Menorah in our ‘chalon,’ asserting our purpose

The Talmud tells us that when Yosef was confronted by the temptress, his master Potiphar’s wife, he was able to control himself and overcome her advances because he saw his father Yaakov’s image appear “in the window.” Why is this signifcant? Could it not just appear in front of him like a vision, or perhaps as a conscience on the shoulder countering the little red guy who is telling him to sin?

The answer lies in the Hebrew word for window: chalon.

Numerous words in Hebrew have the letters ches and lamed — chalon, chulin, chalal. Even Potiphar’s wife claimed she was another word: cholah.

All of these words share the notion of emptiness or a void. The Biblical chalon was an empty, open spot in the wall. Chulin: Something emptied of kedusha, it cannot be used for holy activities, such as those which take place in the Temple. Chalal (in the sense of a corpse): A body emptied of life. Chalal can also refer to a Kohen divested of holiness. A cholah is a person who is not completely himself or herself. Even the word chalom (dream), which plays such prominence in these parshas, is indicative of a person who has not yet achieved the things he or she aspires to achieve in life.

It is easy to fall into a trap of doing the wrong thing when there is a feeling of emptiness in life — “This is wrong, and I probably shouldn’t be doing it, but it makes me feel good, and I need that right now.” Or we’ll excuse errors in judgment saying things like, “I wasn’t myself,” “I don’t know what I was thinking,” “I already did one thing wrong, so I may as well enjoy myself while I’m already in G-d’s doghouse.”

We can certainly appreciate that Yosef’s readiness to sin with Potiphar’s wife stemmed from this sense of emptiness. He had lost everything in life and was betrayed by his own brothers!