Parshat Vayigash
by Rabbi Avi Billet
After one of the most incredible cliffhangers that exist between Torah portions, our parsha opens with arguably the most impassioned plea in all of the Bible – when Yehuda pours out his heart to the man who holds Binyamin’s freedom in the balance.
Don’t be thrown by the Chumash’s chapter break that separates Yehuda’s argument from Yosef’s response. In the Torah itself, the narrative is straight, with no added space, suggesting that perhaps Yehuda was filibustering, hoping that one of his arguments might break the veneer being presented to him.
In other words, I find it hard to believe that Yehuda’s speech ended, and Yosef’s response followed. Yehuda wasn’t done! The narrative interrupts to tell us “Yosef could not hold in his emotions…” but Yehuda did not know that the person to whom he was speaking was Yosef! He was hoping for compassion – for something to penetrate. But he was not expecting the potentate to have an emotional breakdown!
Rabbis Yaakov Medan and Yoel Bin Nun have conceptually argued over the question of why Yosef never wrote a letter to his father. Some of the evidence explaining Yosef’s non-contact is hinged upon what we learn from Yehuda in this speech, about what Yaakov knew, how Yaakov has been in mourning, and what Binyamin means to both Yaakov and the other brothers.
If it’s correct that Yosef interrupted Yehuda’s speech, it is worth going through each of Yehuda’s emotional appeals, and Yosef’s initial reaction, to discover which button pushed Yosef to throw his lot back with the brothers, giving up the game and revealing his true identity.
“And now, when I come to your servant our father, the lad will not be with us. His soul is bound up with [the lad's] soul!”
It’s not clear how much Yaakov’s soul means to Yosef at this point. Yosef will soon say “I am Yosef, is my father still alive?” But many commentaries note the emphasis on “is MY father” – how Yaakov has been portrayed now with respect to Yehuda and Binyamin has been part of the impediment to Yosef caring about his father through this whole ordeal.
“When he sees that the lad is not there, he will die! I will have brought your servant our father's white head down to the grave in misery.”
This argument doesn’t work either. Yosef is not impressed by the way Yehuda will be perceived in perpetuity by his father and the family. Yehuda wasn’t so nice to him in the olden days either.
“Besides, I offered myself to my father as a guarantee for the lad, and I said, 'If I do not bring him back to you, I will have sinned to my father for all time.'”
Again, Yehuda’s place in a world to come is irrelevant to Yosef. This argument carries no weight.
“'So now let me remain as your slave in place of the lad. Let the lad go back with his brothers!’”
Wait a minute. This is something different. Yehuda is offering himself in Binyamin’s place? He is willing to give up his own freedom? He is willing to be the slave he once sold Yosef to be?
“’For how can I go back to my father if the lad is not with me? I cannot bear to see the evil misery that my father would suffer!'”
Yehuda is essentially saying that what happened in the days of Yosef’s disappearance made the plot back in its time into one which had minimal – if any – benefits. Even though when the brothers got rid of Yosef they believed they were doing a justifiable act, the truth is that they lost their father on that day too. He had never gotten over it (or at least moved on – very few people could be expected to “get over” the one-two punch Yaakov received first in losing Rachel, then a short time later losing his first-born from her, the handsome favorite, Yosef), he had never been the same, and now he was at real risk of actually dying from heartbreak – even though his heart has been broken for 22 years.
Yehuda has indeed learned an important life lesson! He was easily able to bear bringing the terrible news of Yosef’s disappaearance to their father. But now, facing round 2, 22 years later, he “cannot bear to see the evil misery” his father would face if Binyamin is also enslaved. He is willing to go so far to replace Binyamin as a slave! What will his life be worth if he has to see that evil misery when he returns home emptyhanded?
This is quite the revelation for Yosef. And so he interrupts Yehuda, because he too can’t bear to see the evil misery. He clears the room, and the verse tells us “Yosef said to his brothers, 'I am Yosef! Is my father still alive?'”
It almost seems a silly question, because he is clearly moved by what his father’s experience will be should Binyamin not return. But we all know he’s not asking if Yaakov is physically alive. He is asking about his father’s relationship with him (Yosef) – how would he handle the news that the son he thought dead is alive?
“When they came closer, he said, 'I am Yosef your brother! You sold me to Egypt…’” Even in this reaction, one has to wonder what Yosef’s tone is. Is he accusing them? Is he stating matter-of-factly that this is what they did? Is he noting the change – you sold me, but you clearly would never sell Binyamin, and that is a blessing to see? Is it a lament – you sold me! How could you?
More than likely it’s a statement loaded with many emotions, impossible to confine to one emotion, and that Yosef is not lamenting, as he says in the very next verse – “Now don't worry or feel guilty because you sold me. Look! God has sent me ahead of you to save lives!”
What is most clear to me in this story is how much people can change over 22 years. Or, perhaps, over any length of time, if the life lessons they come across during that passage of time are heeded.
While commentaries are split on how Yosef as a young man behaved towards his brothers, and even in his efforts to see if they were still doing the same things they were doing 22 years earlier, it is clear from the moment he reveals himself to them that he bears them no ill-will, that he is God-fearing and believes everything done to him was God’s plan, and he is looking forward to supporting them for the rest of their lives (even as he encourages them to continue working!)
Yehuda, having lost two sons and having had the experience of losing a wife and undergoing an embarrassing episode with Tamar, has learned that life is not always candies and chocolates. You can’t just throw away those you don’t like. You have to live with the people in life who are not exactly like you, and you also will have to move on from losses – even those most painful, such as the death of a child and a spouse.
Maybe Yehuda had to go through those losses to understand his father’s eternal mourning for Yosef (though the Torah does indicate clearly that what happened to Er and Onan was of their own making and not specifically a punishment to Yehuda). It seems clear that Yehuda’s losses in chapter 38 molded him into the beginnings of a kind of leadership his older brothers lacked – one which inspires his father to say his tribe will be the tribe of Malchut (kingship) in Israel.
We remain with a simple question to ponder. Yosef tests his brothers to see if they’ve changed and grown up over the course of 22 years. And in the process demonstrates that he has changed and grown up as well.
Do we continue to judge people based on how we knew them 5, 10, 22 (or more!) years ago? Or do we recognize that the life experiences in another person’s life have likely shaped the person into someone we don’t really know? How do we view people we know (or sometimes don’t know, but read about) who have been to prison? Why are certain misdeeds and crimes of the past the way we always look at certain people, even after they’ve done their restitution, paid their debt to society, and – as far as we know (innocent until proven guilty) – are not doing those things anymore?
Yosef tested his brothers and found they were no longer selling sons of Rachel down to Egypt, and were even willing to give up everything to prevent it from happening again! That is penitence – when the opportunity comes and not only does the person not take the bait, but does a 180 reverse in the other direction.
And when we see that, it is time for us to forgive as well, and accept that a person who might not have behaved once upon a time but behaves now is as welcome in our home and community as Yosef felt those who had sold him into slavery were welcome in his palace.
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