The Power of Vulnerability

 

It is a crude image, one that gets chuckles from fourth graders studying Parshat Shemot for the first time. The Torah relates that Pharaoh was “going out to the Nile” in the early morning; Rashi, (quoting the Midrash), explains that “going” means Pharaoh was going to the bathroom. Pharaoh was considered by the Egyptians to be a god; to preserve his image, Pharaoh wouldn’t answer nature’s call while others could observe him. So at the break of dawn, Pharaoh would make a furtive dash to surreptitiously fulfill his bodily needs. It is at that moment that Moshe confronts him, demanding that Pharaoh let the Jews go. The silliness of this scene mocks Pharaoh's pretensions to divine status. In one version of this Midrash, Moshe grabs Pharaoh and prevents him from relieving himself, and tells Pharaoh that a true God doesn't need to go to the toilet.

Bartholomeus Breenbergh, Moses and Aaron Changing the Rivers of Egypt to Blood, 1631

This Midrash has historical roots. In ancient Egyptian religion, Pharaohs were considered to be gods, sons of the sun god Ra, and manifestations of the sky-god Horus; a royal cult offered sacrifices to statues of Pharaoh’s image. Although the Torah makes no direct reference to this belief, it is implicit in the text. Despite a series of devastating plagues, Pharaoh stubbornly refuses to offer the Jews three days of freedom. (Yes, God hardens Pharaoh’s heart; but even if that means Pharaoh no longer had free will, this only occurred in the final five plagues). Clearly, Pharaoh is not just a hard-nosed monarch intent on holding onto his slaves; he is engaged in a cosmic battle over who is the true God.   This Midrash highlights the absurdity of this Egyptian belief, and reminds us that no man can ever be a god. But it also offers a related lesson about human vulnerability. Even the most powerful man in Egypt cannot fully control his own body and must run to the toilet to relieve himself. Rav Aharon Lichtenstein relates this Midrash to Montaigne’s observation that “man aspires to the stars and all the while cannot rise from his toilet seat.” To dream of perfection is a human instinct, but vulnerability is a human constant; we are reminded of our wants and needs with every breath we take.   Awareness of our own vulnerability shapes one’s moral perspective. Nietzsche rejected what he called what he called “slave-morality,” which is based on “qualities which serve to alleviate the existence of sufferers … sympathy, the kind, helping hand, the warm heart, patience, diligence, humility, and friendliness...” This slave morality of sympathy was introduced into the world by the Jews, during a ‘slave revolt.’ This revolt undermined a “master-morality” of noble men, which “equals self-glorification,” power, toughness and strength. The Judeo-Christian embrace of slave-morality has left mankind cowardly, timid and mediocre.   It is easy to brush Nietzsche aside as heartless, but his argument is in some ways compelling. To flourish requires hard fought success. Man instinctively desires to be God-like, to be powerful and strong; the Torah itself instructs mankind to “conquer the world.” And not only is this perspective partly correct, it is also wholly seductive; who doesn’t aspire to be one of the masters of the universe? But unchecked, this impulse will lead to the belief that winning is the only thing that matters, and one should despise a kind-hearted person. Pharaoh represents the paradigm of what master-morality aspires to be. He is a powerful leader, the head of an empire, a man who lives life on his own terms; indeed, he is even considered to be a god. And it is precisely at this point that the Midrash interrupts Pharaoh’s fantasy, reminding him that even great kings must regularly exchange their thrones for a far humbler commode. Vulnerability is the lot of humanity, and a moral system that fails to take this into account will end up pursuing power for its own sake, causing a great deal of destruction and misery along the way. The so-called “slave-morality” recognizes reality for what it is: everyone is in need of sympathy at times. And even the powerful ought to have some humility, because they too have to run to the bathroom like everyone else.   It is in this context that the Asher Yatzar blessing is to be understood. This blessing is recited at a very odd moment, immediately after using the bathroom, and its text is strange and somewhat disturbing. Asher Yatzar praises God for having created within us circulatory, respiratory and digestive organs; it then notes that “it is obvious and known…that if one of them were ruptured, or if one of them were blocked, it would be impossible to exist and stand in Your Presence even for a short while.” This blessing doesn’t thank God for what has gone right; it reminds man of what could go wrong. We leave the toilet, and reflect on how easily the digestive system is disrupted, and how fragile our lives are. But the purpose of this blessing is directly related to the Midrash about Pharaoh. Both remind us how tenuous and tentative our bodies are. Anyone who has struggled with health issues knows the disciples of Pharaoh are fools; no man is a god. Man is a fragile vessel, mere clay in the hands of the divine potter; we need to thank God for life itself.   So how do we overcome fragility? Certainty not through vanity or denial. But humanity can find within vulnerability the seeds of greatness. Awareness of our fragility awakens empathy; awareness of our mortality inspires one to build families and legacies. The virtues that Nietzsche sneers at are the foundation of all democracies. And for the Jews, communal connections, compassion and kindness have allowed them to endure the difficulties of persecution; and their hope and patience has brought about the most remarkable rebirth in history. Slave-morality has proven to be a lot stronger than Nietzsche imagined.   The Torah says that man is created in the image of God, but his greatness is rooted in vulnerability. We search for a connection to others because we recognize how incomplete we are on our own. This is the very source of our strength. Love is as strong as death, and when we look beyond ourselves and our egos we can touch immortality.

To Be Buried in One’s Homeland: Yoseph, Herzl, and Hadar

 

In his essay “Majesty and Humility,” Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik recounts how “Occasionally, when I am at the airport, I happen to observe the loading of a double coffin containing the body of a Jew who has lived, worked, raised children, prospered or failed, in the United States. It is being shipped for burial in the land of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Rav Soloveitchik finds this to be fascinating, because many of those being transported had marginal Jewish identities. He ponders why a "modern, secular Jew wants to rest in eternal peace in proximity to the site where the patriarchs found their rest."

Herzl's coffin lying in state in the Knesset Square, on the beach of Tel Aviv. Next to the coffin is an honor guard of the Air Force and Navy soldiers, with their swords drawn and facing downwards as a sign of mourning. David Eldan • Public domain

The Jewish desire to be buried in Israel is indeed a puzzle, one that goes back for centuries. The Talmud Yerushalmi records a fascinating exchange between two 2nd century rabbis, Rabbi Eleazer and Rabbi Barqiria, while they were observing caskets of diaspora Jews being carried into Israel for burial. Rabbi Barqiria criticized the practice, noting that these Jews had treated Israel with contempt in their lifetimes by failing to move there, and now they were making it worse by sending their impure, dead bodies into Israel for burial. Rabbi Eleazar defended the practice and asserted that burial in Israel was so important, it had sufficient merit to atone for one's sins. (The Midrash on our Torah reading mentions a similar debate.) Rabbi Barqiria’s criticism notwithstanding, this puzzling practice clearly was popular by the 2nd century despite the challenging logistics of long-distance burial in the ancient world.   But what motivates a Jew in the corners of exile to send his body for burial in Israel? Rav Soloveitchik explains that all humans have an instinctive desire to return to their roots at the very end of life; and for a Jew, his roots are in Israel. Rav Soloveitchik explains that “the meaning of death in the Biblical tradition” is to “return to the origin, the source.” He calls this desire “origin-consciousness." This longing is universal; as life comes to an end, even the adventurer yearns for home. Rav Soloveitchik quotes Robert Louis Stevenson’s poem “Requiem,” as follows:   “This be the verse you grave for me:    Here he lies where he longed to be Home is the sailor, home from sea,    And the hunter home from the hill."   Even explorers want to return home to their final resting place.   Parshat Vayechi offers two vignettes relating to burial in Israel. Both Yaakov and Yoseph have had adventures that took them far away from home and separated them from their families. Yet both want to return home for burial; after a lifetime of wandering, they want to return to their roots. So Yaakov asks Yoseph to make sure he will be buried in the family grave in the Mearat Hamachpelah. At the end of the Torah reading, Yoseph does the same; he makes his family promise to take his bones with them when they leave Egypt.   These two requests reflect very different concerns. Yaakov wants to be buried in his kever avot, his family plot; Yoseph wants to be buried in Eretz Yisrael, in the Land of Israel. Both of these concerns are religious values, and this is reflected in halakhah as well. Generally, disinterment of a body is forbidden; one should not disturb a grave for any reason. However, there are two exceptions to the rule: if the body will be reburied in a family plot, or if it will be sent to Israel for reburial.   Yaakov reminds us of the importance of the family plot. Sefer Chasidim, the 12th century German work, takes the mystical view that the cemetery is a portal between the worlds of the living and the dead; and the dead very much desire for their graves to be visited by family members. But even rationalists can recognize that the family plot is sacred ground, a spot that symbolically expresses connections of love that never die. In the moments when I consider where I would want to be buried, it is family considerations that loom large. Should I be buried with my parents and grandparents, or in a cemetery closer to where my children will live? It is instinctive to want to be laid to rest near family.   Rav Soloveitchik’s essay offers a profound insight into the powerful allure of a family plot; and this is what motivates Yaakov. However, I don’t think his explanation fully explains the desire for burial in Israel; this age-old custom is far more than a return to origins, as we can see from the burial of Yoseph.   Yoseph’s burial is not about his family; he is buried alone, apart from his parents and siblings. Instead, his reburial tells the story of national redemption. Yoseph’s descent to Egypt begins a difficult chapter of exile; and when the Jews are redeemed, Yoseph’s bones return with them. Because of the national significance of Yoseph’s reburial, Moshe personally carries Yoseph’s bones. Yoseph is buried in Shechem, the very place where he is sold into slavery, and the saga of the Egyptian exile begins. Yoseph’s reburial is about redemption and the future, not about the past.   On August 17th, 1949, the story of Yoseph’s bones returned to the headlines. Theodore Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, was brought to burial in Israel. Herzl had written in his will, "I wish to be buried in a metal coffin, in the cemetery plot next to my father, and I will lie there until the people of Israel transfer my body to the Land of Israel." After his death in 1904, little was done. There were discussions in the Zionist movement about moving Herzl’s bones in 1925, and again in 1935; by then, the antisemitism that was raging in Austria rendered this project impossible.   After the establishment of the State of Israel, its leaders immediately took on the project of bringing Herzl to Israel; and this was seen as a modern version of the burial of Yoseph’s bones. Doron Bar, of the The Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies, notes that within the dry language of the Knesset legislation establishing a national burial ground for Herzl, the Biblical phrase “chelkat sadeh,” “a parcel of land” is used --  a reference to the words used at the end of the book of Joshua about the reburial of Yoseph. When David Ben Gurion spoke in the Knesset, he said: “Only two people in Jewish history have had the privilege of having their remains brought to Israel by their liberated nation. Yoseph from Egypt and Herzl from Vienna." Herzl’s reburial was a modern day return of Yoseph’s bones.   The entire process played out in grand drama. In Vienna, the community gathered to offer one last farewell in a synagogue packed with Holocaust survivors, tears streaming down their faces. A special El Al plane, which bore the name “Herzl” on its nose, arrived to take the body to Israel. In a short speech before the plane took off, David Remez, the minister of transportation, said, “Past and future combine to raise up the leader’s bones. His spirit will continue to be with us and guide the Jewish people from the eternal hills of Jerusalem.”   The plane flew to Israel and entered the skies over Haifa, where it was met by four planes from the Israeli Air Force, which then accompanied Herzl’s plane. After landing, the body was taken to the Knesset in Tel Aviv, where a special session was held to honor Herzl. Following that, a procession took Herzl’s body to Jerusalem, on the same path that Herzl himself took in his 1898 visit. In Jerusalem. Herzl was buried in the newly created cemetery of Har Herzl, which would become the final resting place of Israel's great heroes, soldiers, and leaders.   Herzl’s burial represented the opening of a new chapter in Jewish history. As Ben Gurion eloquently stated in his speech, “Herzl’s coffin is entering the mountains of Jerusalem not in a procession of mourning, but rather in a journey of triumph.” Upon entering Jerusalem, the coffin passed under an arch built for the occasion bearing the biblical verse, “I will lift you from your graves My people and bring you to the land of Israel” (Ezek. 37:12). Herzl’s return to Israel meant that the Jewish people had finally come home.   This is why I take a different view than Rav Soloveitchik of burial in Israel. While the desire to return to one’s origins is universal, the desire to be buried in Israel is much more than that. For centuries, Jews sent their bodies to Israel in order to make a statement that they believed in redemption, believed in the Jewish future, and believed that Israel would once again be the home and homeland of their descendants. Like Yoseph and Herzl, these simple Jews wanted to be a part of a future Jewish state. They were longing to be buried in Israel and their longing for redemption were one and the same.   As I write these words, my thoughts turn to my dear friends Leah and Simcha Goldin. They have been waging a lonely campaign to bring home the remains of their son Hadar Goldin along with Oron Shaul. Both were soldiers killed in 2014 during Operation Protective Edge. Since then, their bodies have been held hostage by Hamas. The Goldins continue to push forward, in the United Nation, in the US Capitol, and in the Knesset. All too often, their concerns are dismissed as unimportant in the realm of diplomacy. But returning a body to the family grave is not an insignificant matter for any human being; and returning Jewish heroes to their homeland should be a priority for every Jew. Hadar and Oron must come home; like Yoseph and Herzl, it is now time for them to come home.

Moshe and the Road Less Traveled

 

Screenwriters are drawn to an unusual aspect of Moshe’s story: that the future liberator of the Jews was raised in the house of Pharaoh. Movies like the Ten Commandments and the Prince of Egypt invent backstories to describe Moshe’s childhood, and fill in the details that are missing in the text. Moshe is cast as the step-sibling of the Pharaoh he would later battle; and these movie scripts offer a vivid picture of childhood friendships and jealousies, romantic rivalries and bitter squabbles. American cinema has written an entire soap opera for Moshe’s life, which reaches its crescendo when Moshe returns home to the palace and demands from his estranged step-family -- let my people go.

The Child Moses Throws down Pharaoh's Crown, Orazio de Ferrari, First Half of the 17th Century

The paradox of Moshe in Pharaoh’s house also caught the attention of traditional commentaries. But they are interested in why this absurd turn of events ever occurred, and why God chose to bring this about. For one accustomed to seeing the workings of providence within the text, Moshe being raised in Pharaoh's house is truly a riddle. Several responses are offered. Rabbinic literature highlights the irony that the great Pharaoh will ultimately be taken down by the baby sitting on his lap. Various texts in the Talmud tell of a nervous Pharaoh, obsessed with destroying a future Jewish savior. Following his astrologers’ advice that this savior can be vanquished by water, he orders every Jewish boy to be thrown into the river. Yet this desperate decree actually brings Moshe to Pharaoh’s doorstep. Moshe’s very presence in the palace mocks Pharaoh's carefully maintained image of being an all-powerful human deity. Instead, Pharaoh comes off as a frightened, bumbling man who provides a luxurious upbringing for his future nemesis.  Avraham ibn Ezra offers two insights, both tied to the concept of leadership. He explains that had Moshe been raised among the Jews, they would not have feared him; he would have been too familiar and comfortable to exercise full authority over them. Ibn Ezra offers another idea, which focuses on what Moshe learned from Pharaoh’s example. Ibn Ezra asserts that the Jews in Egypt had a slave mentality, and anyone raised among them would be too cowardly to confront Pharaoh. Being raised in Pharaoh's house would train Moshe to have an “exalted soul”, to be strong and confident. Moshe is learning a leadership style from Pharaoh that he could not learn in his own community. Ibn Ezra’s explanation is troubling, because according to his view, God brings Moshe to Pharaoh’s house to be more like Pharaoh. But who would want to emulate the leadership of Pharaoh? Pharaoh’s autocratic administration and slavery are clearly connected, because elevating one man into a demigod dehumanizes everyone else. If anything, it would seem to me that the Torah is offering the opposite message: Moshe’s leadership skills came not from imitating Pharaoh, but in defying him. It is remarkable that Moshe became a spiritual giant; most others would have been seduced by the power and privilege of Pharaoh’s palace. It would have surprised no one if Moshe had stayed loyal to the royal family that cared for him, and turned his back on his Jewish brethren. Our social context has a profound influence on who we are; Maimonides says it is such a potent force, that if one is living among “evildoers and sinners”, they should uproot themselves and leave home to “dwell in caves, or cliffs, or deserts.” Yet Moshe manages to transcend his background, and even at a young age is a rival of Pharaoh’s despotic, depraved empire. Moshe's choice to rebel against Pharaoh is truly the road less traveled; most people prefer to follow the crowd and listen to the leader. This is a sobering thought for anyone who strives to live an upright life; perhaps our moral achievements are simply the product of luck. We are who we are because of positive role models. Had our upbringing been different, we might be very different people. Thomas Nagel, in his essay Moral Luck, reminds us that “what we do is also limited by the opportunities and choices with which we are faced, and these are largely determined by factors beyond our control. Someone who was an officer in a concentration camp might have led a quiet and harmless life if the Nazis had never come to power in Germany. And someone who led a quiet and harmless life in Argentina might have become an officer in a concentration camp if he had not left Germany for business reasons in 1930.” People generally live conventional lives. For the ordinary citizen of Nazi Germany, antisemitism was socially expected, and murder was accepted. And for those who followed Hitler uncritically, it was easy to follow orders. Joachim von Ribbentrop, Hitler’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, defended himself in the Nuremberg Trials by saying: “I was always loyal to Hitler, carried through his orders, differed frequently in opinion from him, had serious disputes with him, repeatedly tendered my resignation, but when Hitler gave an order, I always carried out his instructions in accordance with the principles of our authoritarian state.” Von Ribbentrop’s argument is an example of the “Nuremberg Defense,” the argument that the Nazi defendants should be excused for their crimes because they were following the law of the land. This defense is the legal equivalent of invoking moral luck, with the defendants in Nuremberg arguing that they should be exonerated because they were doing what was expected of them. But not everyone followed the crowd. A remarkable few defied the Nazis, and refused to sell their souls. There were rescuers like Schindler, Wallenberg, and Sugihara, both famous and unknown, who defied the evil Pharaoh’s edict. They followed Moshe on the road less traveled, and were willing to pursue justice and integrity when everyone else had turned their backs. Moshe begins his career with the ultimate act of independence, by listening to his conscience instead of his contemporaries. His ability to safeguard his soul while being raised in Pharaoh’s house is remarkable. But the Torah demands more of all humanity; and the point of the story is that all of us can be Moshe.

Would Yoseph be a Hero in 2021?

Should we apply today’s standards to the heroes of the past? Historians have debated this issue for the last century. Some subscribe to “presentism”, which the Oxford English Dictionary defines as “a bias towards the present or present-day attitudes, esp. in the interpretation of history.” Those who critique presentism dismiss it as offering politically driven anachronistic readings of history. Carefully nuanced debates regarding presentism are found in academic journals; but today, the debates of presentism are just as likely to be found in tabloid headlines, with angry clashes about the proper place of historical figures and public statues.   

Presentism is always at issue when reading the Tanakh; already in the rabbinic period, there were attempts to read halakhic practice back into the actions of the Patriarchs, to make their behaviour conform with religious norms. Today, some readers take the opposite view, and assume the Biblical characters must be benighted and bigoted, incapable of offering anything relevant to say on contemporary issues. 

This debate is critical for reading the end of this week’s parsha. In the final years of the famine in Egypt, the Egyptians beg Yoseph for food. Initially, they offer Yoseph their silver; once that runs out, Yoseph accepts their livestock, and then their property. Eventually, they offer themselves to Yoseph as slaves in return for food, and the entire population is moved to new homes, to work the fields as Pharaoh’s sharecroppers.

It is puzzling that Yoseph’s political policies are included in the Torah. This slice of ancient Egyptian history seems irrelevant to the ordinary reader of the Tanakh; why would the Torah include a lengthy passage with seemingly no connection to Jewish history?

Contemporary interpreters read this section as a silent rebuke of Yoseph; blinded by his loyalty to Pharaoh, he inadvertently establishes Egyptian slavery. These critics see Yoseph’s policies of economic centralization and state imposed slavery as setting the stage for enslaving the Jews. Moshe Pava focuses on the economic aspects of Yoseph’s policies; based on Friedman and Hayek, and he argues that Yoseph’s misuse of insider knowledge and his misguided economic policies led Egypt on the road to serfdom. Uriel Simon focuses on the ethical dimension, and sees Yoseph's advocacy of slavery as fundamentally unethical; he also criticizes Yoseph’s granting of special privileges to his family. Aaron Wildavsky and David Sabato offer interbiblical critiques of Yoseph. Wildavsky points out the contrast between Yoseph and Moshe; Yoseph builds the Egyptian empire and institutes slavery, while Moshe abolishes slavery and defeats the Egyptian empire. Among the points Sabato adds is that Yoseph’s actions run counter to the Torah’s emphasis that land should never be sold permanently, because all land belongs to God. 

Yoseph’s policies are included in the Torah as a cautionary tale. He imagines he will protect his family by increasing Pharaoh’s power; the opposite results, and his policies pave the way for their future sorrow. Had Yoseph taken a more enlightened view of politics and economics, the Jews might have had a different experience in Egypt. 

The classical commentaries to the Torah offer a contrasting view. The Ramban exemplifies this perspective when he writes “The Torah relates this…entire section in order to make known Yoseph's excellence in wisdom, in understanding, and in knowledge; and that he was a faithful man in that he brought all money into Pharaoh's house and did not accumulate for himself treasures of money and secret hiding places for wealth”. Other commentaries see Yoseph as protecting the ordinary Egyptian; Shmuel ben Chofni Gaon explains that the Egyptians were the initiators of all of these transactions, because they desired the protection of the state during a time of crisis, under the exceptional benevolence of Yoseph. Rashi offers a further motive for Yoseph’s actions. Yaakov and his children were newcomers, and would have ultimately been rejected by the general population; by moving all Egyptians from place to place, Yoseph hoped to help his family fit in. 

These commentaries see Yoseph’s motivations as wholesome. He was loyal to Pharaoh, benevolent to the Egyptian people, and did his best to care for his family. If anything, by extolling Yoseph’s achievements, the text emphasizes the ingratitude of a future Pharaoh who will forget Yoseph’s contributions to the Egyptian empire. 

For many years, I was attracted by the contemporary reading of this text. I dismissed interpretations that praised Yoseph’s economic policies as apologetics, a futile attempt to make a biblical hero look better. I only recently realized that my understanding of the text had been badly distorted by presentism. The commentators who lived in feudal societies and autocratic monarchies better understood what Yoseph’s actual situation was like, and they could walk a mile in Yoseph’s shoes. It is too easy to criticize Yoseph's decisions while sitting in the comfy confines of 20th century western democracy, without the spectre of famines, Pharaohs and prejudice. But Yoseph was living in a different era, and he had to make his decisions based on the political and economic realities of his time. His situation is not just different from our own; it is quite different from Moshe’s, who had the full power of divine authority behind him. Moshe can attempt to revolutionize the world, and introduce a new moral code. And even Moshe doesn't always succeed.

Both readings have an important role in understanding this text. We need to recognize both what was wrong about Yoseph’s situation, and what was right about Yoseph the leader. The very point of Moshe’s revolution is to improve the present, to pursue justice, uproot slavery and protect human dignity; it is not mere anachronism to recognize how we would do things differently today. At the same time, we should recognize how Yoseph’s actions were heroic, considering where he was and the situation he was in. Morally clear and morally compromised situations require distinct methods of moral leadership.

What should one do in Yoseph's situation? There are times when there are no perfect options, when the best one can do is far from ideal; in these cases, the right choice is to follow the advice of the Pirkei Avot: “It is not your duty to finish the work, but neither are you at liberty to neglect it.”. And that is what Yoseph did. He knew that Egypt had always been a moral quagmire, and would eventually become a house of slavery. But that did not exempt him from doing his best at that moment. He labored to insure stability and sustenance for all Egyptians, and a comfortable exile for the next three generations of his family. 

There are good decisions that don't have good outcomes, and there are heroic choices that don’t elicit cheers. We cannot ignore that Yoseph was a hero in his generation; but the work doesn’t end there, and we must always continue to build a better world for future generations.

Constructive Ambivalence

Ambivalence has a bad reputation for very good reasons. It is associated with fear and failure, the Hamletesque desire to deliberate rather than decide. On the battlefield, an ambivalent soldier is a dangerous liability; in a relationship, ambivalence erodes commitment, and pulls the couple apart. It is difficult to be decisive, because every decision carries risk; but strong leaders need to be courageous, and push forward anyway.

Our Torah reading offers a different picture of ambivalence. Every commentary wonders: what was Yoseph's plan after meeting his brothers? Over the course of five chapters, we watch an unusual plot unfold, a long and twisting narrative that resists interpretation. Multiple commentaries labor strenuously to organize Yoseph’s actions into a coherent plan. Perhaps Yoseph was motivated by vengeance. Perhaps he was testing the brothers to see if they had changed. Perhaps he wanted to bring Binyamin to live with him in Egypt. Or, as the Ramban suggests, Yoseph felt compelled to fulfill his childhood dreams, and was manipulating his family in order to bring his father and brothers to Egypt and bow to him.

These competing theories arise because Yoseph’s behavior is so perplexing; there is no obvious motivation for his actions. Yoseph constantly vacillates. At times he is a harsh Egyptian viceroy prosecuting suspected spies; at other times, he is a kind brother who releases them from jail, overfills their bags, and returns their money.  On their second visit, Yoseph invites the brothers for a meal in his home and gives them gifts, and returns their money once again; at the same time he frames Binyamin as a thief. During each visit Yoseph is moved to tears by his reawakened love for his brothers; but he immediately turns aside and covers up the tears. Yoseph is the very picture of a man torn in two.

I would argue that ambivalence is the best explanation for Yoseph’s behaviour. Surprised by his brothers, Yoseph found himself of two minds, uncertain which direction to take. Emotionally, he felt both rage at, and love for, his brothers. More significantly, with the brothers arrival, Yoseph’s social standing was threatened; the powerful Egyptian viceroy was afraid of being exposed as a Hebrew, who were despised by Egyptians.

Yoseph was the first crypto-Jew, a hidden Hebrew in the court of Pharaoh. During the nine years that he was in power, Yoseph made no attempt to reach out to his father Yaakov. The simplest explanation for this is the most obvious one: Yoseph didn’t want to reunite with his father, and preferred to leave his past behind. David Henschke points out the Midrash Tanchuma, which remarks that Yoseph settles right in when he arrives in Egypt, and proudly forgets his father’s home. Yoseph’s desire to burn bridges with the past is reflected in the name of his first-born Menassheh, which means “God has made me forget my hardship and my parental home.” And forget is exactly what Yoseph does. When interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams, he confidently says “as for Pharaoh having had the same dream twice, it means that...God will soon carry it out”, oblivious to the fact that thirteen years earlier, he himself had also had the same dream twice, yet nothing happened. Yoseph left behind a traumatic childhood, and replaced it with amnesia and affluence.

Then the brothers arrive, and Yoseph is confronted with repressed memories. He is torn between his desire to protect his status and an unexpected longing for his family. Now he wants to take two opposing courses of action at the same time; he wants to remain anonymous, yet at the same time ensure that the brothers keep returning to him. Yoseph betrays his inner worries when he charges his brothers with being spies; like spies, his brothers know sensitive secrets about him. And so Yoseph vacillates, sometimes speaking like an Egyptian, and at other times like a Jew. He takes an oath to Pharaoh’s life, and declares that his goblet was used for divination, a pagan practice forbidden by the Torah. At other times, when he is more compassionate, Yoseph speaks about how he fears God. Yoseph alternates between the theological language of Egypt and Israel.

The perfect metaphor for Yoseph’s  split identity is found in the eating arrangements when he shares a meal with his brothers. The Hebrews and Egyptians sit apart, per Egyptian custom, which treats Hebrews as inferior. But Yoseph sits alone, in a no man's land between the Egyptians and the Hebrews, unable to eat with either. Yoseph is ambivalent, uncertain if he belongs with Egyptian royalty or with his brothers.

Yet it is precisely because of this ambivalence that Yoseph can reunite with his family. After nine years in power, after twenty-two years apart from his family, Yoseph refuses to make the quick decision to send his brothers away. Yes, Yoseph’s ambivalence is turbulent and frightening; but it is also constructive, and sets the stage for an exceptional conclusion to the story. For Yoseph, ambivalence is the way-station on the road to repentance.

Ambivalence can be constructive. Hesitation, deliberation, and vacillation are often the first stops on the road to personal change. Transformation begins when a person accepts a new perspective; most of the time, that only happens gradually. Before making a change, people will hold more than one point of view at the same time, and jump between them. Ralph Waldo Emerson, when critiquing thoughtless conformity, said "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do." There is a limit to the value of decisiveness; it can often hold people back from solving problems and considering new possibilities. Without ambivalence, change is often impossible.

In a leadership driven culture like our own, ambivalence seems weak and cowardly, the product of passivity and procrastination. We respect quick and clear decisions, and the Mishnah’s recommendation ‘to be slow to judgment” seems too wishy washy. And sometimes it is. But sometimes it isn’t; and the value of ambivalence is that it offers an opportunity to consider alternatives, resist conformity, and embrace innovation. Yoseph teaches us that change is only possible when a person is unafraid to be of two minds.