weekly Torah reading: parasha Mikeitz 5784
When the brothers arrived in Egypt, Joseph was in charge of selling grain to all the peoples who looked to Egypt for food. “And Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down to him with their faces to the earth” (Genesis 42:6, JPS). Thus the dream he had as a youth was only partially fulfilled, so far; because Benjamin was not with them, yet, in the dream all of his brothers bowed down to him. Although the brothers did not recognize Joseph, he recognized them. They saw an Egyptian prince standing in front of them; Joseph saw his long-lost brothers. Yet, he spoke to them harshly, insinuating that they were spies; he did this to make a way for Benjamin to be brought down to Egypt.
They said that they were part of a family with twelve sons, “and, behold, the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not” (Genesis 42:13, JPS).Joseph declared that if they brought the youngest down to Egypt, that would prove that they were not spies. He put them all in prison for three days; then, he kept Simeon in prison as surety for their return.
The brother’s response to this turn of events was such that they realized that the guilt they incurred because of their prior treatment of Joseph twenty years ago was being requited by a divine judgment against themselves. “And they said one to another: ‘We are verily guilty concerning our brother, in that we saw the distress of his soul, when he besought us, and we would not hear; therefore is this distress come upon us’” (Genesis 42:21, JPS). The brothers carried a guilty conscience all of those years; yet, not until the tides were turned did they begin to openly admit this to themselves.
We would be wise to learn from this example. According to the Zohar, the sins that people neglect to acknowledge will accrue over time, until some evil overtakes the person. The Zohar explains that subconsciously the sins that go disregarded by a person, i.e., sins that are not repented of, remain buried in the self, eliciting an unexplained fear.
The Zohar further explains, the source of the fear is the prescient sense of judgment that exists, unrealized, below the surface of consciousness. Perhaps, this is the underlying cause for so many people turning away from reflection upon themselves. Instead, we distract ourselves with endless preoccupations, trying to avoid the inevitable. Rather we should turn to H’Shem, through an examination of conscience, as Joseph’s brothers did, when they attributed their misfortune to their own misdeeds.
The Tree of Life 