Welcome to The Morning Scroll! I'm Rabbi Deena Cowans from Mishkan Chicago and you're listening to what will be a quick dive into this week's parsha. If you’ve been meaning to brush up on your Jewish literacy, or you’re looking for some inspiration, you’ve come to the right place. This week, we read Parashat Vayigash, “And he approached”. We’ll start with a brief recap:
Picking up on last weeks cliffhanger, when Joseph wanted to hold Benjamin as a slave, Judah begs Joseph to let Benjamin go, telling Joseph that Jacob would be distraught to lose the son of his favorite wife. Judah offers to stay as a slave in Benjamin’s place, at which point Joseph breaks down, sends all the Egyptians out of the room, and reveals his identity to his brothers. He tells the brothers not to sweat the whole selling him into slavery thing, saying it must have been gods plan, then sends them back to Canaan with plenty of food. Pharaoh hears of the family reunion and invites Jacob and Co down to live in the best land in Egypt. The brothers return home, Jacob is delighted to hear that Joseph is alive, and the whole family moves to Egypt. Along the way, god appears to Jacob to tell him they god will accompany them down to Egypt and eventually back up again. We get a list of the 70 people who went down to Egypt with Jacob, then the family arrives and greets pharaoh. Joseph tells them to tell pharaoh that they’re just shepherds who want land for their flocks, which they do, so pharaoh gives them land in Goshen. The famine continues with the Egyptians selling everything they have and eventually themselves into slavery in exchange for food, but life is good for Jacob and his family.
The moment Joseph reveals his identity to his brothers is a dramatic one- he breaks down, orders everyone but his brothers out of the room, and then begins to sob- so loudly that all of Egypt can hear, according to the Torah. He then asks his brothers how their father is doing, but the brothers are too dumbfounded to speak. So the million dollar question, at least to me, is… why is Joseph wailing? Is it relief? Sadness? Anger? Joy? And why doesn’t he want the Egyptians in the room, then wails so loudly they all hear him anyway? The Torah doesn’t answer these questions, and the traditional commentators offer frustratingly little, so we just need to use our imagination. For me, this is just a moment of release. Joseph has been carrying so much, for so long, and we see him mostly operating as a lone wolf: though he is married and has two sons, we never see any interaction between them. So this moment of being alone with his brothers is the first time since they sold him away that he’s been around anyone who knows the real him. The whole time he was in Egypt, he had no one who really knew him, and was hustling to survive and succeed… and now with his brothers, he finally lets his guard down for a moment and all the stress and fear and frustration, but also the triumph and thrill, of the last several decades comes pouring out of him.
Joseph is, generally, one of the most emotionally open characters in the Torah- one of the only people we see express his faith, beliefs, wants and needs- and yet even he apparently just needs to have a good cry and let things out. So I want to offer him a blessing, for the ways he has kept it in when he felt like he needed to, but also for being willing to be vulnerable and cry when emotion overwhelmed him. And to anyone here, who sometimes just needs to have a good cry and let it all out, may you be blessed to have others to share emotional moments with, and may you also be blessed to know that you yourself are enough.