Parasha: Vayigash · Aliyah: Fourth (Netzach)

ולאביו שלח כזאת, To his father he sent the following: The reason the Torah added the word זאת instead of merely enumerating the list of provisions and gifts which appear in this verse is to tell us that what is described as מטוב מצרים, Egypt's best [produce], something which the Torah had not identified, referred to the quality of the various items listed. The verse therefore says: "Of all the items listed forthwith Joseph sent his father of the best quality available in Egypt." Our sages in Megillah 16 describe the words מטוב מצרים as referring to wine which had been aged for a long time. Bereshit Rabbah 94,2 identifies טוב מצרים as some kind of special white beans, a medication with anti-depression properties. If that were so, the verse should have written בזאת, instead of זאת and has to be understood as if the word עשרה חמורים had a conjunctive letter ו at the beginning.

ועשר אתונות נושאות בר, as well as ten she-asses carrying grain and bread, etc. The reason the Torah repeats the word לאביו, for his father, a second time is to tell us that it was not a separate consignment. The Torah meant that apart from the load carried by these she-asses, i.e. the grain and the bread, there were special delicacies for Jacob only. Joseph instructed his brothers that these items were meant only for his father.

וישלח את אחיו, He sent off his brothers, etc. This means that Joseph sent everybody home, including Benjamin. Benjamin's testimony would convince Jacob most of all; this is why Joseph had already stressed previously (45,12) that Benjamin was a witness that he was Joseph. Now that Yehudah had fulfilled the conditions of his guarantee it is clear that if his bones rattled in his coffin during the years Israel travelled in the desert this was only because he failed to have his vow annulled, as pointed out in Megillah 11.

ויגדו לו לאמור. They told him, saying, etc.. The word ויגדו indicates the difficulty the brothers had telling their father what had transpired in Egypt. What was good news for their father involved a confession of the evil the brothers had perpetrated and how they had caused their father unnecessary anguish. It is also possible that the use of the word ויגדו [especially the missing letter י ] alluded to the ensuing exile of the Jewish people and the hard times their descendants would experience there eventually. We do indeed find that Jacob was afraid to travel to Egypt until reassured by G'd in a dream (46,3).

The reason the Torah uses the expression לאמור is to tell us that the brothers were astute in the manner they conveyed the good news to their father. It is well known that sudden good news may shock a person and cause cardiac arrest. The brothers therefore led up to what they had to say in stages; first they mentioned that they were the bearers of good tidings, ויגדו לו לאמור; after Jacob had been thus prepared they told him that Joseph was still alive. At that point this news was not liable to endanger Jacob's life.

It is also possible that we should read the verse thus: ויגדו לו לאמר עוד, "they told him saying: furthermore," etc. They said: "Not only have we all returned safely but we still have more to say." Once they had conditioned Jacob's mind they informed him that Joseph was still alive. Having said this they added a little later that Joseph had achieved a position of great stature in Egypt.

I have been troubled by the fact that Joseph did not communicate with his father during all these years. Did he not realise that his father must have been in terrible anguish concerning what had happened to him? While it is true that as long as Joseph was a slave he may not have been able to communicate with his father, nonetheless during the nine years since his appointment as viceroy surely he could have done so? Why did he not at least write his father a letter to temper his father's pain and to stop him from mourning him? Not only this, why did he not at least send a message to his father during the year of famine when there was a constant stream of travellers between Egypt and Canaan? Who had given Joseph permission not to tell his father that he was alive after the brothers arrived in Egypt the first time?

Whereas we can understand why Jacob had to suffer twenty two years in order that G'd's plan could be executed, this is all well and good from G'd's point of view. Since Joseph was not aware of G'd's plans, who gave him the right to let his father suffer longer than necessary?

We have good reason to believe that Joseph had perfectly good reasons for preferring not to communicate with his father until he did. No doubt he would have liked to communicate with his father ever since he came to Egypt until he was appointed as viceroy.

Even assuming that an opportunity had presented itself prior to his sudden and dramatic promotion, he was afraid that as soon as his brothers would hear about his whereabouts they would try and murder him so that he could not testify against them. The brothers would therefore have a vested interest in disposing of Joseph if they heard that he was still alive somewhere.

It is also possible that as soon as Jacob would receive such a communication he would curse the brothers for what they had done to Joseph; as a result the brothers would die and he would indirectly be responsible for their deaths.

Once Joseph had been released from prison and become viceroy he no longer had to fear for his life if a letter from him would be intercepted or the brothers would attempt to kill him to prevent their father from learning the truth. On the other hand, he considered a statement by our sages in Baba Metzia 59 that it is preferable to be burned in a fiery oven than to cause a fellow human being to go pale with shame. Joseph was concerned for his brothers' dignity as human beings, something they would lose if their father would find out at that point what the brothers had done to his favourite child. He decided therefore that the anguish of one man, i.e. his father, was preferable to discrediting his brothers.

Besides, Joseph may well have felt that the brothers still wanted him out of this world and would confer how to bring this about. When Bereshit Rabbah 91 described the brothers as taking a great deal of money to Egypt in order to ransom Joseph, this merely means that they hoped to succeed in order to demonstrate that they were sorry for what they had done. Only then would they no longer feel threatened by him and plan to dispose of him.

Joseph, of course, was unaware that the brothers had undergone a change of heart until he had personally tested them in the presence of Benjamin. Only after that experience did Joseph realise that he was no longer in danger from his brothers. Until all the pieces of the puzzle came together at the time Joseph decided to reveal himself to his brothers it would have been premature to risk identifying himself. Until Joseph was able to put the brothers at ease by attributing all that had happened to G'd's planning, he would have been risking his life by revealing himself. You will recall that Yehudah had resorted to a confrontational stance when he found out that Joseph had included innocent Reuben in his treatment of the brothers. Tanchuma item 5 on our Parshah even reports the brothers as planning to kill Joseph [not in his capacity as Joseph, of course, but in his capacity of a ruler who had framed Benjamin, Ed.], and that it had taken an angel to save Joseph from their hands. Considering all the foregoing Joseph can hardly be faulted for allowing events to run their course without informing his father prematurely.