And Joseph said to Pharaoh, “…Pharaoh has been told what God is about to do…Pharaoh has been shown what God is about to do.” (41:25 & 41:28)

Rabbi Shlomo Kluger (1785–June 9, 1869) points out that it is human nature to always want to be the first to tell over good news, but to shy away from this responsibility when the news is bad – even if giving over the news is necessary. We see this concept in this week’s parsha when Yosef interprets the dreams of Pharaoh, explaining that there will be good (7 years of plenty) and bad (7 years of famine). When Yosef speaks about the good years, he says “Pharaoh has been told what God is about to do” (a verbal transmission), but when Yosef speaks about the lean years, he says “Pharaoh has been shown…” Showing it to Pharaoh is more indirect than explicitly telling him.

There are parallels to this in the Chanukah story as well. When the Greeks desecrated the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, Chazal describe this in a passive way: The temple had no service in it for three years prior to the Chashmaonim’s uprising.  When Mattisyahu and his children waged war, Chazal discuss the actions that they did portraying their heroism in standing up for what they felt was right.

Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Sher (1874-1952) also alludes to a similar idea, that when something positive happens, we make a big deal about it, but when something negative happens we don’t discuss it and try to let the negative occurrence slip into oblivion.

This is true regarding discussing “bad” news. However, I believe that many times we must face our negative moments in our avodas Hashem head-on, doing whatever is necessary to learn from these moments. This is not only because they often only get worse if we ignore them, but they are also an opportunity to build on.

Many times, in our own lives, we will do something wrong or something that we could have done better at. We can gain a lot if we address these occurrences and don’t just try to sweep them under the rug. For example, after a person ate and finishes his bentching, he thinks to himself, “I didn’t really bentch with kavana!” What should one do with this realization? I have been taught by my mentors that in such a situation one should use it to grow. For example, one may create a program where he commits to bentch the next three times with kavana, and if he fails, he incurs some type of consequence (e.g. a financial payment to charity, or a commitment to learn a certain amount of time, or to recite Tehillim, etc.). When a person takes this on, not only did he do something extra that upgrades him, he will find that when it comes to the fourth time that he bentches, he will naturally do so with more kavana!

One member told me about his grandfather who had just died on Chanukah. As I discussed the topic of saying a eulogy at his funeral on Chanukah (it is normally forbidden to do so except in certain specific cases), he described the piety of his grandfather: If his grandfather would ever daven without kavana, he would ‘penalize’ himself by staying in shul an extra 20 minutes to learn. The grandson told me that this kept his grandfather on the straight path of davening with kavana almost all the time.

Let us, too, use these negative situations as stepping stones in our process of growth.