Parshat Vayigash On Yosef’s revelation to his brothers

Then Yosef could not contain himself before all those who stood by him; and he cried, “Cause every man to go out from me.” And there stood no man with him, while Yosef made himself known to his brothers. (Bereishit 45:1)
Rabbi Ari Kahn comments: ‘The text does not simply state that Yosef could not control or contain himself, but that he could not contain himself “before all those who stood by him.” What does this additional clause mean? To whom does it refer, and what did these “significant others” have to do with Yosef’s discomfort? Perhaps, as Rashi suggests, Yosef could no longer bear his brothers’ humiliation, and he ordered all of the attending members of court to leave the room.(1) Perhaps, as the Rambam suggests, Yosef’s motives were less compassionate: He wanted to keep the story of their treachery quiet, either out of concern for their reputation – or for fear of how their shared history might reflect upon him.(2) Yet the very next verse seems to contradict these suggestions, for in what seems to be an outburst of emotion Yosef cried out, and his cries were heard by all of Egypt. And he wept aloud; and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard. (Bereishit 45:2)’  Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk offers an explanation that is both simple and chilling: Yosef had one only thing in mind; he pursued one goal, and that is why he overcame his compassion time after time. His ultimate goal was to bring about the fruition of the dreams of which he spoke to his brothers and his father. This would require that his father be brought before him to pay obeisance to the viceroy of Egypt.This approach paints Yosef as remarkably self-serving, claiming that Yosef was motivated by a single-minded, self- centered desire to bring about the fulfillment of his own dreams. Rabbi Kahn continues: ‘The sale of Yosef, then, was seen by Yosef on a different plane than it was by the brothers. Yosef saw the sale in terms of Jewish history, and it is on these terms that he attempts to console his brothers when he finally reveals himself to them. From the brothers’ perspective, the crime itself, an act of perfidy committed against an individual, was only the superficial level of the sale. Even on this level there is another aspect to the sale. The brothers’ underlying attitude is unmasked when they sell him: Yosef is not part of the family. It is surely no coincidence that Yosef is sold to “Yishmaelim” and perhaps Midianites; both of these tribes are descendants of sons of Avraham who had been rejected, dispossessed from the Covenant. In some warped way, the brothers, for their part, may have seen this as Divine Providence…As we have already seen, Yosef invoked God, and broke down in tears. He needed to regain his composure. The brothers admit their guilt, coming to realize their personal responsibility for the atrocity they committed against their younger brother. But this did not satisfy Yosef. He sought to correct a deeper stratum, a more profound aspect of the sin. Whereas the brothers had begun to see their guilt on a personal level, they had not yet come to understand the sin in national terms. They had “gotten rid of” their annoying brother, and they now regretted it. But they did not yet understand that they had disrupted the foundations of the Jewish People, of the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Yosef’s goal was to bring them to this level of understanding, and his purpose was two-fold: Not only did Yosef aim to solidify the foundations of the unity of the nation, he hoped to expedite the realization of God’s Covenant with Avraham…As the Midrash (and the verses, less explicitly) indicate, Yosef fails: the brothers cannot recognize him. In their narrative, he is gone – dead, part of their past but not part of their future. His slavery is not the beginning of their slavery; it remains an independent, tragic chapter in Jewish history, whose reverberations are still felt today, every time one Jew mistreats another. Conversely, when we feel mutual responsibility, when we take care of one another, we imbue all of Jewish history, all Jewish suffering, with meaning and purpose, and we bring the redemption that much closer.’
Prepared by Devorah Abenhaim