"Is My Father Still Alive?"
A Message for Parashat VaYigash 2017
Click here to view as PDF.
The long-awaited moment had arrived. Yosef had
finally revealed himself to his brothers. As expected, he was met with a
shocked speechlessness and crying. Particularly striking, though, are Yosef’s
words at that time: “I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?” (45:3) His thoughts
and feelings in that instance weren’t driven by a connection to the brothers in
his presence, but by a concern for his absent father, Yaakov.
And Yosef could no longer hold himself in check before all who
stood attendance upon him, and he cried “Clear out everyone around me!” And no
man stood with him when Yosef made himself known to his brothers.
Yosef’s revelation at this juncture was
unplanned. If he had controlled himself better, he would perhaps have sent his
brothers back to Canaan and held Binyamin hostage. This would have caused
Yaakov to descend to Egypt, whereupon he would probably prostrate himself
before Yosef. Yosef’s dream of everyone bowing to him would then be fulfilled.[1]
It appears, however, that it was the thought of his father that broke his
composure.
Yaakov soon caused another shift in Yosef’s
demeanor. The parashah begins with Yehudah’s “approach” (va-yigash)
to Yosef (44:18). It continues with Yosef’s initial demand that his brother’s
“come close” to him (45:4), and then his instructions to “bring down my father
here” (13). It presents the image of Yosef as a strong authority figure who
does not “approach” others, but is instead “approached” by them. Then Yaakov
arrived. “And Yosef harnessed his chariot and went up to meet Yisrael his
father in Goshen” (46:29). Yosef no longer acted as the self-described “lord to
all Egypt” (9), but rather as the average person who must “approach others.”
His immediate action thereafter was again a selfless approach, as he came to
Pharaoh and addressed him on behalf of his family (47:1), and his last
encounter with his father similarly included an important “bringing forward” of
his children (48:10,13). Yosef’s condescending conduct leveled off with the
appearance of his father.
The fact that Yosef’s personality changed
when the thought about his father was perhaps due to the fact that Yaakov
represented a moral conscience to him. The Hakhamim appropriately
captured this reality when they imagined Yosef overcoming an internal struggle
with the wife of Potifar, because “the image of his father’s visage appeared to
him.”[2]
Whenever Yosef thought about his father, his perceptions of self-strength and
superiority subsided.
The moral conscience inherent in Yosef’s
vision of Yaakov may have been the simple reverence of a son to his father.
Perhaps, however, its significance ran deeper than that. Summarizing the
rabbinical commentaries, Louis Ginzberg remarked, “The whole course of the
son’s life is but a repetition of the father’s.”[3]
Tracing the lives of Yaakov and Yosef from their difficult inceptions, to their
rivalry with and deception of brothers, their exile from home – and everything
in between, scholars have long noted a striking parallelism.[4]
This reality must have added an integral dimension of relatability from Yaakov
to Yosef. Yosef found in his father a familiar personality who possessed a
similar history. He saw in Yaakov’s ethical triumph, despite his various
challenges and success, the embodiment of his own moral conscience.
I am Yosef. As he let down his cover
and divulged his true identity to his brothers, Yosef admitted his moral
conscience – Is my father still alive? The image of his father and its
powerful meaning gave the all-powerful Yosef the strength to expose his
weaknesses to his brothers and admit his true identity.
The image and thought of our own “father” –
our moral conscience, must embolden us as well during times of adversity and
doubt. It must give us the strength to stand up and act in accordance with our
beliefs even as it may expose our hidden vulnerabilities.
[1] This was suggested by R.
Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in Vision and Leadership: Reflections on Joseph and Moses (Jersey City, NJ, 2013), pg. 40. It follows the general theory of
Nahmanides (42:9), that Yosef was driven in much of his actions by the pursuit
of a fulfillment of his childhood dreams.
[2] See Rashi’s Commentary to 39:11 (s.v. la’asot).
[3] Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews vol. 2 (Philadelphia, PA, 2003), pg. 4.
[4] See, e.g., Aaron
Wildavsky, Assimilation versus Separation: Joseph the Administrator and the Politics of Religion in Biblical Israel (New Brunswick, NJ, 2002), pg.
111-12, and the sources cited in fn. 42.