How Five Great Biblical Heroes Transcended Themselves:
[Abraham (Avraham), Isaac (Yitschak), Jacob (Yakov), Joseph (Yosef), Moses (Moshe Rabbenu)]

Rather than acting on our instincts as would lower beings, or simply repressing them, we can act as higher beings by channeling our instincts towards the good. This is however the lower end of high-level action. At the highest levels we are perhaps challenged to totally overcome our nature for higher purposes.

Avraham’s culture was known for hospitality to travelers; Avraham was the symbol of chesed, not simply waiting for guests to arrive, but actually running out to them to offer water. He was asked therefore to do the complete opposite, to cast his wife Hagar and son Ishmael in to the desert without water, an act that must have humiliated him to all neighboring peoples. He longed for a son and the elder son has a privileged place in that society, and he cast him out instead. He was given a son to continue his heritage and was expected to kill him. He was campaigning to bring people close to God, away from paganism, and was asked to perform the abomination of child sacrifice. He wanted to be a man of chesed, reaching out to others, and instead he had to wage wars against them. He wanted to be close to God, and was asked for the ultimate self-sacrifice: to do the act (bringing Isaac to be sacrificed) after which there is no record of  communication between him and God.

Yitschak: was the brother who was favored over the other, Yishmael, who was cast out, with an eternal enmity of Yishmael’s family to Yitchak as a result, through no fault of Yitscahk himself. He wanted nothing better than to enfranchise his own son Esav, to ensure that Esav felt close, and wanted to give him the blessings to strengthen him in his way. He could see the positive in Esav, and blind himself to the negative, his strength was this blindness, the love for the one who was so different than him. But he was forced to cause Esav the ultimate anguish and alienation, and to see his two sons locked in eternal enmity as a result, just as he and his brother.

Yakov was “a simple man, a man of the tent” (to sit in the tent = to study Torah). He had to be a liar and cheat all his life: to connive against his brother at the behest of his mother, who was following God’s message to her to ensure that the blessings would go to Yakov not Esav), and to deal with the cheating Lavan.

Yosef started as a vain and arrogant boy, tattling on his brothers. And when he received dreams which he felt were prophetic, he didn’t involve God at all. At the end he changed and was operating at the highest level. His total focus on matters at this high level was usually interpreted as arrogance by those around him. Paradoxically it was the two Egyptians, the jailer who elevated him and later Pharaoh, who did not see him thus. Yosef received dreams which he knew to be prophecy but was totally oblivious to the effect the telling would have on his brothers, he was aware of the higher level, but was arrogant as well. He was also oblivious to the effect his dream interpretation of the minister to be executed would have on that man, but he attributed his power to God. And his chutzpah at telling Pharaoh what to do when all he was asked was to interpret is an act that should have earned him execution. And Pharaoh could easily have suspected Yosef of ambitions to overthrow him. But Pharaoh also operated at the highest level and recognized Yosef as a peer in this sense and knew he was not a threat, not a man after power or wealth or fame, simply a man above others, operating at that level, uninterested in vanities of power and wealth. The brothers at the end still did not “recognize Yosef”: he told them that he could not harm them for their deeds since he could not hold them responsible for those deeds since these were not their own actions but rather God acting through them to place him in his pre-destined role of savior of the world [45:5-8 , 50:19-21]: a supreme arrogance to those operating at the usual human level, but an indication of his superior level to those capable of recognizing this.

Moshe was the most humble of men, and was asked to be a powerful leader. He wanted nothing better than to give honor to his older brother, but was asked, even forced, to assume the role of his brother’s leader and authority. He wanted nothing more than to enter into the Land, towards which he had faithfully led the Jewish People for 40 years, and was denied this, he had to accept dying just before his people would enter.