“When the alarm clock rings and you turn it off in order to continue to sleep, the clock is your boss and you are not the boss of your clock.” So said Kenny Rosenberg, controlling shareholder of El Al, at a company event.

“When you see a chocolate cookie on the table and don't want to eat it but in the end you do – the cookie is your boss, and you are not the boss of it.

We are presently reading in the Torah about a different kind of boss, a true leader, Yosef HaTzadik. Even when sold as a slave, even when incarcerated in a prison, he is always the boss of himself as he exerts self-control in all his actions. His values guide him and neither the alarm clock, nor the cookie, nor any sort of desire, however powerful, leads him astray. He therefore merits to rise to greatness as a true leader.

In contrast to Yosef we see Pharaoh, an inauthentic leader who rules over Egypt but cannot rule over himself. Notice that the two government officials who appear on the scene are the chief cupbearer and the chief baker. This is symbolic. The Torah does not tell us about Pharaoh's secretary of state or secretary of the treasury, but rather about the two officials who were most important to him: those in charge of his food and drink.

I hope that the leadership displayed by Yosef can inspire us to rule over ourselves in the proper way, whether the matter at hand is a business deal, a chocolate cookie, or any other challenge that tests our values and capacity for self-control.”