Joseph has no desire to ever see his father or his brothers again
Photo: Reuters
E.T phone home
When Joseph achieves a position of prominence in Egypt he does not phone home
We begin with a big question. What I will call, for those of you who remember that holy and beautiful movie ET, the "ET phone home" question. In that movie the essential goodness of the aliens is expressed in his commitment to "phone home."
Joseph is the favorite son of his father. We have no reason to assume that they do not love each other. And yet when Joseph achieves a position of prominence in Egypt he neglects to do one very essential thing. He does not phone home. It is clear from the book of Genesis that travel and communication between Canaan and Egypt was fully within the realm of the possible. Joseph has become the viceroy in Egypt. Why does he not dispatch a party to let his devastated father know that he is alive?
I want to suggest an approach very different from the classical understanding of the biblical interpreters who see Joseph in Egypt as Joseph the Tzadik yearning for his father and his God.
It seems rather that the reason Joseph does not call home is because he actually has no interest in calling home. Joseph has no desire to ever see his father or his brothers again. Let's think for a moment. Joseph's father gives him a coat of many colors. It is that coat which creates so much jealousy and tension between him and his brothers. Knowing of the tension that he himself has engendered Jacob sends Joseph to meet his brothers in the field. How could his father be so blind? Did he not realize what would happen to him?
So in one sense Joseph may well blame his father for his predicament. And not without some real justification. Or Joseph may believe that his father was actually complicit with his brothers in his kidnapping and sale to Egypt. Why did his father insist over his protestations that he go and visit his brothers that day in the field? Why did his father not come to look for him in Egypt? His father was a powerful chieftain. How did he give up on his favorite son so quickly?
In this understanding Joseph does not phone home to Canaan because Canaan is no longer his home. Joseph has little use for his father or the God of his fathers. He wants to forget both of them and the trauma they imply. He has made Egypt his home.
The Midrash suggests that there are three signs which indicate that the Jewish people, when they descended to Egypt did not assimilate into Egyptian culture. They did not change their language, their names or their clothes. The Midrashic source of this tradition is obscure; that is until one realizes that its source is the biblical text itself.
Specifically in the story of Joseph we see that Joseph changes his clothes" (Pharaoh clothed him in garments of fine linen and put a gold collar around his neck” (Gen. 41:42), changed his name (“Pharaoh called him Tzafnat Paneach,” Gen. 41:45) and changed his language ("there was an interpreter between them," Gen. 42:23 - between Joseph and the brothers) indicating he was not speaking Hebrew.
The Midrash implicitly suggests that the model of assimilation is Joseph who changes his clothes, his language and his name. Joseph marries an Egyptian woman. Joseph has his two children "before the time of the famine came” (Gen. 41:49).
Joseph is identified with Egypt. He is productive at the time that Egypt is productive.
All of Joseph's anger rises to the surface
Critical indications of Joseph identification with Egypt and his adoption of the land of his exile as his new home are found as well in the names he gives his children. One son is called Menashe "because God caused me to forget all of my suffering and the house of my father". So the very name Menashe is explained to mean forgetting. His second son is named Efraim "for God caused to prosper in the land of my poverty".
The very name Efraim means to prosper; in the case of Joseph, in the place of his erstwhile exile. When these names are compared to names of the children of the other major biblical figure, the one who parallels Joseph, the contrast is significant. Moses who lives in Egypt calls his sons Gershon and Eliezer.
Gershom means according to Moses "for I have been a stranger in a strange land" and Eliezer means the "God of my father will help me" Moses seeks to connect back to his ancestors while Joseph seeks himself as an orphan in time, fundamentally disconnected from his past.
The last people in the world Joseph wanted to see were his brothers. And then on fine day who walks into to buy grain from Egypt; the sons of the powerful Canaanite chieftain Jacob. All of Joseph's anger rises to the surface. But he controls himself. He does not even want to hate his brothers. He simply wants nothing to do with them.
His only interest upon re- cognizing his brothers is to manipulate them into bringing him Benjamin; his younger brother, the only other child of Rachel. He has no intention of revealing himself to his brothers at all. And yet slowly as Joseph is exposed to his brothers there is a slow transformation which begins working its way through his psyche. It's only public expression initially is tears.
Joseph cannot fully control himself
The brothers do not know that Joseph understands them "for there is an interpreter between them.”
"We are guilty concerning our brother for we saw the pain in his soul when he pleaded with us and we would not hear, therefore this trouble is upon us". For the first time Joseph hears the brother talk about him not as the hated threat but as a person in pain.
In their recognition of this pain, even so many years later something moves in him. Rueben then says to the brothers "Did I not say to you, Do not sin against the child, and you would not hear, therefore behold his blood is required". At this point Joseph is overwhelmed by feeling he barely recognizes and the text records "he turned away from them and cried."
A similar scene ensues when Joseph sees Benjamin for the first time. "Joseph (spoke) quickly for his love was aroused for his brother; He wanted to cry; he came to his room, he cried there.”
Here again Joseph is- against his will- aroused to long forgotten emotion. He cannot fully control himself; he virtually runs from the public meeting back to his room and cries there. The scene of Joseph revelation is the third crying story in Joseph's interaction with his brothers.
In each of the first two stories Joseph's crying is a crying of surprise. He is surprised by his own emotion. Radical surprise often brings in its wake crying. The system is not prepared. It has no vessel to handle the intensity of emotion. So it wells over into tears. His lingering sense of connection and even compassion for his brothers is strange and unexpected to him. His spontaneous affection for his brother Benjamin is far stronger then he thought it would be.
Finally in the third scene he listens to Judah's dramatic plea for Benjamin. Benjamin is a son of Rachel. His father’s favorite was Joseph before him. He imagines what his life might have been like if Judah had been able to show such loyalty and affection to him.
Joseph is revealing himself to his brothers
Listening to Judah speak something moves in him. Maybe it is not to late after all. Maybe he is not Egyptian. And before he can think it through carefully he finds himself saying "Remove all the Egyptians from the room- "he could not control himself" – "he raised his voice in crying"- he said "I am Joseph.”
We understand Joseph shock and surprise upon hearing his brothers’ statement of remorse. We understand his surprise upon his first meeting with Benjamin. What is the overwhelming surprise that moves him to tears in this third story? Joseph's surprise actually is not to be found in the brothers; not even in Judah's beautiful speech.
Rather Judah's speech prompts him to a far greater surprise and shock that has been murmuring inchoately since his brother arrived in Egypt but now spilled over into his great cry. Joseph cries and cries out "I am Joseph." Simply read, Joseph is revealing himself to his brothers.
Read more deeply Joseph speaks not primarily to his brother but to himself. I am Joseph. I had thought I was not longer Joseph. I thought I was Tzafnat Paneach the Egyptian. I thought that my deliberate choice of personal amnesia was effective. I do not remember anyone names Joseph. And yet it is not true. One can never live in denial of one's identity.
Joseph is not merely his history; it is his very essence. When we run away from our core identity it always manages to find us often at the point farthest from which we started running. Whenever we run away from ourselves the magic of the universe has it that we are also running towards ourselves. "From you towards you do I run"
Joseph's great surprise is that he is not Tzafnat Paneach. He is Joseph. He is still the son of his father and the brother of his brothers.
He was, is, and will always be Joseph. It is time to leave denial behind and re-embrace his destiny. And Joseph is us and we are him.
