The ninth portion of Torah may leave you shaking your head from time to time, wondering how it is that families can get it so very wrong, choosing betrayal instead of love, cruelty instead of compassion, and lust instead of honour. Joseph will fall into a pit, then into Egypt and then into a cell; Judah teaches us why integrity maters, by failing himself, yet having the grace to acknowldge as much; and let's just say, you wouldn't want to be Pharoah's cupbearer. In fact, the idea of human flaw is something that marks Judaism out as being utterly unique. As the late Rabbi Jonathon Sacks observed, Torah is the only reliigous masthead to ever exist in which its characters are so flawed and so in need of divine guidance. But then again, this is also what make Torah such an extraordinary gift from G-d - meeting us where we are, teaching us what we need to learn, and accepting us for who we are. That central idea runs right through this fasconating Parasha.