“and Yosef could not resist all those standing in front of him, and he called out ‘remove all people from before me’ and no man was with him when Yosef confessed to his brothers” – three fundamental principles that we desperately need nowadays are combined in this emotionally charged verse. First is the basic human sensitivity in Yosef’s character. He is second in the hierarchy of Egypt’s elite – “only the throne will I make greater than you”, responsible for the subsistence of the world centered around Egypt, someone who has experienced difficulties throughout his life, and still – he is filled with tears.
This is not the only time that his cries are mentioned in the Torah. How much do we need leadership that knows how to cry. Crying is not a replacement for strong and powerful action; crying does not turn leaders or combatants into spineless people; crying keeps the leader and warrior in the realm of man, through his expression of internal emotion, through rebelling against haughtiness, the pride and elitism that oftentimes leads to ruin. Crying testifies that at their core we are dealing with a person and not someone who is trying to seem superior. Crying demonstrates that that which is going on around him touches his heart and soul and is an integral part of his persona. It is possible that we are learning the importance of leadership of a different kind, sensitive, delicate, and painful, and through this we fight tooth and nail.
The second foundation is intimacy. In nowadays jargon, one can say that Yosef removed all media from the room when meeting with his brothers. Human curiosity and voyeurism oftentimes desanctifies the internal significance of what is truly happening. During most of nowadays events – whether familial or national – people are engaged in taking pictures and do not experience what is truly happening. The insensitive invasion into these unique and holy moments turns them into a performance, for snooping and for extracting crocodile tears. From divine revelation – “and no man shall enter the Tent of Meeting when [the Kohen Gadol] comes to atone in the Holy until his departure”, to the experience of personal revelation, with modesty and concealment, we learn that externalizing events changes their meaning.
Yosef HaTzaddik did not allow others to see his meeting with his brothers for a variety of reasons, from the desire not to harm them to the uniqueness of the deep event between them. How much must we need to learn from this moment, when it seems to us that “it is the public’s right to know” turns into the permission to invade and publicize that which is going on behind closed doors, and the will to be famous and upload to social media has turned our lives into one big show. The urge of curiosity, that has the potential to bring much blessing into a person’s world, turns into a double-edged sword when it comes into contact with the most intimate places, and it is extremely harmful.
The third foundation is the meeting of Yosef with his brothers, which is the most important for these days, and we must reiterate it over and over again. It is hard to quantify the charge between the family members of Yaakov’s household, primarily with Yosef, who was forced into exile from his family and his father’s home and experienced the most difficult things one can, from being a slave in Egypt, trapped in a well, and naming his sons for the fact that he is separate from his father’s home and merited to have them in Egypt. The brothers did the worst of all to him, that the Torah testifies about later on, “and one who kidnaps a man and sells him and [the hostage] is found in his hands (Rashi: before the sale), he shall surely be put to death”.
Despite this, Yosef strived for deep appeasement with his brothers and was very moved by Yehuda’s speech. Of course, one can find an infinite amount of differences between that case and nowadays, primarily by claiming that the speech of the various parties who hurt each other was not the same, and many other reasons not to confess. However, Yosef HaTzaddik teaches us a lesson for generations – only in a place where man confesses to his brother will salvation and redemption flourish.
