Heed the Vayeishev Warning
Midrash P'li'a: G-d said (to the people of Israel), you sold Yosef! (I swear by) your lives that you will say, every year, We were slaves to Par'o in Egypt.
A simple but powerful reminder of how serious the situation was (is!) that brothers' jealousy for their brother, and his perceived boasting to them could combine into HATRED among brothers, and that hatred could lead to thoughts of murder (fratricide) and to deeds of a callous sale into slavery, followed by terrible deceit of one's own father. This is what you can do to your brother?! Then you will all be slaves, and your children and children's children will remember the bitterness of that slavery for all generations. (And hopefully, they will also remember the cause of that slavery, and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT.)

And especially with the recognition of the sad and sober fact of Jewish Life, that "Eisav hates Yaakov". You, dear brothers (and sisters) of Israel, have so many problems that come from the Eisavs of this world, you cannot afford the terrible results of brotherly hatred. This is the message of Parshat Vayeishev, and this is a message of Chanuka and of Jewish History.

Openly, we tell ourselves the story of Greek oppression and of the glorious and miraculous victory of the few against the many and the weak against the mighty warriors.

What we don't like to talk about is the bitter civil strife within the Jewish community between the Hellenized Jews and the Jews who tenaciously kept faith with Torah and Tradition.

We "like" the stories of the clashes between Yaakov and Lavan and the tension between Yaakov and Eisav, but it pains us (or at least it should pain us) to read about what happened between Yosef and his brothers. Vayeishev is a hard sedra for us, and the haftara carries the hard words of the G-d's reproach via the Navi Amos.

We talk about the destruction of the Beit HaMikdash at the hands of the Romans, descendants of Eisav, but we squirm (or should) with the idea that it was "gratuitous hatred" (sin'at chinam) of Jew against Jew that was the CAUSE of that devastating destruction, and the exile that followed, and in which we still suffer these many years later.

This past week, we suffered a series of terrible blows from our history's most recent Eisav-type. We pray to G-d that He will guide our leaders in the proper course of action and decisions that will best handle the situation of our enemies from the outside. We must take the Vayeishev message to heart and (also with G-d's help) work hard at becoming the one Nation with one Torah and one Land that will merit peace, security, and prosperity.