Parshas Vayigash
Uneasy Questions
Volume 3 Issue 11
In most surprising ending in a Biblical saga, 11 men stood before
their youngest brother, Yoseph, humiliated and threatened. Yoseph,
in his role as viceroy of Egypt, had incarcerated Binyamin and
left his siblings fighting him for his release. Otherwise, they
would have to answer an aging father who would certainly die if
Binyamin would not come home. They pleaded, begged and cajoled
-- then they threatened to go to war over Binyamin. Yoseph is
impressed.
Suddenly he reveals himself as the brother they had sold to slavery
22 years ago.
"I am Yoseph," he declares. "Is my father still
alive?" The brothers stood in shock and disbelief.
Many commentaries ask why Yoseph asked a question when he knew
the answer. His brothers spoke all along about their father and
the anguish he would sustain lest Binyamin not be returned to
him.
What message was Yoseph sending?
A man walked into the office of Rabbi Yoel Teitelbaum in the
Williamsburg section of Brooklyn with tears flowing down his
cheeks. "Rebbe," he pleaded, "I need your
help. I have no means of supporting my family, and my wife has
gone into severe depression as the doctors suspect one of our
children may have leukemia. I am at the verge of bankruptcy and
only despair looms on the horizon."
The Rebbe's sympathy was obvious. Quickly he took all
the money that he had in his desk and then summoned his sexton.
"Have you any cash on you?" the Rebbe asked.
"I need whatever you can spare to help a Jew in trouble."
The gabbai (sexton) responded to his mentor's request
and handed the sum of nearly $2,000 to the Rebbe.
After the indigent man left the house the Gabbai innocently
asked the Rebbe, "That was not for the man who just
left here -- or was it?"
"Surely," exclaimed the Rebbe. He has nine
children, including one who may be very ill. His wife is on the
verge of a breakdown and he is in a state of despair."
"Despair?" exclaimed the sexton. "Nine children?
That man has two kids, a wife who shops nicely on the Avenue and
makes a modest living. Things may be a little tight -- but he's
not at all desperate!
"You mean his wife is not ill?"
"No!"
"His child is not ill?"
"No!"
He is not even going bankrupt?"
"By no means!"
"Wonderful," the Rebbe smiled, "I could
not bear to hear the pain of such terrible news. How good is it
to hear that one less Jew is suffering." The next day the
Rebbe called in his Gabbai and returned the $2,000
he had borrowed from him.
In revealing himself to his brothers, Yoseph had choice words
to tell them. He could have chided them, taunted them and called
their misdeeds upon them. He didn't. All he wanted to know is,
"How is father feeling? Is it really true that he survived
the tragedy of my sale? Is he still able to come see me?"
Often when we are wronged we have opportunities to harp on the
conduct of those who harmed us. In his opening revelation Yoseph
didn't. He picked up the pieces. He did not choose to discuss
the past deeds that were dead and gone. He just wanted to speak
about the future, his father, and his destiny.
Good Shabbos ©1996 Rabbi Mordecai Kamenetzky
Text Copyright © 1996 by Rabbi M. Kamenetzky
and Project Genesis, Inc.
The author is the Associate Dean of the
Yeshiva of South Shore.
Drasha is the e-mail edition of FaxHomily, a weekly torah
facsimile on the weekly portion
which is sponsored by The Henry and Myrtle Hirsch Foundation
