Vayechi 2020

In this week's Parsha, Vayechi, Jacob dies and the brothers of Joseph are afraid that Joseph will take revenge upon them.  Joseph says to them, “Am I in the place of God? Although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, so as to bring about the present result—the survival of many people.  And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your children.” Thus he reassured them, speaking kindly to them.”

This same phrase was used many years before by his father Jacob but in the opposite way, to place blame upon and abdicate responsibility for a loved one, rather than the way Yosef uses it to take responsibility and offer forgiveness.  When Rachel was upset that she did not have children and complains to Jacob, he responds, “Am I in the place of God that has withheld from you the fruit of the womb?”  The midrash blames Jacob for his insensitivity and connects the two uses of the phrase, implying that the second use, (in our parsha) will be one in which the child of Rachel stands over all of the children of Jacob, as punishment for what Jacob said.   

Yosef takes precisely the phrase that creates separation and streif and uses it to heal wounds and take responsibility to care for his brothers.  This is the moment of healing for all of the past pain that has coursed through the family of Jacob since its inception.   This moment is the moment of tikun.   

The rabbis teach that tikun, the fixing of things, should come precisely from that which has caused the separation and damage.  We learn from Yosef that the key to this process is humility, caring, taking responsibility, and though others have wronged us, not taking revenge or judging them harshly, in fulfillment of the Talmud’s injunction, that just as God is merciful and gracious so must we be (Sotah 14).”

Shabbat Shalom