Parshas Vayeishev: Bais HaLevi - Your Wallet Takes a Bow
After hearing Yosef's first dream how the brothers' bushels of wheat bowed to Yosef's bushel, the pasuk says that the brothers hated him. After the second dream where the stars which represented the brothers, bowed to the sun which was Yosef, it says that they became jealous of him. What was the difference?
The Bais HaLevi explains that a person's wealth does not make him a better person than the poor man, it merely makes him richer. There is an expression, says the Bais HaLevi, where the poor man tells the rich man, "My bank account is humbled by your bank account and my wallet by your wallet, but I am not humbled by you." The first dream was about wealth represented by wheat. Yosef prophesized that he would support the Shevatim who would come to him for food. The Shevatim did not bow down to Yosef only their bushels did. They were not jealous, only hateful about the idea.
The stars and the constellation represent spirituality and the underpinnings of the world. When they heard that Yosef will be the spiritual center and they would be satellites in his orbit, only then did they become jealous. Spirtuality is the essence of a person and determines who he really is.
Rav Dov Yaffa tells a story that illustrates this point. A man once came to Rav Aharon Leib Steinman at the insistence of his wife who was worried that if they bought a new luxury car he would be the envy of his neighbors. Rav Aharon Leib asked him, "Have you mastered all of Shas yet?" "No" replied the man. "If so" said Rav Aharon Leib, "what is there to be jealous of?"
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