The final four Torah portions in the book of Bereishit, while they discuss all Twelve Tribes in varying degree, are predominantly focused on Yosef. If you analyze the text, you find a very interesting pattern regarding Yosef’s behavior. Yosef cries a lot. No less than six times do the verses say verbatim that Yosef cried (Bereishit 42:24; 43:30; 45:14; 46:29; 50:1; 50:17).
Yosef cried in addition to this. Although the verse does not use the word for “cry,” you can hear the crying in his voice. Yosef pleads with the royal cupbearer to remember him and help extricate him from the pit.
“I was stolen from the land of the Hebrews and also here I did nothing that they threw me in the pit!” Although it does not mention it at the time, we learn later what transpired when the brothers threw Yosef into the pit from their pangs of regret: “And one said to the other, we are guilty for our brother, when we saw his distress and his pleading with us, but we did not heed – this is why this misfortune has befallen us.”
Yosef is constantly crying. We don’t read about Yehuda crying, about Reuven crying, or any of the other tribes – certainly not Shimon and Levi. We do read once about Binyamin crying, in response to Yosef’s crying on his “shoulders” (referring to a vision of the destruction of the Batei Mikdash). Of all the Twelve Tribes, only Yosef and Binyamin cry.
This is something they inherited from their mother Rachel. If I were to ask you, “Which one of the Matriarchs cried the most?” you would probably answer, “Leah!” The verse tells us that Leah was constantly crying, so much so that it caused her eyelashes to fall out. We only read of Rachel crying once. It is, however, this single mention of Rachel’s crying (that her sons inherited) that gives us an insight into her son Yosef’s penchant for crying.
What was the difference between Leah’s crying and Rachel’s crying? Leah was weeping for her own misfortune. Since their birth, Leah and Rachel were betrothed to marry their cousins, Eisav and Yaakov. The very thought she would of have to marry Eisav caused Leah to continually cry.
Did Rachel cry over her own misfortune? Although we don’t read about it in the text, or even in the Midrashim, if you read between the lines, it is almost a given that she did. The Midrashim tell how for seven years Yaakov would send gifts to Rachel. Lavan intercepted them and instead gave them to Leah. Rachel knew this. She knew that her father was plotting to wed her sister Leah to Yaakov in her place. Did this cause her to shed a tear? Almost certainly – probably many tears.
Let us try to imagine Yosef’s childhood. Yaakov’s favoritism towards Rachel and her son Yosef did not endear him to his siblings born to Leah. Yosef’s mother Rachel died when he was only eight (Seder Olam, chap. 2), and Yosef was raised by Bilha.
It didn’t help that Yosef was constantly receiving prophetic dreams that he was obliged to relate. According to the Mishna (Sanhedrin 11:5), a prophet who does not relate his prophecy is liable the death penalty. Leah’s sons ostracized him, hated him and eventually plotted to kill him. One can only imagine the tense atmosphere in the home of Yaakov where Yosef grew up. Did Yosef spend many a sleepless night, shedding a tear? Probably more than a few.
At age seventeen, Yosef was set upon by his older siblings, cast into a pit filled with snakes and scorpions, and then sold into slavery in Egypt. Did Yosef shed a tear in the pit? We know he did, indirectly from the verse above when his brothers expressed remorse (Bereishit 42:21). When he was shackled by the Midianite merchants and forced to walk by foot into slavery in Egypt, did Yosef shed a tear? Most probably. When Yosef was falsely accused of assaulting his employer’s wife and thrown into prison, did Yosef spend many a sleepless night bemoaning his misfortune and shedding a tear? Almost certainly; we hear it indirectly in his quavering appeal to the royal cupbearer. However, this is not recorded in Torah but only in the six verses above that refer to Yosef’s crying.
Yosef’s “official” crying, mentioned specifically, is not crying over his own personal misfortune. All six verses that use the word vayeivk – he cried, refer to a different type of crying. This was a prophetic crying over the future of Am Yisrael. When Yosef hears the remorse in his brothers’ voices, it causes Yosef to cry not tears of sorrow but tears of joy for the sincere remorse that ignites the spark of reunification of the Twelve Tribes. When Yosef cries on Binyamin’s shoulder and Binyamin cries on his, it is not simply emotion over reuniting with a blood brother but tears of prophetic sorrow at the destruction of Mishkan Shilo (in Yosef’s territory) and the two Batei Mikdash (in Binyamin’s). When Yosef cries at his father’s deathbed, it is because he prophetically sees the future suffering of Am Yisrael in Egypt. When Yosef cries after his father’s death at the brothers’ fear that he might now take his revenge on them, again it is tears of joy at the culmination of the reunification of the Twelve Tribes – all reciting Shema Yisrael and reaffirming their devotion to Hashem.
Yosef does a lot of personal crying; he had good reason to. However, the crying that is mentioned in the Torah is not for himself but for his brothers and their descendants, Am Yisrael. Binyamin cries similarly. They both inherited this from their mother Rachel.
Rachel had good reason to cry for her personal misfortune as she had plenty of it in her short life. But the crying of Rachel that the Torah chooses to immortalize is not for her personal tears but for her children, for Am Yisrael – “Kol be’Rama Nishma, Nehi Bechi Tamrurim – A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more” (Jeremiah 31:15). It was this crying that eventually resulted in our redemption, and will do so once again.
Parshat HaShavua Trivia Question: When Yehuda approached Yosef, he did so with the intention of attacking him with a “secret weapon.” What was it?
Answer to Last Week’s Trivia Question: When the brothers arrived in Egypt in search of food, what was the first thing they did? They went looking for Yosef in the “red light district” (Midrash Tanchuma Mikeitz, 8).
