Few stories in the Torah are as laden with emotion and psychological teachings as the epic of Yosef and his brothers. First, we see how the minds of great men, the sons of Jacob, could be so distorted by envy and hatred that they were able to justify committing so dastardly an act, initially plotting to kill their brother, then selling him into slavery. Year after year we read this story, but it has never lost its emotional impact. I have now heard this story repeated for more than seventy years, yet when I hear the Torah reader say, "And Yosef could no longer restrain himself and called out, "Let everyone leave this room!" and then said, "I am your brother, Yosef, whom you sold into slavery in Egypt," (Breishis 45:1-3) I choke up as if this were the first time I heard it.
There are several psychological messages in this epic. We are told (Rashi, Breishis 37:3) that Yosef bore a striking resemblance to Yaakov. True, when he left his brothers at age seventeen he was beardless and now had a beard. But Yaakov, too, had a beard. Could they not see the resemblance? The Midrash states that they entered the city through ten separate gates, because they were going to disperse throughout the city, looking for Yosef. Obviously, they felt that they would be able to recognize him among a large population. Yet here, standing directly before him, they are unable to recognize him! Strange!
The Midrash says that when Yosef wanted to take Shimon as hostage, Shimon fought off all the soldiers sent to subdue him. Yosef then sent his son, Menashe, a boy of eight, who gave Shimon one blow on the back, and Shimon fell to the ground, declaring, "This blow is from my father's household!" Someone from Yaakov's household in Egypt? An eight year old boy! Isn't it obvious that this could only be a son of Yosef?
At the dinner table, Yosef seats them, announcing, "Reuven, Shimon, Levi, etc., sons of one mother, sit here. Dan and Naftali, sons of one mother, sit here", etc. How obvious can you get? Yet, even when Yosef revealed himself to his brothers, they had difficulty in believing it was him!
I believe that what was operative here is the phenomenon of denial. Denial is a psychological defense mechanism that operates subconsciously, so that the person is not aware of it. It is a mechanism that causes a person to be oblivious of something, the knowledge of which would be extremely distressful. To defend a person from the distress, denial renders the person essentially blind to what is right before his eyes, and he is no more capable of seeing it than a blind person is capable of seeing a rainbow.
The brothers believed that Yosef's dreams were his grandiose fantasies rather than prophesies, and it was their hatred of what they felt was his wish to rule over them that led to their selling him into slavery. Had they found Yosef working as someone's slave, they would have had no difficulty in recognizing him. Their subconscious defense, protecting them from realizing that they were wrong in thinking that the dreams were nothing but his grandiose fantasies, threw them into denial, so that when they prostrated themselves to him, like the sheaves in the dream, they could not afford to recognize that his dreams had been prophetic and had come true. The Torah has thus given us a clear case of denial.
One of the glaring omissions in the entire epic is how did Yaakov react when he discovered the truth? In his blessings to his children before his death, Yaakov barely alludes to the brothers' deed, and they later sent Yosef a message that Yaakov requested that he not avenge himself. But what was Yakov's reaction when he found out that Yosef's blood-stained cloak was a sham, and that his sons had put him through twenty two years of inhumane suffering? Did he not shout at them and curse them for their lying and the unthinkable grief they had caused him? Why does the Torah not tell us his reaction?
The answer is simple. The Torah does not tell us Yakov's reaction because Yaakov did not react. The Midrash states that Yaakov had said, "Hashem has turned away from me," and Hashem said, "I am manipulating things to make his son viceroy of the greatest empire on earth, and he is complaining."
Yosef said to his brothers, "It was not you who sent me to Egypt. It was Hashem" (Breishis 45:8). This was not something to alleviate their guilt, but a genuine belief. During his mourning, Yaakov was deprived of the Divine spirit, but once he knew that Yosef was alive, the Divine spirit returned to him and he realized, as did Yosef, that the brothers were pawns in the hands of Hashem. He firmly believed that it was not the brothers who had sold him into Egypt, but it was Hashem, and he, therefore, gave them no more than a slap on the wrist before he died.
This is what true emunah is all about. Not to react after twenty two years of suffering because one believed and trusted in Hashem.
Another aspect in the Yosef episode is the question raised by a number of Torah commentaries. Knowing how deeply his father must be grieving, why did Yosef not send a message to his father, "Don't grieve for me. I am alive."
My late brother Rav Shloime zt"l provided an answer which must be carefully thought through.
Rambam (Hil. Teshuva 2:4) says that true teshuvah requires more than just remorse. Teshuvah requires a total character overhaul, so that the person can say, "I am no longer the person who committed t hat sin. I am a different person." When this is achieved, the "new person" is not held culpable for what the previous person did.
One way of demonstrating that one has become a different person, Rambam says (ibid 2:1), is that if the person finds himself in similar circumstances to those of the sin, but this time acts differently rather than repeating the sin, that is an indication that one has truly changed and is a different person.
If Yosef had simply forgiven his brothers, he would have been the magnanimous saint, and they would have been the groveling penitents, doomed to bear the shame of their deed forever. Yosef had heard their expression of remorse (Breishis 42:21), but what he wanted was to give them the opportunity to redeem themselves so that they could have a feeling of dignity and self-esteem and walk upright with their heads high.
In order to achieve this, Yosef orchestrated the events so that Binyamin, who had now become Yaakov's favorite, would be suspected of thievery and would be kept as a slave. How would the brothers react? This was their opportunity to repeat their sin. "Good! Father's new favorite is a thief. We can get along perfectly well without him. We got rid of Yosef, who was father's favorite, and now we can get rid of Binyamin."
But this time the brothers acted differently. Yehudah said, "Spare Binyamin. Send him back to his father. I will be a slave in his place." Seeing that the brothers had indeed redeemed themselves, Yosef could now reveal himself to them. He had saved their pride.
Yosef could have sent a message to Yaakov, but that would have exposed everything and the brothers would never have the opportunity to redeem themselves. Yosef knew the dreams would come true, and he engineered things to simulate the original sin.
But why did he let his father suffer? This is the powerful message. Yosef knew his father well, and he knew that Yaakov would gladly accept twenty-two years of suffering in order to allow his children to have self-esteem and not be crushed by guilt for the rest of their lives.
That is a major teaching of the Yosef epic, and tells us how important self-esteem is to life.