When I was 3 years old, I would dress up and pretend to be different people. And I had two main alter egos. One was John Lennon. I had these little round framed glasses, and I would stand with my guitar made of a shoebox and rubber bands, and I would play along with all the Beatles songs.
My other alter ego was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And I would put on this colorful jacket, and I would sing along to every song from the musical.
Like in the musical, the Joseph of the Bible is always in costume. We see him flaunting his coat of many colors as his father’s favorite son and the bane of his brothers’ existence. We see him in Egyptian garb as Potiphar’s head servant, and then as Pharaoh’s vizier, the prime minister of Egypt.
Joseph goes from costume to costume, from job to job, and at each stop along the way he earns a new disguise.
Who really is Joseph? He’s always trying to impress other people. He’s either interpreting dream or talking his way up the ladder. We see the way he works a room but never get to see Joseph on the inside, on his own terms.
Is Joseph the dreamer, the servant, the Egyptian royalty? Or is Joseph the lonely prisoner in the dungeon?
ADVERTISEMENT
Does the person I present to the world match the way I see myself? That’s the question.
If I’m a musician but I haven’t played my instrument in 15 years, am I a musician or not?
I have my professional self and my personal self. The “me” in a meeting, and the “me” lying on the couch eating donuts. Which one is the “real me”?
We also have terms like this: “I’m a lapsed Catholic.” Meaning, I see myself now based on who I used to be.
If I am kvetching about big changes at my old shul but I haven’t been to that shul in a decade, is that still MY shul?
We call this cognitive dissonance — my daily life doesn’t match the story I tell about myself.
This is Joseph’s struggle. When Joseph has his first child, he names him Menashe, which means: God has made me forget. God has made me forget my father’s house, forget my family, forget the trauma I suffered, and I am a new person.
Later, when Joseph meets his brothers in Egypt, they’re begging for food and they don’t recognize him. He looks Egyptian. And Joseph says to himself, I did it. I won. The old me is forgotten. I am a new, self-made man. But then he has to ask: Is this the real me?
And the answer is no. He confesses to them: Ani Yosef (I am Joseph). And he asks: Od avi hai? (Is my father still alive?) Because Joseph still cares. His family is still part of who he is, and they reconcile.
Here, for the first time, we see Joseph’s costume come off, and his words and deeds on the outside match what his values are on the inside.
When we have cognitive dissonance, when what’s in the mirror doesn’t match what’s in our mind, we have to notice it. We have to think about it. And only then can we try to bridge the gap.
If I say David is my best friend but I haven’t spoken to David in two years, I need to give him a call. If I think I have empathy but I don’t say, “I’m sorry,” to anyone, then maybe I need to start.
And if I go into work every day selling an agenda that I don’t believe in, and that crushes the little kid inside who is dressing up like John Lennon and strumming on rubber bands, then I need to make a change in my life.
Joseph realizes that he will never stop being that child, both favored and hated, the one who lost his mother when he was young, the boy who is afraid of being left out, the kid with the big imagination and big dreams. That’s who he will be, no matter what costume he puts on.
The way we aspire to our truest selves is not by forgetting our alter egos, and not by sharing only how we would like to be seen, but by taking our story in full. It’s only when I am comfortable wearing the garment of that story — the impressive and the embarrassing, the real and the complicated — that I can find the real me.
Rabbi Jared Skoff serves Congregation B’nai Amoona and is a member of the St. Louis Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, which coordinates the d’var Torah for the Jewish Light.
