THE ART OF BUILDING TRUST
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THE ART OF BUILDING TRUST
Parashat Miketz
Covidland is a place where fear, doubt, insecurity are rampant. People trust less political leaders, governments, news, leaders of medicine, disease experts, the FDA. The invention of the vaccine is only half the solution. The other half of the solution is to invent the people’s trust. We need a majority of the people taking the vaccine to get Planet Earth back to normal.
Trust is the secret weapon behind branding, marketing, and advertising. The competitor who builds the most trust, wins. This is because people do business with people they know, like and trust. In marketing, offering value is only half of the solution of making a sale. No matter what you are selling, it is hard to sell, in general. It is even harder to sell services, harder during times like Covid, and still harder when selling on line. Your net sales will be based on the amount of trust you and your brand have earned.
Building the trust muscle in what you are marketing and in your relationships takes patience, skill and giving in. People follow people they know, like and trust. Rabbis and mentors want to make a spiritual influence, religious parents want their families to follow in their footsteps. It is not enough to try to help people change by showing them the truth, or showing them and proving that you discovered a better way. You need to build trust, to connect with the emotion, if you want to help people change. If you want your daughter to dress with modesty, even when she is alone with her friends, you need her to trust you that modesty is the best thing for her, to protect her, physically, spiritually, emotionally. If you want your son to learn, pray, to guard his eyes and spiritually strive, you need to build trust that this lifestyle is in his best interest.
Yosef and Pharaoh wanted to make a change in Egypt. Archeologists found there hundreds, if not thousands, of massive, deep, cementlike walled pits, dating to Yosef’s times. Yosef built these under the tremendous food warehouses, all over Egypt, to be prepared for the 7 years of famine. Yosef and Pharaoh wanted the people to do what seemed insane: to be frugal in the 7 years of plenty, to live לִקְמָצִֽים, eating only handfuls, small rations of food, so that they could survive the 7 years of famine. (Rashi 41;47) To accomplish this task, to pull off this national economic plan, Yosef and Pharaoh would need to build ALOT of trust with the Egyptians. Even though Pharaoh was king, and he enforced this frugality by law, with appointed officials who would go around to peoples’ houses collecting one fifth of produce. Even Pharaoh could not do whatever he wanted to do, without the approval and trust of his people. As we know, Pharaoh was taken down from his position, when the ministers wanted him to enslave the Jews, and he was not yet ready to do so.
Pharaoh hired Yosef for the job, right out of jail. Yosef never did business before. He had no prior experience in politics. All Yosef proved was that he knew how to translate dreams, he knew 71 languages, and had G-d with him. Wouldn’t it be the right thing to hire a politician from Capitol Hill, or at least someone with an MBA? Why did Pharaoh trust Yosef? He trusted Yosef with the job, because Yosef had mastered being an אִ֖ישׁ נָב֣וֹן וְחָכָ֑ם, a man who sees into the future, who has a long-term perspective and knows how to live the present with the self-discipline needed, who feels, in the actions of the present, the reactions of the future. Something that is more valuable than an MBA, or 50 years’ experience as a Senator. Pharaoh trusted Yosef’s character, even without Yosef’s having experience. Because character builds trust faster than experience or education does. But how did Yosef and Pharaoh gain the trust of the nation? At the outset, the basis for this massive, 14-year plan was just the king’s dream, and the interpretation of a slave with a questionable reputation?!
Step 1: Yosef and Pharaoh needed to clear up Yosef’s record with Potiphar and Potiphar’s wife. This is why it says that Pharaoh first, married Osnat, the adopted daughter of Potiphar. Yosef wanted to marry Osnat, anyway. Osnat, Dina’s daughter from Shechem, threw into Yosef’s chariot the necklace that her grandfather Yaakov had given her for protection. Yosef immediately recognized Yaakov’s handwriting on it. The Torah tells us that Paraoh got involved and gave Osnat to Yosef. Potiphar, now, is titled the Priest of On, probably for clarifying Yosef’s innocence, by giving his adopted daughter to Yosef in marriage. Why was Paraoh getting involved in Yosef’s marital affairs? Because he wanted to clean Yosef’s name, Yosef’s past, first, so that Yosef could gain the trust of the people.
Step 2: The Torah mentions, that Yosef goes out to the people, again and again. He begins to understand the people, what their physical needs are, what their emotional needs are. He goes out to see if Pharaoh’s dream is beginning to materialize, if the years of plenty have begun! Yosef now has evidence, for himself and for the nation, that Paraoh’s dream, and his interpretation, was more than an ordinary dream… It was a prophecy!
Step 3: Yosef not only preaches frugality in years of plenty. He lives it, and he asks Paraoh to live it, as well! יַעֲשֶׂ֣ה פַרְעֹ֔ה וְיַפְקֵ֥ד פְּקִדִ֖ים עַל־הָאָ֑רֶץ וְחִמֵּשׁ֙ אֶת־אֶ֣רֶץ מִצְרַ֔יִם בְּשֶׁ֖בַע שְׁנֵ֥י הַשָּׂבָֽע Pharaoh should do, and he should appoint watchmen over the land, … Why does Yosef first mention that Pharaoh “should do”? Just say, יפקד פרעה, Pharaoh should appoint watchmen!! What should Pharaoh do? Yosef told Pharaoh, that this is not going to work, without Pharaoh, himself, keeping the script, practicing the frugality he preaches.
4: When Yosef eventually supports his siblings and father, he gives his own family the same rations that he gives the simple citizens. לֶ֖חֶם לְפִ֥י הַטָּֽף . Yosef refuses to give his brothers positions of power, when introducing them to Pharaoh.
5: ה֥וּא הַמַּשְׁבִּ֖יר The words Hamashbir, also means, Masbir, as in Beseber Panim Yafot. Yosef would not only sell the food. He would also cheer up the people, and give them great service. Also, Yosef, himself, sold all the food. There were no middlemen, places where the money can get lost.וַיָּבֵ֥א יוֹסֵ֛ף אֶת־הַכֶּ֖סֶף בֵּ֥יתָה פַרְעֹֽה Nothing went into Yosef’s pocket. Everything went to the Egyptian treasury. You could never bribe Yosef.
- After Yosef succeeded running Egypt with a strict frugality in the first 7 years of plenty, he built a trust system to prevent panic and insecurity in times of famine. He opened all the warehouses, for everyone to see that there was no shortage. וַיִּפְתַּ֨ח יוֹסֵ֜ף אֶֽת־כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֤ר בָּהֶם֙ No hoarding: You could not enter or leave Egypt with more than one donkey per person. A slave or a man who was not financially independent was not allowed in to Egypt, so that new immigrants would not fall on Egypt’s support system. Yosef invented the passport system, and every person who entered needed to prove his identity, his father’s, and grandfather’s. This way, Yosef protected Egypt from black markets, and built transparency on the amount of international buyers, and their whereabouts.
There is a Chanuka joke. What present do you give someone who has everything? A burglar alarm! You could have everything, but if you don’t feel safe or secure, you don’t feel like you have anything. Yosef knew that for people to actualize their potential, to function, people need feelings of safety and security. The Talmud tells us that all the signs of Mashiach’s arriving sum up in one question. Who do we have anything at all to rely on? On our Father in Heaven. (Sotah 49b) But people don’t rely on G-d and don’t feel safe. People have traumas, because they went through times that they were insecure, unprotected, unsafe, and alone. But if we learn to trust G-d, that He is our Father in Heaven, protecting us, loving us, we can actually bring the Mashiach!
Ever wonder why Yosef’s brothers sold him as a slave, and specifically to Egypt? Egypt had two laws. 1. A slave can never become king. 2. An Egyptian slave can never leave Egypt. Yosef’s brothers were making sure that Yosef’s dreams, that they would bow to him, would never, ever, come true. But as we say in Hallel, that it is better to trust in G-d, than trusting in any other source of protection. ט֗וֹב לַחֲס֥וֹת בַּיקֹוָ֑ק מִ֝בְּטֹ֗חַ בָּאָדָֽם… מִ֝בְּטֹ֗חַ בִּנְדִיבִֽים: Because G-d helps us, sometimes, through the people who were out to hurt us. You were/are never alone.
IN LOVING MEMORY OF
Natan ben Rahel; 8 Tebet
