Vayigash: A Tzaddik’s Approach to Expressing Emotions

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One of the most poignant scenes in Tanach is described in this week’s parsha. The two sons of the adored Rachel, close brothers separated for 22 years, reunite and cry on each other’s shoulders¹. On the surface, this is a beautiful expression of long pent-up emotion, the relief to see each other, the pain over their long separation, perhaps reliving the death of their mother and the pain of their father. Yet, Rashi tells us that Yosef and Binyamin were not crying over the present, but over the future. As the two brothers embraced, they each cried for the other’s churban: Yosef cried over the destruction of the Beit Hamikdash (in Binyamin’s land) and Binyamin cried over the Mishkan in Shilo (in Yosef’s land). Let us explore the nature of tzaddikim and their tears.

The Torah shows us a highly emotional side of Yosef throughout the pesukim. He cried when he overheard his brothers expressing regret for selling him as a slave and when they brought Binyamin down to Mitzrayim. At the pivotal moment when he reveals his identity to his brothers, he cries and then again as he embraces Binyamin. Yosef also cried when he reunited with his father and once more when his brothers approached him for forgiveness. Yosef was a man of resilience and fortitude, he survived the seeming betrayal of his brothers as they sold him into slavery, the passing of his mother and ultimately, the temporary but long loss of his father’s loving attention and Torah wisdom. He faced the difficult temptation of Potiphar’s wife, braved the conditions of Egyptian prison and married and raised his children, alone. Yet the Torah captures this strong tzaddik in a series of tearful moments. In a powerful contrast, the Torah writes that ‘vayitapak’² that Yosef restrained himself, he returned to his brothers after crying in a separate room and acted normally in front of them in order to control his emotions. Yet, in a later pasuk the Torah writes ‘v’lo yachol yosef lihatapek’ ³that Yosef could no longer hold himself back and then he released his tears for the first time in front of them. Yosef is master of maintaining his composure yet he is also master of unleashing and expressing fierce emotion.

It is unsurprising that the Yosef who had the strength to say no to Potiphar’s wife, has the inner strength to direct when he spills his tears. Rav Shach⁴ emphasizes that what Rashi tells us about Yosef’s tears, not over his torrent of emotional overwhelm but Binyamin’s future churban, displays an incredible level of submission to Hashem. Yosef’s emotions were completely in his control, like our middot are meant to be. He did not just cry from relief of seeing his long-lost, beloved brother or from years of pent-up pain. He took his inner flood of emotion and channeled it completely purely and productively, over the future churban. Yosef was not detached from reality, nor was he robotic. But when he felt the overpowering cacophony of emotions rising up within him, he directed it all towards churban. That is perhaps the difference between an emotional Jew and an emotional tzaddik, the power to harness emotion in a powerful, meaningful direction.

Yosef was deeply emotionally intuitive. In fact, Rabbi Haber points out that things take a turn for the good when Yosef asks the butler and baker in prison ‘why are your faces downcast?’⁵ Since Yosef is so highly attuned to emotion, he notices that the pair were not feeling themselves which ultimately leads to his interpretation of their dreams and eventually Pharaoh’s. This small observation sets in motion Yosef’s rise to power in Egypt. Rebbetzin Gottlieb, in an essay about Dinah⁶, writes about a ‘male element’ of Yosef’s which appears to have never left Dinah’s soul. Rachel was in fact pregnant with a female soul and Leah with a male one, but Leah prayed for her foetus to become a female so that Rachel would not birth less tribes than the maidservants⁷. Thus Rachel had Yosef and Leah had Dinah. Perhaps we can suggest from here that Yosef had a certain ‘female element’ of Dinah’s female soul which never left him either. Emotion is associated more with women in Torah as seen when the Gemara⁸ says that women are brought more easily to tears.

It is unsurprising that the Yosef who had the strength to say no to Potiphar’s wife, has the inner strength to direct when he spills his tears. Rav Shach emphasizes that what Rashi tells us about Yosef’s tears, not over his torrent of emotional overwhelm but Binyamin’s future churban, displays an incredible level of submission to Hashem. Yosef’s emotions were completely in his control, like our middot are meant to be. He did not just cry from relief of seeing his long-lost, beloved brother or from years of pent-up pain. He took his inner flood of emotion and channeled it completely purely and productively, over the future churban.

Following Yosef’s tears in front of his brothers, the pasuk⁹ says they spoke to him, something they were too intimidated to do upon his initial revelation ‘I am Yosef.’¹⁰ Although Yosef’s first words took the blame away from the brothers completely since he stated that it was not their actions but Hashem’s will which brought him down to Egypt¹¹, the ordering of the pasuk suggests that these intellectual words did not fully reassure the brothers. Only when Yosef was able to display emotion by kissing and crying with them, experiencing pain alongside them, did the brothers trust that he truly harbored no resentment¹². This is a message for us too. Our avodat Hashem has to be real and solid in our minds ‘veyadata et Hashem,’ we have to master the intellectual. Yet, it also has to penetrate our heart and emotions ‘vehishivota el levavecha.’ We must learn to fuse head and heart together so we can absorb Hashem’s messages, our thoughts and feelings must align. Indeed, this is alluded to in the pasuk where the Torah highlights that Yosef and Binyamin lay on each other’s necks; the physical channel between head and heart.

The neck is also symbolic of something far more powerful, the Beit Hamikdash. If we return to the tears of Yosef and Binyamin, we can view this not just as an emotional outburst or even a channelled prayer over churban, but as the beginning of the resolution of a long-standing conflict which continues to spill over into galut today. Rabbi Dr Riskin¹³ points out that Yosef and Binyamin’s brotherly bond stands out in Sefer Bereishit against many other fraught relationships; Kayin and Hevel, Yitzchak and Yishmael, Yaakov and Eisav and Yosef and the other brothers. While Adam’s sin changed the way we relate to Hashem and shifted the makeup of the world, the selling of Yosef was the most catastrophic sin of Bereishit in the interpersonal realm, an aveira we continue to repair even today. The Megale Amukot¹⁴ says all exiles are rooted in this sin; this is the cause of the baseless hatred which keeps us engulfed in the dark waves of galut. Yosef and Binyamin’s utterly selfless tears are the beginnings of geula. It was not a random holy thought to cry for churban, but deeply, tragically relevant. Yosef was crying over his role in the churban. It was his selling which set in motion the cogs of exile and his descendant, Yeravam, who would eventually split off from the kingdom of Yehuda, ultimately leading to the destruction of the 1st Beit Hamikdash.

The seeds of galut are all tragically planted in Sefer Bereishit from the actions of the brothers. Yet, we can also see the seeds of geula being watered in this week’s parsha. The entire brotherly reunion heals the long-entrenched rift between the children of Rachel and Leah. In a parallel of what is to come, the parsha begins ‘vayigash eilav yehuda’ with Yehuda approaching Yosef. The pasuk later records Yosef beckoning his brothers close ‘geshi na elai,’ approach me. This is echoed in the haftara where Yechezkel speaks of the stick of Yosef and the stick of Yehuda being joined together and all the tribes ultimately merging into one before Hashem. We witness in Sefer Bereshit the animosity, division, and ultimately the split of Klal Yisrael. But, simultaneously, we see a foreshadowing to the glorious reunion which we continue to await, the unification of the Shivtei Kah under the Melech Hamashiach. Hazorim bedima berina yiktzoru, certainly this geula will be watered with tears of caring for another.