Joseph, the Hero’s Journey, and Tested Identity

Our identity as believers comes as a gift from God in Messiah, but this identity is tested and proven through life’s journey. The ancient tale of the Hero’s Journey, reflected in the life of Joseph, sheds light on this process to guide our work as spiritual leaders and parents.

A Life of FavorA Family Therapist

Examines the Story of Joseph and His

Brothers

Rabbi Russ Resnik, MA, LPCC

YourJourneyofaLifetime

And the Lord said to Avram,

לך-לך Go to yourself.

Joseph, the Hero’s Journey, and Tested Identity

“Human experience of identity has two elements: a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.” Salvador Minuchin

The Hero . . .

• Is insignificant or rejected• Is driven from home• Passes into an alien realm• Acquires a mentor or guide• Suffers great trials • Is raised up and transformed • Returns home to save his people

Joseph and the Hero’s Journey

The story of Christ is simply a true myth: myth working on us in the same way as the others, but with this tremendous difference that it really happened: and one must be content to accept it in the same way, remembering that it is God’s myth where the others are men’s myths. C.S. Lewis

Joseph and the Hero’s Journey

True identity will be tested.

“I am not made for perilous quests. I wish I had never seen the Ring! Why did it come to me? Why was I chosen?”

Joseph the Hero . . .

• Is rejected by his brothers • who drive him from home• into a different realm• where he suffers great trials• and is finally raised up• to bring salvation to his family• and realize that God has been with

him throughout.

Joseph the Hero . . .

“Don’t be sad that you sold me into slavery here or angry at yourselves, because it was God who sent me ahead of you to preserve life. . . . God sent me ahead of you to ensure that you will have descendants on earth and to save your lives in a great deliverance. So it was not you who sent me here, but God.”

(45:5, 7–8a CJB)

Joseph, the Hero’s Journey, and Tested Identity

“Human experience of identity has two elements: a sense of belonging and a sense of being separate.” Salvador Minuchin

Differentiation: “the capacity to be an ‘I’ while remaining connected.”

Rabbi Edwin Friedman

Joseph and the Hero’s Journey

1. Stay connected. 2. Define yourself clearly.3. Calmly handle any sabotage that results.

—Rabbi Friedman

4. Foster a climate that honors departure and return.

—Rabbi Resnik

Joseph and the Hero’s Journey

Differentiation is the relative ability of people to guide their own functioning by• thinking clearly• acting on principle• defining self by taking a position

Joseph and the Hero’s Journey

• coming to know more about their own instinctive reactions to others

• learning regulate those reactions • staying in contact with others • choosing a responsible course of action

Joseph and the Hero’s Journey

Differentiation is . . . about balancing two life forces—individuality and togetherness—when interacting with others. Peter L. Steinke, Congregational Leadership

in Anxious Times

Joseph’s Return

The hero’s journey isn’t complete without a return, the “second solemn task” after the journey itself, according to Joseph Campbell.

Joseph’s Return

Yosef said to his brothers, “I am dying. But God will surely remember you and bring you up out of this land to the land which he swore to Avraham, Yitz’chak and Ya‘akov.” Then Yosef took an oath from the sons of Isra’el: “God will surely remember you, and you are to carry my bones up from here.” So Yosef died at the age of 110, and they embalmed him and put him in a coffin in Egypt. (50:24–26, CJB)

Joseph’s Return

Joseph’s heroic journey comes full circle. The journey began as the brothers cast Joseph into a pit and returned home without him. Now, at the end, Joseph will descend into another pit, death itself, confident that his brothers will lift him up and carry him with them as they take their journey home. Joseph dies with his identity fulfilled and his family restored at last.

A Life of FavorA Family Therapist

Examines the Story of Joseph and His

Brothers

Rabbi Russ Resnik, MA, LPCC