And joseph said to his

brothers:

 i am joseph.

Is my father still alive?

But his brothers could not answer himm,

For they were confounded in

his presence.

(Bereishit 45:3)

For they were confounded in his presence. This

confusion contained both amazement and fear, for he said: 'I am Joseph' and

they feared revenge, for it was as if he had said: 'Can my father still be

alive after all his tribulations?'

(Malbim, Breishit

45:3)

Is my

father still alive? He asked them this, because he thought that perhaps

what they had told him until now, that their father would die from sorrow, was so

they might achieve their goal of freeing Benjamin, and

that actually he was already dead, and he wanted to determine the truth (Ralbag). And it may be that the prefix 'heh'

is the 'heh' which expresses wonder – "Is it

possible that my father is still alive after suffering all these troubles?!"

They were

dismayed – The author of Haketab VeHakabbalah, recalling that in an earlier case of fearful

revelation – Yitzchak discovering that Yaakov had deceived him – the verb 'vayechrad' ['was seized with a great

trembling] was employed, whereas the brothers 'nivhalu'

– "were confounded". The difference between the two is as follows: 'Nivhalu" describes confusion resulting from unexpected

developments; "vayechrad" connotes fearful

concern without panic.

(Haketab VeHakabbalah,

loc. cit).

Is my

father still alive? – Yehudah's closing words

frightened Joseph' s imagination, and it seemed to him

that his father was in danger. Therefore he cried out: "Is my father still

alive? –  even

though they had already told him that he was alive (Hacorem – Naftali Hertz Homberg).

(Shadal ibid.,

ibid.)

Finally facing the truth

Yoel Kretzmer-Raziel

Yehudah's decision to approach Joseph brings

to its climax one of the central motifs of the Book of Bereishit

–  fraternal

confrontation. These charged confrontations are played on two grids: the

national grid, as part of the construction of the founding narrative of the

Children of Israel, and the inter-personnel universal grid upon which the Book

of Bereishit serves as a testing ground for

relationships between brothers and as a lookout point over human society.

The trauma of Abel's murder by Cain accompanies the stories of brothers

in the Book. The confrontations are resolved by separation, expulsion, and

escape, in order to avoid repetition of Abel's sad end. In these stories,

following the rifts, the brother's meeting anew – to the extent where they do

occur – is marked by haste and avoidance of confrontation. Yitzhak and Yishmael, Yaakov and Esav, meet

briefly at the burial of their respective fathers, the Torah leaving it to our

imaginations to reconstruct their interactions. We expect violent confrontation

at Esav and Yaakov's dramatic meeting at Mahanayim, but the Torah surprises us with its absence. Our

Sages filled in these lacunae with scenes of dramatic confrontation. But

plainly read, the story of Yaakov and Esav ends with

evasion and cutting off contact.

Our parasha brings to the boiling point the

last brother story in the Book. Yehudah is unaware of

the identity of the person before him, but the informed reader finds himself

excited and expecting a psychological and verbal battle. Unlike his

predecessors, Yehudah accepts the challenge and takes

responsibility. Rabbi Yehudah understood this (Bereishit Rabba 93): 'And Yehuda approached him. . .

approached him to do battle', Yehudah's tactic

differed from that of his father who hoped that gifts and sycophancy would

penetrate Esav's heart. Yehudah

based his plea on two points: his father's sorrow and his own willingness to

sacrifice himself. Yehudah knows that the past cannot

be changed, but that he can influence the future by choosing the path which was

not taken at a similar crossroad in the past. Yehudah's

clever battle is not only against Joseph – it is against himself, against his

past, against the unhealed sore of the betrayal of Joseph. His declaration "For

your servant became pledge for the lad . . . and so, let your servant, pray,

stay instead of the lad" scatters the cloud from above Yehudah's

head and signals Joseph that it is time to end his self-restraint.

In the perspective of the Book of Bereishit,

the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers is a real innovation. Shem, Ham

and Yefet went each to a different continent; Abraham

and Lot separated to different regions in the Land of Canaan;

Yitzchak and Yishmael are distinguished from each

other by class and geography; Yaakov evades familial relations with Esav, preferring the region where his father lived rather

to going to Seir. Joseph and his brothers, on the

other hand, are reunited. The emotional reconciliation is not truncated, as in

the Yaakov-Esav story; the hitherto alienated

brothers march together to a shared future.

Seen as part of the national narrative, this story completes the

process of the formation of the distinctive group. The sequence of divisions

and separations comes to an end with the union which makes possible definition

of a group with inner cohesion.

On a literal level (p'shat), however,

the story is primarily a personal one. Yehudah's

arguments, his willingness to pay the price and the human pain discerned in his

words have universal value, above and beyond their place in the collective

narrative. Joseph, from personal experience and from past history knows how

terrible fraternal strife can be. He stops the show nanoseconds before explosion.

He, too, could have avoided confrontation, taken Yehudah

for a slave, and freed Benjamin. But his desire to rise above the past and

establish a new future, after seeing similar preparedness on the part of his

older brother, allows him to compose a new dénouement to the narrative.

Yehudah's speech and Joseph's response endow

us with the importance of the interpersonal ability to identify that point in

time at which relations between people are on the verge of the critical test – for

better or for worse. Yehudah and Joseph symbolize,

for their brothers and for generations of readers, the decision to step bravely

into the future and, at the moment of truth, to take the right step.

Yoel Kretzmer-Raziel, a member

of Kibbutz Ein Tsurim, teaches

in the Yaakov Herzog Center

for Jewish Studies and other institutions. He is doctoral candidate in Talmud

at Ben-Gurion University.

Words that Come from

the Heart Enter the Heart – the Art of Diplomacy

A gentle response allays wrath; a harsh word provokes

anger (Proverbs 15:1): King

Solomon teaches in this verse that a person must train his soul and habituate

his nature and tongue to offer gentle response, for a gentle

response calms and sets aside the wrath of

the angry, while harsh words – which are the opposite of gentle – give rise

to anger and wrath.

(Rabbeinu Behayey on Parashat Vayigash)

Yehuda's

Pacifying Toughness

"My lord asked his

servant saying" – Know that you libel us; how many nations came here

to purchase food – did you interrogate them as you did us? Were we seeking your

daughter, are you requesting our sister? "And we said to my lord

etc." – Can it be that a person like Yehuda

should assert something which is not clear to him – "And his brother is

dead"? But this is what Yehuda said: If I

tell him that Yosef is alive, he will order me "Bring

him to me" as he did

regarding Benyamin so therefore he said "And his brother is dead." Said Rav

Hiyyah bar Abba: All that you read from Yehuda's speech until "Yosef

could no longer restrain himself" contains

words of pacification for Yosef, pacification for

Benyamin, pacification for his brothers. Pacification for Yosef:

Note how he sacrificed himself for Rachel's children. Pacification for his

brothers: See how he sacrificed himself for his brothers. Pacification

for Benyamin; just as I offered my life for your brothers, so do I offer it for

yours.

(Yalkut Shimoni, Bereishit 44, 151)

His heart failed, their father Jacob's spirit came to life:  The Connection Between Body

and Soul

His heart failed – His

heart stopped beating and his breathing ceased, for cardiac activity stopped

and he was as dead. This is a known phenomenon resulting from sudden joy.

Medical texts state that the aged and weak may not be able to withstand this;

many faint at the sudden reception of good tidings; the heart suddenly expands

and opens, and the warmed blood goes out and spreads throughout the external

portions of the body, and as a result of its cooling, the heart ceases. The old

man fell as if dead, and he said that he believed them not, informing us that

he stood a good part of the day, and he lies in silence because he did not

believe them, for he knew that this fainting would lead to their shouting at

him, accustoming him to this joy until it is absorbed in calm. This is the

reason that they spoke to him

etc. – they were shouting

Joseph's words into his ears, and bringing the wagons before him, and then his

spirit returned to him, and his breathing was restored, and he lived, and this

is the meaning of their

father Jacob's spirit came to life.

(RaMBaN, Bereishit 45:26)

A

Moral Leader takes Communal Needs into Account and Distributes Resources Justly

Bread,

according to the number of infants (Bereishit 47:12): Even though he could

have given them a lot of food, he gave them only what they needed. As the Sages

said: "When the public is suffering, one should not say: 'I shall go, I

shall eat and drink, and all will be well with me'" (Ta'anit 11a).

(Seforno on Bereishit 47:12)

Who is

Courageous? He Who Makes a Friend of his Enemy

Rabbi Shimon

said: The firmament is made entirely of water and the angels entirely of fire

extinguish the fire, nor does fire burn the water. Judah and Joseph; this is a

lion, the other an ox. Yesterday they gored each other, and now one is sent as

an emissary to the other, as it says: And he sent Judah before

him. [Therefore,] say: He makes peace in His heights.

(Midrash Tanhumah

VaYigash 6)

"He flung himself upon his neck and wept upon his

and why?

Yosef wept; Yaakov did not weep. Yosef could still weep, Yaakov was

finished with weeping, because he had wept enough in his life. Yosef was still weeping even after Yaakov had already

spoken to him – in such small points the actual truth is mirrored. Since he had

missed Yosef, Yaakov had had a dull monotonous life,

had not ceased from weeping, his whole life of feelings had been spent in grief

over Yosef. In the meantime, Yosef

had lived a life full of changes, had had no time to give himself up so much to

the pain of separation, he was fully occupied with each of his different posts.

Now when he fell round his father's neck again, he felt all the more what the

separation had really meant to him, and lived once again through the past

twenty years. Yaakov had already become Yisrael; Yosef still wept.

(Rabbi Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, 46:29)

And

days of the years of the lives of my forefathers in the days of their sojournings."

(Bereishit 47:9)

The

days of the years of my sojournings –

the years of my sojourning, for I was always a stranger in the land, and all of

the early saints referred to life in this world as that of a stranger, for

indeed it is not the important thing, it is like a passing shadow compared to

life in the world to come. Thus, David said: I am a sojourner with You (Psalms 39:13). When the people pledged

themselves to the service of the House of God, David said, For we are

in that our life on earth is like a shadow (I

Chronicles 29:15). This is also proof that these holy people knew about

the survival of the soul, for he who sojourns in another country will

eventually return home.

(Reggio ad. loc.)

For

all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians

When

Pharaoh summons you (Bereishit 46:33): It may be assumed that he called you in order to choose

warriors from amongst you. So, when he asks you "What is your

occupation?" answer him

"your servants are breeders of livestock." It is not proper to speak of

something that is abhorrent in the eyes of the king. God forbid you should explicitly

mention something prohibited by his religion! If this were not so, why did Joseph

not mention another explanation of his own words, but rather he said [all shepherds] are abhorrent to

Egyptians… that is precisely the reason why he told them not to say that

they were shepherds. Of course, the king must understand that since you are

breeders of livestock, you certainly must all be shepherds.

(Keli Yakar on Bereishit 46:33)

"On prophecy"

The

haphtarah (reading from the prophets) which goes with the portion of Vayigash is a prophecy of the future: the unification of

Judah and Joseph and the political and spiritual rehabilitation of the united

people after it had split into two separate nations. This prophecy was never

fulfilled. We therefore need to study and discuss the significance of

prophecies of the future, of what appears in the words of the prophets as

foretelling what will happen. Ezekiel said these things after the ten tribes

and Judah

had gone into exile… Hosea and Amos too, who prophesied the destruction of

the Kingdom of Israel,

went on to prophesy that Israel

would return. This didn't happen. And in this instance, it is also impossible

to accept the Midrashic view of prophecies that have

not been fulfilled to this day – that they are prophecies concerning the end of

days, and are destined to be fulfilled. The ten tribes, including those of the

sons of Joseph, were wiped off the face of the earth, apparently not through

being physically exterminated but through spiritual extermination; they

completely assimilated into the peoples among whom they were exiled, and there

is no trace of them in historical reality. In the Talmudic period, R. Akiva, who knew the prophecies about the return of the ten

tribes as well as we do, said: "The ten tribes are not destined to

return." He knew they were lost. His faith in the true and righteous

prophets was not undermined by this, because we understand that their words do

not tell us what will happen, but present the purpose and the point of what

will happen, and what should happen, which we ought to look forward to and

strive towards, even if no guarantee is given that it will come about… it

says in the Tosaphot: "A prophet only prophesies

about what ought to happen, if there is no sin." The false prophets down

the generations have preached belief in the certainty of an unconditional

redemption; in redemption even if man does not redeem himself from sin.

(From the late Professor Yeshyahu

Leibovitz's "Remarks on the Weekly

Readings")

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