Yosef's Strategy: Family, Not Dreams

Parshat Miketz

by Rabbi Avi Billet

There are many ways to analyze Yosef's strategy with his brothers – what was his intent, his plan, and his goal in having them go through all the "tzurres" he gave them over their younger brother and their father. The superlatives run from "cruel" to "brilliant" and from "vindictive" to "well thought out."

            

Ramban justifies all the suffering Yosef causes his father saying Binyamin needed to come without Yaakov for the first dream to be fulfilled.

But I don't understand the need for it at all. Yosef had two dreams – the first that "We were working in a field" when their bundles bowed to Yosef's bundle. He did not specify how many bundles bowed. The second dream was that the sun, moon and eleven stars bowed to Yosef.

            

As soon as his ten brothers come in, they bow. Yosef sees them and recognizes them. (42:6-7) It seems to me that the first dream has been fulfilled! There was never any indication that Binyamin's bowing is a necessity for the fulfillment of the dream! Furthermore, if the dream was like a prophesy, why would Yosef need to do anything to align things to happen the way he saw in his dream? God will take care of it!

            

If he wants to find out if his father and brother are alive – fine! Then he should ask that, reveal himself, and tell them to bring the family down because there will be a few more years of famine. But he doesn't even do that! He accuses them of being spies! Their response is that they are the sons of one man – therefore, not spies.

            

He repeats an accusation that "You've come to find where the land is exposed!" Rabbi Chaim Paltiel explains Yosef's comment, adding "If you were brothers you might have left someone home! Since you all came, it indicates you plan to attack us!" And their response is that "We are 12 brothers, the youngest is with our father today, and the other one is missing." And Yosef confirms, "This is what I was saying – You are spies!"

            

He never asked about Binyamin – they offered the information to prove their innocence.

            

If dream number one is fulfilled, all that’s needed is for the family to know that Yosef is alive and well, and that he is ruling in Egypt, and that he will take care of them as long as there is a famine – as long as they come down to Egypt. This takes place in 45:26-28.

When they all come down, "the sun, moon and eleven stars" will bow, and Yosef's second dream will be fulfilled. Three chapters in the Torah don't need to happen.

There is a possibility that Yosef wanted to see how his brothers care for Binyamin. But does it really matter? By the time it's all over, Yosef says to his brothers "You did not send me here. God did…" (45:8) This indicates that Yosef is at peace with what happened, because it was meant to happen – it was the only way his dreams could be fulfilled – and he bears no ill will to his brothers. And if they have any problems with Binyamin, who has survived until now (to allow fulfillment of his second dream), they'll have no way to harm him because Yosef will protect him.

I think that all of Yosef's actions have nothing to do with the dreams. Sure, he remembers them, but they are from a bygone era, when he had a different life, when he was a young punk, with no experience, who had dreams of grandeur because of how he was favored by his father.

But those days are long gone. Ramban points out that Yosef never wrote a letter to his father, though he surely could have. Rav Yoel Bin Nun and Rav Yaakov Medan have debated in the pages of Megadim (periodicals of Herzog College in Israel) why Yosef chose the "non-communication" route. The question boils down to what was going through his head.

Once Yosef was in a position to communicate with his family on account of their unknowingly coming to him, all Yosef wanted was Binyamin: innocent Binyamin, his only full brother, the only one he felt he could trust. That was his end goal. When he says in the last verse of the parsha that Binyamin would stay while the rest could "go in peace to your father," he meant every word. How could he know what was coming next – Yehuda's appeal (the longest in the Torah) that made the entire ordeal about Yaakov's health?

When the brothers told Yosef, "We are twelve: one is home and one is missing" they used the word "Ei-neh-nu" (איננו) to describe Yosef's status. The word could mean missing, gone, or dead (see 5:24). Yosef understood it to mean "missing," which indicates no one cared about him in all the years he was gone. But the term, as used (see 37:30, 42:13,32,36, and then in 44:30-34) indicates a deep caring for one who is missing. What changes for Yosef is 44:28, when he hears for the first time that his father thinks he is dead - that Yosef misunderstood the word's meaning when it referred to how his father viewed him.

Was he vindictive? Was he justified? Everyone in the story learns a very profound lesson. The only way to treat family members is through living life with no regrets (42:21-22). Only when the family unit is 100% supportive of one another, and no individual or group ever makes rash decisions or gangs up on another does a family have a chance to survive, thrive, and move mountains.

May we be blessed to have extensive, unified families who do everything to build one another up, with respect and most importantly, with the right emotional support.