In this week’s reading, Yosef (Joseph) reveals himself to his brothers with the simple words "I am Yosef, is my father still alive?"  (Genesis 45:3)   

Commentators point out a degree of harshness in Yosef’s words.  Keli Yakar (Rabbi Ephraim of Luntshitz, 16c.), for example, states that, although Yosef proclaimed I am Yosef, he failed to include the words, "your brother."  

Keli Yakar adds that the brothers also sense that Yosef’s words “is my father still alive?”  contain a rebuke.  Yosef refers to Yaacov (Jacob) as his father, not as the father of his brothers.  He purposely chooses these words to drive home to his brothers, that by selling Yosef, they did not show concern for their father—it was, therefore, as if Yaacov was not the father of his brothers.  

The omission of the words “your brother” and the portrayal of Yaacov as Yosef’s father alone startled his siblings.  In the words of the Torah “and his brothers could not answer him, for they were frightened by his presence.” (Genesis 45:3)  

In the very next sentence, however, Yosef softens his words.  (Genesis 45:4)  There, he repeats, “I am Yosef,” but this time as Keli Yakar notes, he deliberately adds the words “your brother.”   The healing process seems to have started.   

The healing seems to reach another level when Yosef tells his brothers that they should not be upset at having sold him.  God had a deeper plan for Yosef to save Egypt and the world from famine.  In other words, from the evil of the sale, good had come. (Genesis 45:5-7)   As the Yiddish expression teaches, a mensch tracht, un Gut lacht, a person thinks and God laughs.   

Yosef concludes this section by strengthening his comments with the words “and now, it was not you that sent me here, but God.”  (Genesis 45:8)  Hence, Yosef seems to take a middle path.  He’s part conciliatory and part harsh; conciliatory in that he assures his brothers that it was all for the good, and harsh in that the good did not come from them, but from God.   

As Rabbi Zvi Dov Kanotopsky, in his wonderful work, "Night of Watching" writes: "Yosef feels duty-bound to reply that all they have contributed is a transgression.  They are not the senders, but the sellers.  This transgression may not call for despair [as the outcome was good]…but it does call for repentance."       

Having been separated from his brothers for twenty two years, the rendezvous of Yosef and his brothers contains different elements.  Much like any dispute between siblings, the first words uttered by the aggrieved party is laced with contradictions—indicating that the healing process does not occur in an instant, it takes time and patience. 

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Avi Weiss