On the surface, all is clear: a life comes to an end, many words are spoken—blessing, prophecy, burial instructions. But all these words are other words, other things. Something has been hidden, so that it can no longer be communicated. An impossible word haunts these many other words. After the death and burial of the father what remains is, once again, Joseph and his brothers. In this relationship, there remains a secret, long buried. While Jacob was alive, it could remain buried, forgotten. But once he is gone, the ground begins to stir:
Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep (p. 316). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
(יד) וַיָּ֨שָׁב יוֹסֵ֤ף מִצְרַ֙יְמָה֙ ה֣וּא וְאֶחָ֔יו וְכָל־הָעֹלִ֥ים אִתּ֖וֹ לִקְבֹּ֣ר אֶת־אָבִ֑יו אַחֲרֵ֖י קָבְר֥וֹ אֶת־אָבִֽיו׃ (טו) וַיִּרְא֤וּ אֲחֵֽי־יוֹסֵף֙ כִּי־מֵ֣ת אֲבִיהֶ֔ם וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ ל֥וּ יִשְׂטְמֵ֖נוּ יוֹסֵ֑ף וְהָשֵׁ֤ב יָשִׁיב֙ לָ֔נוּ אֵ֚ת כָּל־הָ֣רָעָ֔ה אֲשֶׁ֥ר גָּמַ֖לְנוּ אֹתֽוֹ׃ (טז) וַיְצַוּ֕וּ אֶל־יוֹסֵ֖ף לֵאמֹ֑ר אָבִ֣יךָ צִוָּ֔ה לִפְנֵ֥י מוֹת֖וֹ לֵאמֹֽר׃ (יז) כֹּֽה־תֹאמְר֣וּ לְיוֹסֵ֗ף אָ֣נָּ֡א שָׂ֣א נָ֠א פֶּ֣שַׁע אַחֶ֤יךָ וְחַטָּאתָם֙ כִּי־רָעָ֣ה גְמָל֔וּךָ וְעַתָּה֙ שָׂ֣א נָ֔א לְפֶ֥שַׁע עַבְדֵ֖י אֱלֹהֵ֣י אָבִ֑יךָ וַיֵּ֥בְךְּ יוֹסֵ֖ף בְּדַבְּרָ֥ם אֵלָֽיו׃ (יח) וַיֵּלְכוּ֙ גַּם־אֶחָ֔יו וַֽיִּפְּל֖וּ לְפָנָ֑יו וַיֹּ֣אמְר֔וּ הִנֶּ֥נּֽוּ לְךָ֖ לַעֲבָדִֽים׃ (יט) וַיֹּ֧אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֛ם יוֹסֵ֖ף אַל־תִּירָ֑אוּ כִּ֛י הֲתַ֥חַת אֱלֹהִ֖ים אָֽנִי׃ (כ) וְאַתֶּ֕ם חֲשַׁבְתֶּ֥ם עָלַ֖י רָעָ֑ה אֱלֹהִים֙ חֲשָׁבָ֣הּ לְטֹבָ֔ה לְמַ֗עַן עֲשֹׂ֛ה כַּיּ֥וֹם הַזֶּ֖ה לְהַחֲיֹ֥ת עַם־רָֽב׃ (כא) וְעַתָּה֙ אַל־תִּירָ֔אוּ אָנֹכִ֛י אֲכַלְכֵּ֥ל אֶתְכֶ֖ם וְאֶֽת־טַפְּכֶ֑ם וַיְנַחֵ֣ם אוֹתָ֔ם וַיְדַבֵּ֖ר עַל־לִבָּֽם׃ ׃
(14) After burying his father, Joseph returned to Egypt, he and his brothers and all who had gone up with him to bury his father. (15) When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!” (16) So they sent this message to Joseph, “Before his death your father left this instruction: (17) So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.’ Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph was in tears as they spoke to him. (18) His brothers went to him themselves, flung themselves before him, and said, “We are prepared to be your slaves.” (19) But Joseph said to them, “Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God? (20) Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. (21) And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your children.” Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.
(15) When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!”
Suddenly, there emerges a last-minute qualm. For the first time, the brothers articulate a fear of Joseph’s vengeance for that long-buried day in the pit. What brings this fear to the surface is that they “saw that their father was dead.” Again, the repeated reference to the departure of the father makes one wonder what symbolic meaning this has for the brothers. In this vein, Rashi responds to the apparent banality of the observation: What is the meaning of “they saw …”? They realized the meaning of his death in Joseph’s behavior. Previously, they used to dine at Joseph’s table and he used to receive them with open arms out of respect for his father; after Jacob’s death, however, he no longer treated them in a friendly manner. Rashi’s scenario explains the brothers’ sudden eruption of fear. Joseph’s behavior has changed ominously since Jacob’s death. Death—even burial—is not necessarily closure: on the contrary, this death seems to open up unnerving possibilities.
Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep (p. 317). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
Midrash Tanhuma, Vayechi 17
On the verse, "And Joseph's brothers saw that their father had died" (Genesis 50:15), the Midrash comments: What precisely did they see? They saw Joseph returning from burying his father. He went to look at the pit into which they had thrown him. They thought, "Perhaps Joseph still holds a grudge against us," but Joseph had only good intentions. He had gone to the pit in order to recite this blessing: "Blessed is He Who performed a miracle for me in this place."
ד"א ואלה שמות בני ישראל. זש"ה הרופא לשבורי לב וגו' מונה מספר לכוכבים לכולם שמות יקרא (תהלים קמז ג ד), כיון שמת יעקב מה כתיב, ויראו אחי יוסף כי מת אביהם (בראשית נ טו), מה ראו, ראו כל ימים שהיה יעקב קיים היה יוסף סועד עמהם, והיו אוכלין על שלחנו, וכיון שמת יעקב לא אכלו על שלחנו, שנאמר ויראו אחי יוסף כי מת אביהם, אמרו יש רעה טמונה בלבו של יוסף, ושב ישיב לנו את כל הרעה אשר גמלנו אותו (שם).
When Jacob died, what is written (in Gen. 50:15)? WHEN JOSEPH'S BROTHERS SAW THAT THEIR FATHER WAS DEAD. What did they see? They saw that, as long as Jacob was alive, Joseph dined with them, and they would eat at his table. Then, when Jacob was dead, they did not eat at his table. Thus it is stated: WHEN JOSEPH'S BROTHERS SAW THAT THEIR FATHER WAS DEAD, they said: There is evil hidden in Joseph's heart; (ibid., end:) AND HE WILL SURELY REPAY US FOR ALL THE EVIL WHICH WE RENDERED HIM.8
לו ישטמנו means PERHAPS HE WILL HATE US. The word has many different meanings. There are examples of לו used to denote a petition, having the meaning of “Oh that!” as for instance: (Genesis 30:34) “Would (לו) it might be according to thy word”; (Genesis 23:13) ....There is an example of לו used in the sense of “perhaps”, — in our verse — “Perhaps he will hate us”, but there is no other example of its usage in this sense in Scripture. Here it corresponds in sense with the word אולי, “perhaps”, as for example in (Genesis 24:5) “אולי the woman will not be willing to follow me” which means “perhaps she will not etc.”
ויאמרו לו ישטמנו יוסף, they said: “perhaps Joseph will hate us.” When the brothers had returned from burying their father in Canaan, Joseph passed the pit into which the brothers had thrown him and recited the blessing: “the G-d Who has performed a miracle for me at this place.” When the brothers heard this they became afraid that old animosities might flare up again.
The word for “hatred” here is the unusual yistemenu, rather than yisnenu. This rather rare expression occurs three times in Genesis. The first occasion is immediately after Esau loses his blessing to his brother Jacob: “And Esau hated Jacob because of the blessing which his father had given him, and Esau said to himself, ‘Let but the mourning period of my father come, and I will kill my brother Jacob’ ” (Gen. 27:41). Esau’s resentment is not at all allayed by the alternative blessing that he has received from his father; on the contrary this blessing seems to trigger his hatred, as though reminding him of Jacob’s usurpation. He waits only for his father’s death to vent this by killing Jacob. This is revenge-hatred, unappeasable, biding its time till the father dies. The second time this hatred appears is in Jacob’s blessing of Joseph: “The archers hated him” (Gen. 49:23). This refers to the brothers’ hatred of Joseph and uses the metaphor of archery for their malicious language (Rashi). From these three uses of sitma in Genesis, a particular genre of hatred emerges: sibling hatred, repressed in the father’s lifetime, biding its time for the fratricidal moment. The brothers clearly assume that Joseph has been nursing his hatred against the day he will be free to express it. This is the dreaded implication of Jacob’s death. Midrash Tanchuma, in fact, translates the term to refer to the “repressed malice in Joseph’s heart.”11 And it requires nothing more sinister than a cooling in Joseph’s behavior to stir up his brothers’ worst apprehensions.
Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep (p. 318). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
(16) So they sent this message to Joseph, “Before his death your father left this instruction:
And Rabbi Ile’a further said in the name of Rabbi Elazar, son of Rabbi Shimon: It is permitted for a person to depart from the truth in a matter that will bring peace, as it is stated: “Your father commanded before he died, saying: So you shall say to Joseph: Please pardon your brothers’ crime, etc.” (Genesis 50:16–17). Jacob never issued this command, but his sons falsely attributed this statement to him in order to preserve peace between them and Joseph.
The text makes it as plain as possible that the story they told Joseph was a lie. If Jacob had really said those words he would have said them to Joseph himself, not to the brothers. The time to have done so was on his deathbed in the previous chapter. The brothers’ tale was a “white lie.” Its primary aim was not to deceive but to ease a potentially explosive situation. Perhaps that is why Joseph wept, understanding that his brothers still thought him capable of revenge.
The sages derived a principle from this text. Mutar le-shanot mipnei ha-shalom: “It is permitted to tell an untruth (literally, “to change” the facts) for the sake of peace.”[1] A white lie is permitted in Jewish law.
-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z'l, https://rabbisacks.org/permitted-tell-lie-vayechi-5775/
Did Jacob know about what had transpired between Joseph and his brothers?
(17) So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.’ Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.” And Joseph was in tears as they spoke to him.
ויבך יוסף בדברם אליו. תכף שהזכירו לו אביו בכה לגודל האהבה ונכמרו רחמיו, והנה אחיו בקשו ממנו מחילה, ולא באר הכתוב שמחל להם, וכבר בארו רז"ל שכל מי שחטא לחברו ועשה תשובה אינו נמחל לעולם עד שירצה את חברו, ואע"פ שהזכיר הכתוב וינחם אותם וידבר על לבם שנראה בזה שהיה להם רצוי מיוסף מכל מקום לא ראינו שיזכיר הכתוב מחילה ביוסף ולא שיודה להם שישא פשעם וחטאתם ואם כן מתו בענשם בלא מחילת יוסף
ויבך יוסף בדברם אליו, “Joseph wept when they were speaking to him.” As soon as the brothers merely mentioned the name of their father Joseph already started weeping. This was due to the great love he had for his now departed father. This stirred his sense of compassion, especially seeing that his brothers asked his forgiveness. The Torah does not spell out that Joseph actually forgave his brothers. Our sages (Bava Kama 92) point out that if a person has wronged his fellow man and regrets this wrong and determines not to act in the manner which had offended his fellow man he is not forgiven by G’d until after he has made an effort to obtain forgiveness by the aggrieved party first. At any rate, the Torah is not on record anywhere that Joseph did forgive his brothers.
Why is Joseph crying? For whom? For what?
In this final scene, Joseph weeps his most enigmatic tears. “He wept be-dabram eilav”—lit., “at their speaking to him.” Perhaps he weeps at the distance of suspicion that still divides him from his brothers; sure of his own good intentions, he weeps at their fear. Or perhaps he weeps at the manner of their addressing him. For, actually, they are not speaking to him: they communicate through a messenger, who reports a fabricated message containing deathbed instructions, in their father’s name and words, to ask Joseph for forgiveness. If one were to write the verse, the core of the message—the confession and plea for forgiveness—would be hedged about with a forest of quotation marks. In other words, the brothers’ plea is indirect and equivocal to the point of absurdity. This is the only way, it seems, that they can speak to him. Joseph weeps, then, at the failure of language to maintain itself in the family after Jacob’s death.
Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep (p. 322). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
(18) His brothers went to him themselves, flung themselves before him, and said, “We are prepared to be your slaves.”
(19) But Joseph said to them, “Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God?
...the brothers’ shame remains unresolved because of the secrecy, silence and judgment that surround their crime. They never move from the sense of shame to guilt, confession, and resolution. Joseph can no more rebuke his brothers than they can openly confess to their sin. His awareness of the divine plan and, perhaps, his own impulse to protect them from shame, precludes the resolution of their guilt. So it becomes, in Zornberg’s reading, “the original sin” which we collectively atone for in each generation (see the liturgical poem, Eleh Ezkerah, on the ten martyrs, which we read on Yom Kippur, and Zornberg, “What if Joseph Hates Us?” in The Murmuring Deep, 313-343).
Rachel Adelman, https://hebrewcollege.edu/blog/brothers-on-the-edge/
(20) Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.
אלקים חשבה לטובה, G’d exploited your error for something good.
(21) And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your children.” Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.
It is striking that “speaking upon the heart” occurs only once more in Genesis, in the story of Dinah and Shechem: the prince first rapes Dinah, then speaks upon her heart. There, too, Rashi comments: “words that found ready entrance to her heart” (Gen. 34:3). He seduces her with promises of benefits to her family. The narrative conveys Shechem’s impassioned sincerity, but does not blur the grotesqueness of a seduction that follows a rape. Here, too, Joseph’s seductive words cannot disguise the power imbalance and the fact of the pit. Even his promise to sustain their “little children” only reminds them of their infantile status, as indeed the expression “He spoke upon their heart” reminds the reader of his superiority. Ambiguity—reassurance and intimidation both— hovers over his speech.
Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep (p. 324). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
What are the implications here for reconcilation?
Does Joseph ever explicitly forgive his brothers? Is that explicit forgiveness necessary?
Like the “Never mind” response to an apology, Joseph’s providential speech disturbs even as it purports to soothe. A hope of redress withers. The narratable anguish of the past is subsumed in a fiction of closure. And precisely here is the core of the irony: in his anxiety to reveal the end, to resolve the narrative in full meaning, Joseph suppresses the conflicts in his family and within himself. Stridently humble, he asserts a superiority that makes him untouchable and his brothers unredeemable.
Zornberg, Avivah Gottlieb. The Murmuring Deep (p. 333). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
"The episode is moving in itself, but it also resolves one of the central questions of the book of Genesis – sibling rivalry: Cain and Abel, Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. Can brothers live peaceably with one another? This question is fundamental to the biblical drama of redemption, for if brothers cannot live together, how can nations? And if nations cannot live together, how can the human world survive?
Only now, with the reconciliation of Joseph and his brothers, can the story move on to the birth of Israel as a nation, passing from slavery to freedom.
-Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z'l, https://rabbisacks.org/future-past-vayechi-5779/
Hazak, hazak v'nithazek!