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VAYIGASH

Yehuda confronts Yosef regarding all of the false accusations he has piled on to his brothers. Both Yosef and Yehuda have right on their side. Yehuda is certainly correct in sensing that Yosef has a personal agenda of animosity towards him and his brothers that has expressed itself in all of the false accusations that he has leveled against them. Yosef is justified in his behavior towards his brothers in order to bring them to the realization of the terrible sin they committed against him and Yaakov when they sold him as a slave and covered up the event for over twenty years.

Both Yehuda and Yosef are strong personalities, each convinced in the rectitude of one’s cause and opposition. Yosef has the upper hand since the brothers are under his jurisdiction and arrest. Yet Yosef is weakened by the knowledge that these are his brothers and that any act of revenge that he may take upon them may at the end rebound negatively to him and his family. This knowledge of the difficulty and ambivalence of the situation is the reason for his weeping and finally, of his revealing himself as their long lost brother.

His pursuit of ultimate justice and full repentance of the brothers appears to be too dangerous a course to pursue further. The unity of the family, the knowledge of the grief of his father and his compounding of that grief by his behavior towards the brothers until now, finally takes precedence over the strict justice that he apparently intended to inflict upon them. Sometimes truly, discretion is the better part of valor.

Yehuda and all of the brothers are shocked and dismayed, speechless in fright and shame, at the revelation of Yosef to them. They realize that they were wrong in discounting his dreams and in taking such a drastic step as to remove him from their immediate family. Yet the tear between Yosef and his brothers lingers and will reawaken itself after the death of Yaakov.

Even later in Jewish history when the kingdom of Solomon splits into two it is Yehuda and Yosef that still confront each other. Each then also has right on its side but that division turns into disaster for the Jewish people and its sovereignty in the Land of Israel. There are many times in life when pushing right and justice to the limit can have very negative consequences in the long run of events.

Yosef’s revelation to his brothers before he exacted a full measure of justice from them allowed the family to reunite, albeit with tensions and past wrongs not fully resolved. This course of behavior is analogous to the idea of the Talmud that there are many times that a person must behave l’fnim meshurat hadin – in a fashion that is beyond the demands of justice alone. The behavior of both Yosef and Yehuda in this confrontation and its resolution for the benefit of family unity testifies to their wisdom and holiness in a most dangerous and volatile situation.

Shabat shalom

Rabbi Berel Wein