05 Dec VAYESHEV: MAKING AN IMPRESSION

Parashat Vayeshev tells
the story of Yosef, who
was sold as a slave by his
brothers, and brought
down to Egypt. He
became the slave of an
Egyptian nobleman named Potifar, and
within a very short period of time, Potifar
entrusted Yosef with his entire estate. It
didn’t take long for Potifar to feel he could
trust Yosef, and he placed Yosef in charge of
everything. He quite literally gave Yosef the
keys to his house.

How did that happen? Yosef was a 17-year-
old kid from a different country. How did he

earn Potifar’s trust so quickly?
The Torah says, Potifar saw that Hashem
was with Yosef. The Ketav Sofer explains
this to mean that Potifar saw that Yosef
answered to a higher authority, and so he
rose above the normal lures and temptations
that people generally have.
One of Yosef’s greatest qualities was his
poise, his consistency. No matter what
happened to him, he was not fazed. Because
of his belief in Hashem, he was not fazed or
broken by anything. He didn’t lose his

composure, and he didn’t lose his
integrity. This was the impression that Yosef
made. And so Potifar recognized right away
that he can fully trust Yosef. He realized that
Yosef was going to do the right thing and act
the right way under all conditions and all
circumstances.
We make an impression on others when
we’re consistent, when we’re not rattled or
shaken by difficult situations, and when we
remain loyal to our principles even when
we’re challenged. We make an impression
when we are consistently true to our values
everywhere – at home, in shul, in the office,
on vacation, on the road, and when we shop.
The story is told of an observant Jewish
woman who needed to undergo serious
surgery on her scalp. When she arrived at
the hospital for the operation, she was
reminded that she needed to wash her hair
with a special shampoo before the
surgery. The surgery could not be performed
without her first washing with this shampoo
– but the woman had forgotten to wash
before coming to the hospital.
The nurse told her that there was a
pharmacy nearby where she might be able to

buy the shampoo. If she could go and buy it,
the nurse said, then they could perform the
surgery that day, but if not, she would have
to wait another two months, which could be
dangerous, given her condition.
The woman raced to the pharmacy – only
to find the staff closing the door. She pleaded
with them to let her in so she could buy the
shampoo, explaining the gravity of the
situation. The cash registers were already
closed, but the cashier who was locking up
agreed to let the woman take the shampoo.
“If you can, send your husband to pay for it
tomorrow,” the employee said. “If not, I’ll
take it off my salary.”
The woman thanked her profusely, bought
the shampoo, and had the operation.
The next day, her husband came to the
pharmacy. He found the cashier he needed
to speak to, and explained that he was the
husband of the woman who was there the
previous night to buy the special shampoo.
He said he had come to pay.
The cashier called out to her coworker
across the room, “Hey Jack, you owe me
$50!”

Jack came and saw what happened. The
cashier explained to the husband that Jack
had bet $50 that the woman’s husband
would not come to pay for the shampoo.
“Wait, it’s not fair,” Jack said, pointing to
the visibly Orthodox Jewish man by the
counter. “If I had known that this woman
was one of these people, I would never have
made the bet.”
Just like Yosef earned Potifar’s trust, so do
we earn the trust of the people around us
when we make it clear that we answer to
Hashem, that we are guided in every area of
life by higher values and ideals.