Parshas Vayigash 5782
The world of personal productivity is abuzz with a term that’s gotten real traction in recent years: “work-life balance”. This is a thankful development, at least compared with an approach of completely overlooking the other critical areas of one’s life in the interest of professional success. Work-life balance reminds us that health, family, and other critical relationships won’t simply sit in suspended animation while we’re out and about climbing the corporate ladder or our scaling our business. And the reverse—turning a blind eye to professional development in the interest of going all-in on our personal life—is equally misguided. When the certain departments of one’s life are overlooked, they fail, often irrevocably. We’re reminded instead to keep work and the rest of life in balance—pay your dues in all of life’s various spheres so that each is properly serviced.
But there’s a problem here. The term “balance” is suggestive of a traditional scale in which work and life are kept on their respective plates, with the goal being that neither outweighs the other to too great a degree. I find this to sorely miss the point and undersell the potential of all that can be achieved when life is well managed. Don’t think “balance”; think “synthesis”.
When Yosef reveals himself to his brothers, he immediately begins to develop plans for their relocation to Egypt. The family will not live in the thick of Egyptian society, but in Goshen, where their ability to live according to a different value system from the rest of society will be more feasible. They will be supported through the grains stores that Yosef had accumulated during the years of plenty through his strategic planning. And all of these plans are conveyed in a manner that puts his brothers at ease, despite their guilt for having sold him.
Yosef’s public life is not kept in a bubble. Thankfully for his family, it bleeds into his personal life. It is only through the power he wields in the public sphere, his knowledge of the Egyptian landscape, and his contacts with Pharaoh and the rest of the Egyptian elite that he can properly provide for his family. Moreover, in the time spent as viceroy, Yosef has learned to interact diplomatically, his interactions with his brothers now so much more functional than they’d been in his youth.
But looking back at how Yosef arrived at this point, we find something even more striking. That work life can enhance personal life is something most of us readily acknowledge. Most people work as a means to an end, in order to provide for themselves and their family. But in Yosef we find that the reverse is true as well; his personal life influences and elevates his professional successes.
Two weeks ago, we read of Yosef’s appointment as viceroy of Egypt after winning Pharaoh over when interpreting his dreams. The way that Yosef carries himself while in Pharaoh’s court is astonishing, as he seems content to forego a golden opportunity to establish his own unique value in the eyes of the powerful man in the land:
וַיַּעַן יוֹסֵף אֶת־פַּרְעֹה לֵאמֹר בִּלְעָדָי אֱלֹקים יַעֲנֶה אֶת־שְׁלוֹם פַּרְעֹה׃
בראשית מא:טז
And Yosef answered Pharaoh saying, “It is beyond me!” G-d will respond to Pharaoh’s welfare.
Bereishis 41:16
Yosef is content to forfeit all the glory that will come from a proper presentation of Pharaoh’s dreams and give all the credit to G-d alone. This move is unthinkable for anyone who keeps work life cordoned off in its own sealed-off sphere. Yosef should be marketing himself as the wisest man who’s ever graced Pharaoh’s presence and someone who the king should view as utterly indispensable. But the barrier between Yosef’s personal and public lives is porous; each serving as a powerful influence over the other. Yosef’s values that he learned in his father’s home instruct his behavior even as he stands at the threshold of the greatest promotion anyone could ever hope for. Yosef achieves not only work-life balance, but work-life synthesis, and he is better off for it. Ultimately, Pharaoh respects the humility and integrated values of the man who stands before him and bestows upon him the promotion of a lifetime.
The shift from work-life balance to work-life synthesis takes place in little more than our mentality and intention. But the gains in making this mental shift can nonetheless be immense. When we begin viewing the two halves of our lives as being in harmony, rather than conflict, we can enjoy new fulfillment in both arenas.
If we grumble about work, how much more palatable it can be if we remain mindful of what it allows us to afford in our personal life. Moreover, how much more rewarding work can be if we would recognized that skills honed in the work place—leadership, teamwork, critical thinking—can make us more valuable and effective in our personal lives as well.
Our home persona, too, ought to flow freely into our work persona. Love, dedication, compassion—to say nothing of our most basic value system—are aspects of our being that are crafted in the home but make us who we are in the workplace as well. These are qualities that are respected by colleagues and clients, by employers and employees. And if they’re not, we best begin to look elsewhere. We will be far more fulfilled living a life that allows for a full integration of who we are and what we do, than to view each half of life as being in conflict with the other.
Work and life need not be at odds with one another. Finding the right mix of the two can be about more than merely avoiding having too many eggs in one basket. If we think of our experience as a synthesis between both work and life, each of the two can be more rewarding, and the overall whole can come to be greater than the sum of its parts.