The story of Joseph is oddly familiar for me. I’ve always felt a quiet pull toward him, not as a revered biblical figure, but as someone whose emotional landscape I recognize. Maybe you do too. Maybe you’ve known, in some corner of your own life, what it is to be the one who has the gift of being different.
In parshat Vayeshev, Joseph is the child who doesn’t quite blend in, the brother whose brightness is met with narrowed eyes instead of open arms. He is gifted, imaginative, and a touch idealistic, qualities that might shine warmly in another setting but, in his family, provoke suspicion and resentment. He is marked as “different” long before he can choose who he wants to be.
Many of us know what it feels like when our strengths are misunderstood or our voice lands in the room a little too loudly. Many of us have sensed that complicated mix of belonging and not belonging in the very place that shaped us. For some, it’s subtle. For others, it’s defining.
Joseph’s story gives language to that loneliness. Yet it also gives us something else: a way to understand how outliers grow.
Joseph’s early years included family slights, moments of being dismissed or resented. Perhaps these gave him a toolkit he doesn’t even realize he’s building. He learns to read the room, to anticipate reactions, to interpret what isn’t said aloud. He notices things. Joseph dreams beyond what others allow themselves to imagine. He survives because he’s been surviving for a long time.
And then, in Egypt, those very tools become the foundation of his rise. The outsider becomes the interpreter, the strategist, the leader who sees what others miss. His difference, once a liability, becomes his greatest strength.
That arc resonates with me, and perhaps with others who have felt that same tension between being known and being misunderstood. You don’t have to be thrown into a pit to understand Joseph. Sometimes all it takes is remembering times when you felt out of step in your own family story, when your perspective, your temperament, or your dreams didn’t quite match the script around you.
Joseph teaches us that the outlier is not broken. Sometimes the outlier is simply early in seeing the world differently, early in imagining what could be, early in developing the emotional muscles that will one day open doors others can’t yet perceive.
His story doesn’t ask us to romanticize the pain. Being the odd one out hurts. Being misunderstood shapes a person in ways that linger. But Joseph’s life also affirms that the traits that once isolated him became the very traits that allowed him to lead with wisdom, compassion, and courage.
And that’s the universal truth: the qualities that once made us feel different, our sensitivity, imagination, ambition, and insight, can become the source of our greatest impact. Joseph shows us that being an outlier is not a flaw in the story. Sometimes it is the empowering part of the story.
His journey reminds anyone who has ever felt “other” that being different doesn’t mean being alone. We can stand apart in the strength forged in those early shadows may one day allow us to cast light for others.
Rabbi Evan J. Krame
If this reflection resonates with you, consider sharing it on social media—or simply take a moment to reflect on how you can create a better community.
