The central story in Parashat Miketz is the story of Yosef’s release from prison, a place that he was thrown to as a result of the complaints of the wife of his master, Potiphar. Later on in the Parasha, we learn about Yosef’s alienation he has toward his brothers.
This week we learn about many dreams. Yosef is not by himself in prison, and is accompanied by two ministers, שר המשקים and the שר האופים. They both have a dream and they both get an interpretation for it by Yosef.
Paroh also has two dreams which bother him very much. In one he saw seven weak cows swallow seven fat cows, and in the other he saw seven thin ears of grain swallow up seven good ears of grain. In both these dreams, the weak and bad swallows the good and healthy, and the bad stays the same way it was without getting any better. The שר המשקים remembers that there was a young boy in prison that knows how to give good interpretations to dreams, and he recommended him to Paroh.
Paroh brings Yosef out of prison. Yosef not only gives the right interpretation of Paroh's dreams, but also gives Paroh solutions for the foreseen problem the dream warns him about. Paroh was amazed by Yosef's talent and creativity and appoints him to be his viceroy.
Part of the interpretation of the dream was that there was going to be a famine that was going to happen in the future, and indeed, a severe famine hit the entire Middle-East. It caused many people to leave their country and go to Egypt to buy food. Yosef’s brothers also suffered from this hunger and went down to Egypt to buy food. When they met Yosef, Yosef recognized them, but they didn’t recognize him. Yosef blames them for being spies, and after a long negotiation, Yosef sent them back home, with one condition: to bring their youngest brother, Binyamin back with them.
When the brothers return and tell Yaakov this, he hesitates to send Binyamin with them. He is afraid that something will happen to him just as he thought had happened to Yosef. Only once the brothers insisted and Yehudah had promised that he would insure Binyamin’s safety and take full responsibility for him did he allow them to go to Egypt.
The second time the brothers came to visit Yosef, Yosef commanded one of his servants to put a silver cup in Binyamin’s bag, and later on blamed them for stealing it. Many commentators try to explain Yosef’s behavior towards his brothers, but mainly towards his father.
Over twenty years, Yosef did not see his father, and did not even try to contact him in any way. We don’t need to explain how painful it must have been for his father. How unbearable must it have been for him, thinking that his son was eaten like prey for animals. Was Yosef not aware of his fathers grief? Why didn’t he even bother to let someone know that he was still alive.
It’s enough to look at the images of the family of the hostages that were released from Gaza, how they waited and cried for them for those 40 days that they were gone, but 20 years and Yosef didn’t contact his father? The famous answer for this question is that Yosef was still concerned that if he would try to let his father know that he is still alive, the brothers would perhaps find out about it and try to kill him in order to avoid the tremendous embarrassment from their father.
But, even after he had become the viceroy, and there was less of a concern that his brothers would exact their revenge, Yosef didn’t want to embarrass them in front of his father, Yaakov, and grandfather, Yitzchak. Only once they got together again and became friendly with each other was there less embarrassment.
There is another explanation that I would like to share: Yosef was extremely upset with his brothers. The fact that his brothers wanted to kill him, and instead sold him is unforgivable. Yosef asked himself, “Is there really anyway I can be part of this kind of family?” The only way he can get this answer is by testing his brothers. That’s why he asked them to bring Binyamin, to challenge them and see if they would sacrifice themselves for their younger brother.
Once Yosef had seen that they had changed, he was able to reunite with his family. It’s true that the brothers committed a terrible sin towards him, a sin that is very difficult to forgive, but errors in judgement can happen, and the real question now is if his brothers learned something from their misbehavior, and if they are trying to fix their mistake.
Yosef was willing to wait twenty years just to see if he was able to return to his family with sincere love and unity. He wanted to see if reuniting with his family would be a true and sincere relationship with no bad feelings held back between them.
We learn from here that there is always a price to pay for our mistakes, but one shouldn’t focus on the mistake, but should instead focus on how to fix it.
Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Tal