush to help him. They put a pillow under his head, check his vitals, and one of them leans in and asks, "Sir, are you comfortable?"

The man opens one eye and replies, "Eh… I make a decent living."

We laugh because we recognize ourselves in this man. Someone asks us how we're really doing–and we deflect. We answer the question we'd rather be asked. We mistake material circumstances for spiritual condition.

Today I want to talk about another kind of question - the kind the Heavenly Court asks, according to our Gemara. And I want to suggest that we've been hearing that question wrong for a very long time.

This week we read of Yosef's trial in the house of Potiphar. The Torah tells us:

וַתִּתְפְּשֵׂהוּ בְּבִגְדוֹ לֵאמֹר שִׁכְבָה עִמִּי וַיַּעֲזֹב בִּגְדוֹ בְּיָדָהּ וַיָּנָס וַיֵּצֵא הַחוּצָה׃

"And she – Potiphera, the wife of his master - caught him by his garment, saying, 'Lie with me.' But he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got out." (Bereishit 39:12)

Yosef, alone in a foreign land, separated from his family, sold by his own brothers, faces a moment of profound moral crisis. Many see in the cantillation mark – the trop – known as the shalsheles, or chain – a moment of hesitation. His body is drawn towards the wrong choice, but his ethical compass points the opposite direction. He is indecisive.  And yet he overcomes it. The question that has echoed through generations of commentary is simple: How?

The Gemara in Sotah 36b offers a striking image:

״וַתִּתְפְּשֵׂהוּ בְּבִגְדוֹ לֵאמֹר וְגוֹ׳״, בְּאוֹתָהּ שָׁעָה בָּאתָה דְּיוֹקְנוֹ שֶׁל אָבִיו וְנִרְאֲתָה לוֹ בַּחַלּוֹן, אָמַר לוֹ: יוֹסֵף! עֲתִידִין אַחֶיךָ שֶׁיִּכָּתְבוּ עַל אַבְנֵי אֵפוֹד וְאַתָּה בֵּינֵיהֶם, רְצוֹנְךָ שֶׁיִּמָּחֶה שִׁמְךָ מִבֵּינֵיהֶם, וְתִקָּרֵא רוֹעֶה זוֹנוֹת? דִּכְתִיב: ״וְרֹעֶה זוֹנוֹת יְאַבֶּד הוֹן.״

"And she caught him by his garment, saying, etc." At that moment, the image of his father came and appeared to him in the window. It said to him: "Yosef! Your brothers' names are destined to be inscribed on the stones of the ephod, and you are among them. Do you want your name erased from among them, to be called one who associates with promiscuous women? As it is written: 'He who keeps company with harlots wastes his riches'" (Mishlei 29:3).

The word the Gemara uses—deyokno, דְּיוֹקְנוֹ—comes from the Greek eikon, from which we get our English word "icon." Yaakov's face appeared before Yosef like an image, a reflection, at the critical moment.

But what does this mean? Did Yaakov's ghost literally materialize in Egypt? Or is the Gemara teaching us something deeper about the mechanics of moral courage?

The Gemara in Yoma 35b seems to take a demanding approach to human weakness. It teaches that when we stand before the Heavenly Court, our excuses will be measured against our ancestors:

תָּנוּ רַבָּנַן: עָנִי וְעָשִׁיר וְרָשָׁע בָּאִין לַדִּין. לֶעָנִי אוֹמְרִים לוֹ: מִפְּנֵי מָה לֹא עָסַקְתָּ בַּתּוֹרָה? אִם אוֹמֵר: עָנִי הָיִיתִי, וְטָרוּד בִּמְזוֹנוֹתַי, אוֹמְרִים לוֹ: כְּלוּם עָנִי הָיִיתָ יוֹתֵר מֵהִלֵּל?

The Sages taught: A poor person, a wealthy person, and a wicked person come before the Heavenly Court for judgment. To the poor person they say: "Why did you not engage in Torah?" If he says, "I was poor and preoccupied with earning my livelihood," they say to him: "Were you any poorer than Hillel?"

And the wealthy fare no better:

עָשִׁיר, אוֹמְרִים לוֹ: מִפְּנֵי מָה לֹא עָסַקְתָּ בַּתּוֹרָה? אִם אוֹמֵר: עָשִׁיר הָיִיתִי וְטָרוּד הָיִיתִי בִּנְכָסַי. אוֹמְרִים לוֹ: כְּלוּם עָשִׁיר הָיִיתָ יוֹתֵר מֵרַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר? אָמְרוּ עָלָיו עַל רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר בֶּן חַרְסוֹם שֶׁהִנִּיחַ לוֹ אָבִיו אֶלֶף עֲיָירוֹת בַּיַּבָּשָׁה, וּכְנֶגְדָּן אֶלֶף סְפִינוֹת בַּיָּם. וּבְכׇל יוֹם וָיוֹם נוֹטֵל נֹאד שֶׁל קֶמַח עַל כְּתֵיפוֹ וּמְהַלֵּךְ מֵעִיר לְעִיר וּמִמְּדִינָה לִמְדִינָה לִלְמוֹד תּוֹרָה.

To the wealthy person they say: "Why did you not engage in Torah?" If he says, "I was wealthy and preoccupied with managing my possessions," they say to him: "Were you any wealthier than Rabbi Elazar?" They said about Rabbi Elazar ben Ḥarsum that his father left him one thousand villages on land and corresponding to them one thousand ships at sea. Yet each and every day, he would take a leather jug of flour on his shoulder and walk from city to city and from state to state to study Torah.

Read superficially, this sounds brutal. "Stop complaining—Hillel had it worse." "Your excuses don't matter—look at what the great ones accomplished." We know that this approach when someone else is suffering is not only not helpful to the person in need, but makes the situation worse. We don’t ever want to claim that someone who is currently suffering should stop complaining because others already suffered more. I did this once to a guest suffering from depression, and when he pointed out my error, it bit deeply.  Is this really the compassionate Torah we cherish? Is the Heavenly Court just there to shame us?

I want to suggest that we have been hearing this question wrong—like the man on the street who hears "Are you comfortable?" and answers about his income.

The Gemara is not saying: "These heroes were superhuman, so you have no excuse for being merely human."

Rather, it is saying: "These heroes were human—just like you. The strength they found is the same strength that lives within you." You can even go further and say: the strength that you have comes from their work. Maasei avos, siman l’banim.

When Yosef saw his father's deyokna in the window, he was not visited by a ghost. He looked inward—and found something he had almost forgotten: the face of his father, the teachings of his youth, the spiritual DNA that Yaakov had worked so hard to implant within him.

The deyokna was not external. It was a mirror.

Each of us carries within us the faces of those who shaped us. A parent who modeled integrity. A teacher who believed in us. A grandparent who survived the unsurvivable so that we might exist. A neighbor who delivered garlic bread when our children were tired of regular fare.  A tradition stretching back through centuries of Jews who faced their own tests and somehow persisted.

When the Gemara asks, "Were you poorer than Hillel?"—it is not dismissing our struggles. It is reminding us: Hillel's strength is your inheritance. You come from a people who found ways to learn Torah in impossible circumstances. That capacity did not die with Hillel. It lives in you. You can still learn Torah even if you aren’t driving a Lamborghini or are working in an honorable but low paying job.

When it asks, "Were you wealthier than Rabbi Elazar?"—it is saying: His dedication is part of your spiritual genome. You descend from people who refused to let comfort become complacency. That instinct is yours to access.

These are not cruel comparisons designed to shame us. They are invitations to discover something we already possess.

We all face moments of moral testing—our own versions of Potiphar's house. Perhaps not as dramatic, but no less real. The temptation to cut an ethical corner. The pull toward cynicism when idealism feels naive. The exhaustion that whispers, "Why bother being honest when no one else is?"

In those moments, the Torah offers us a practice: Look for the face in the window.

Not literally, of course. But spiritually. When you are tested, ask yourself: Whose face do I see when I look in the mirror? What would my father see if he looked at me now? What did my grandmother sacrifice so that I might carry this tradition forward? What face do I want my children to see when they look in their window one day?

Yosef did not overcome his test through superhuman willpower. He overcame it by remembering who he was—and whose he was. The deyokna of Yaakov was simply the crystallization of years of teaching, of modeling, of love.

Our Task

We are not asked to be Hillel. We are not asked to be Rabbi Elazar ben Ḥarsum. We are not even asked to be Yosef HaTzaddik.

We are asked only to recognize that their strength flows in our veins. We are asked to do the sacred work of becoming ancestors ourselves—so that one day, when our children and students face their own trials, they might look up and see our faces in the window.

The question of the Heavenly Court is not a rebuke. It is a reminder: You have more strength than you know. It was placed within you by those who came before. Your task is not to be them, but to find the piece of them that lives in you—and one day, to pass it on.

So the next time life asks you, "Are you comfortable?"—don't answer about your income. Look in the window. Find the face, the history, those who have come before you. And remember who you are.