What Joseph Needed Before Forgiving

This week’s Torah portion, Vayigash, contains perhaps the most moving, emotionally raw passages in the Torah.  Joseph, now viceroy of all Egypt, has now seen his brothers who came to Egypt to ask for food, but he has not revealed himself to them, has not spoken Hebrew to them, and has only been wearing his fine Egyptian clothing.   Joseph is understandably distrustful of his brothers, since they did, after all, first plot to kill him and then instead throw him in a pit to be sold into slavery.   My brother and I fought all the time, and we are not close, but the worst thing he did to me was break things my mother loved and then fame me for them.   I have trouble forgiving him for that, so how Joseph comes to forgive his brothers is always a bit hard for me to understand.  Joseph already framed his brothers with stealing food from Pharoah, and he made them bring his youngest brother Benjamin down to Egypt, even knowing it would break his father’s heart.  Now, Joseph has framed Benjamin with stealing a golden goblet from Joseph and is threatening him with enslavement, and interesting foreshadow of what’s coming in Exodus.

But here, Judah, the brother that masterminded throwing Joseph in the pit and the leader of the brothers, steps forward.  I’m going to read a rather long passage because it is so human and moving and relatable.  

Then Judah went up to him and said, “Please, my lord, let your servant appeal to my lord, and do not be impatient with your servant, you who are the equal of Pharaoh.

My lord asked his servants, ‘Have you a father or another brother?’

We told my lord, ‘We have an old father, and there is a child of his old age, the youngest; his full brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother, and his father dotes on him.’

Then you said to your servants, ‘Bring him down to me, that I may set eyes on him.’

We said to my lord, ‘The boy cannot leave his father; if he were to leave him, his father would die.’

But you said to your servants, ‘Unless your youngest brother comes down with you, do not let me see your faces.’

When we came back to your servant my father, we reported my lord’s words to him. “Later our father said, ‘Go back and procure some food for us.’ We answered, ‘We cannot go down; only if our youngest brother is with us can we go down, for we may show our faces to the man unless our youngest brother is with us.’

Your servant my father said to us, ‘As you know, my wife bore me two sons. But one is gone from me, and I said: Alas, he was torn by a beast! And I have not seen him since. If you take this one from me, too, and he meets with disaster, you will send my white head down to Sheol in sorrow.’ “Now, if I come to your servant my father and the boy is not with us—since his own life is so bound up with his—when he sees that the boy is not with us, he will die, and your servants will send the white head of your servant our father down to Sheol in grief.

Now your servant has pledged himself for the boy to my father, saying, ‘If I do not bring him back to you, I shall stand guilty before my father forever.’ Therefore, please let your servant remain as a slave to my lord instead of the boy, and let the boy go back with his brothers. For how can I go back to my father unless the boy is with me? Let me not be witness to the woe that would overtake my father!”

Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. His sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace.

Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumfounded were they on account of him.

Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt.

Now, do not be distressed or reproach yourselves because you sold me hither; it was to save life that God sent me ahead of you. It is now two years that there has been famine in the land, and there are still five years to come in which there shall be no yield from tilling. God has sent me ahead of you to ensure your survival on earth, and to save your lives in an extraordinary deliverance. So, it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, lord of all his household, and ruler over the whole land of Egypt.

Like so many of us, Joseph has family trouble, tensions in his family.   Especially these days, so many of us are in such tension with members of our family and not only those cousins we always disagree with, but parents, siblings, and children, that it can seem impossible to reconcile, to forgive, to love someone who is across the divide. 

And for those that have suffered abuse at the hands of family members, it can seem impossible, and possibly unwise and unhealthy to forgive them and reconcile. 

When people have done us serious harm, we are wise to set boundaries, to distrust their intentions, and be very wary when they want to mend the relationship.  It can be a return to a dynamic that is unhealthy and abusive.

Yet, we also know that forgiving others also liberates us, frees us from carrying around the weight of anger and hurt.

This scene with Joseph is often pointed to as an outstanding example of forgiveness, but I think it is worth looking at the details to understand how Joseph is able to do this. 

First, let’s remember Joseph doesn’t just offer them blanket forgiveness.  First, he tests them, really tests them to see if they have changed.  Can you imagine how hard it would be to suddenly have the brothers show us, and here you are, not dead or a slave, but in charge of all of Egypt, and then not to blurt out – “Hey, I’m Joseph.  Remember, you tried to kill me?” 

But he doesn’t.  He wants to see if they have actually changed, not just in words, but in actions. 

Here, Joseph sees that Judah, and by extension, his brothers are not so concerned about their father Jacob’s health, that they put his health about their own.  Joseph sees that they are actually putting others ahead of their own interests. 

He also sees that they are now telling the truth, not a version of the truth that makes them look good, but the emotional truth.    It is only then that he reveals himself and they reconcile. 

Most of us never get the chance to know if those who have harmed us have really changed, but this portion does seem to indicate that while forgiveness is a virtue, before forgiving those who have done great harm to you, it is worth seeing if they have changed.  

This means be open to the possibility that they have changed, and perhaps that is the first step.

Then he gives them the opportunity to show they have changed, to demonstrate it.  

Finally, Joseph is now able to put the harm they did in the context of a longer life, and he is able to see that while they intended to harm him, and did, he has come out better than he could have dreamed – and Joseph was quite a dreamer – and that their harm to him played a key role in his growth, in his becoming the person he was meant to be. 

Joseph frames this as fate, that God had a plan to do this so that Joseph would be able to save the brothers’ lives and all of Egypt. 

This actually troubles me.  It is very difficult for me to believe that the harm they did him was part of a great plan, God’s plan for good.  After the Holocaust, I simply can’t believe that it happened for a reason and that the existence of the State of Israel and the strong Jewish community in the US is a sign it was part of a larger plan.  I can’t believe that. 

It has always bugged me when people say, “everything happens for a reason.”  I don’t believe that.  I can’t.

However, I do believe that we, as human beings made in the image of God, have the capacity to find meaning in even the terrible things that have happened.  Finding meaning in them is different than saying they were planned or justified.  Instead, it admits that what happened was wrong, terrible, traumatic, but at the same time, holds that in the grand scheme of life, it was meaningful in shaping who Joseph, who we become.  We don’t have choice in what happened, but we can choose how to frame it and how we make meaning from it. 

I would never say that AIDS happened for a reason or was part of God’s secret plan.  I can see how much it changed me, how much I grew and how much the gay community grew in reaction to those events.  Instead of just becoming bitter and angry, the gay community channeled that anger into constructive change and to action in the world. 

The Jewish community has done the same since the Holocaust.  Rather than folding in on ourselves in a bitter, angry and defeated way, we channeled that anger and loss into creating a state and building a powerful Jewish community here in the US.  I don’t believe the Holocaust happened for a reason.  I can’t.  But I can see that the Jewish community found ways to make meaning from that tragedy by refusing to give up, to give in, and instead by creating a Jewish world that most of those who perished in the Holocaust could hardly have imagined was possible.   

Was that God’s plan?   Not any God I can believe in. 

Have we made tremendous meaning from human depravity and evil?  Yes, we have, and that shows resilience, faith, and an ability to hope. 

Joseph is able to hold the truth of what happened to him, while also holding the new truth of what is before him.  He doesn’t forgive them without real evidence that they have changed.   He calls what the brothers did “God’s plan.”   I wouldn’t.  I would call it Joseph’s divine spark that can’t be extinguished.  I would call it the reflection of God in Joseph that he is able to see a larger meaning and move forward.  

Like Joseph, may we all find ways to make meaning of how suffering has shaped our lives, but do so without justifying that harm.   May that reflection of God in each of us help us to make meaning of the spark in each of us have the resilience of Joseph.