Vayechi

Vayechi - Danny Burkeman

Danny Burkeman is a Rabbinic student at Leo Baeck College. He is currently studying at HUC-JIR in Los Angeles, and serving as the student Rabbi of Congregation Brith Sholem in Ogden, Utah.

Joseph appears to cry a lot. As we come to the end of Genesis, we read about Joseph weeping on seven separate occasions. Up until this week's parasha, each time Joseph has cried it has been in connection to his reunion with his father and brothers. He weeps privately and he weeps before them - Joseph is not afraid to cry. And yet now, as we reach the end of Genesis he cries two more times.

Understandably after the death of Jacob, Joseph falls on his father's face, weeps and kisses him. But then, after burying Jacob in Canaan, the brothers send a messenger to Joseph to tell him:

In response to this, Joseph once again weeps. I am very interested in Joseph's tears.

Midrash Tanchuma (traditional rabbinic narrative compilation) explains the brothers were afraid because Joseph visited the pit which they had thrown him into, when they were returning from Egypt. They feared that it demonstrated he still bore a grudge towards them, and so they concocted this lie. In reality, as the midrash explains, Joseph went to the pit to offer a blessing for the miracle which happened to him in that place.

But why does Joseph weep?

While we as the readers know that the brothers were lying and that Jacob had never said such a thing, perhaps Joseph cried out of disappointment. He was upset that his father did not trust him to live side-by-side with his brothers. Perhaps Jacob doubted that his acceptance of their apology was sincere.

Or maybe Joseph knew that the brothers were lying, and wept as he realised that although he thought they had been reconciled, in reality there was still a huge gulf between them, one which the brothers filled with a lie. Once again his acceptance of their apology was doubted.

When someone says they forgive us we should accept them at their word. When someone has been wronged it is hard to truly forgive someone. But if they accept our apology we should not push it, or doubt them, for to doubt their sincerity is to wrong them again.

I like to think that there was another reason for Joseph's tears. I believe Joseph wept again because he realised that he was about to be reunited with his brothers again (at each previous reunification Joseph had wept). While Jacob was alive there was always another motive for the brothers' apology and Joseph's forgiveness. Now that Jacob had died there was an opportunity for pure reconciliation between the brothers alone. Just as the sin had not involved their father, so too this apology and forgiveness was done between the brothers.

It is only now that the book of Genesis can finish, now that the brothers have been truly reconciled we are able to move on to future generations. Now we can become one people: Bnei Yisrael, the children of Israel, altogether as one.