26 Dec VAYECHI: DON’T BE A JACK-IN-THE-BOX

We all have people in
our lives who annoy us,
who make us upset, who
get on our nerves. It
could be a coworker, a
neighbor, a sibling, a
sibling-in-law, a parent, a parent-in-law,
a child, a child-in-law, or, even in a
generally good marriage, a spouse.
Dovid Hamelech, in one of the chapters
of Tehillim (38), teaches us the best way
to handle such people:
“I am like a deaf person who does not
hear; and like a mute who does not open
his mouth.”
The best solution is, very simply, to
ignore it, to be “deaf” and “mute,” to
remain silent.
I often tell my students that when their
peers annoy them, they’re like a kid

turning the stick in a “Jack-in-the-
Box.” Kids turn and turn in order to enjoy

the great pleasure of watching the Jack
jump out of the box. Annoying people do
the same thing – they keeping annoying

other people so they can have the
satisfaction of watching them “jump out
of the box” – get annoyed and upset.
One of the ways of stopping ourselves
from reacting is to remember that it is
Hashem talking to us, not them. When
somebody gets on our nerves or says
something that makes us frustrated, we
need to hear Hashem speaking to
us. Maybe He’s telling us that we should
try to improve. Maybe He’s telling us we
need to be more humble. Maybe He’s
telling us that we need to be strong when
people try to upset us.
At the end of Parashat Vayehi, we read
that after Yaakov died, Yosef’s brothers
came to Yosef in a state of panic. They
thought that now that Yaakov was gone,
Yosef would now take revenge for what
they did to him, selling him as a
slave. And so they came to Yosef and
begged him to forgive them. Yosef
assured them that they had nothing to
fear.
“You tried to hurt me,” he told his

brothers, “but Hashem had other
plans.” Yosef pointed out that they were
just Hashem’s messengers to bring him
to Egypt so he could become the most
powerful person in the world, saving the
entire region during a time of famine. He
didn’t resent what they did because he
realized that it wasn’t them – it was
Hashem.
I recall once when somebody in one of
the places where I regularly speak
criticized my style, telling me that I
wasn’t doing my job properly. My
instinct was to get angry and defend
myself. But I stopped and reminded
myself that this is Hashem speaking to
me. What was He trying to tell me? I
thought that in all likelihood, Hashem
wanted me to be work to be better at what
I do. And this is what I did – I worked on
improving my speaking.
Dovid Hamelech says later in that
chapter of Tehillim, “For I shall speak of
my wrongdoing, I am concerned about
my sin.” Dovid Hamelech remained
silent when people insulted him because

he looked inward instead of
outward. Rather than getting angry, he
looked into himself and asked, “What
does Hashem want from me? How can I
be better?”
Let’s follow this example, and learn to
react to annoying people by not
reacting. If we remember that every
annoying word is a word spoken to us
from Hashem, our response will be to
look into ourselves and see where we can

improve, rather than jumping like a Jack-
in-the-Box.