Yosef sees his brothers, who betrayed him 20 years ago and sold him into slavery. They came to Egypt to get food. Now, he has to decide what to do with his siblings: take revenge on them, ignore them, forgive them?
Yosef’s first option, the most “average”, course of action, would have been revenge. He suffered tremendously all those years away from his father’s home. The sadness and pain of slavery were undoubtedly overwhelming. When Yosef’s brothers come to Egypt, he is in a position of power and can “make them pay for all the suffering they caused him.” But revenge was not what moved Yosef. Yosef had “unilaterally” overcome his resentment. How do we know? When his first child is born, he names him “Menashe”; that is: “God has benefited me so much that made me forget (nashani) all the suffering” caused by my brothers. Yosef did not allow the pain and anger of the past to define his future. Yosef was not thinking of revenge. He had gotten over that self-destructive feeling.
IGNORE?
Yosef’s other option was to “ignore” his brothers. If Yosef didn’t want revenge, he could have chosen to be indifferent, pretend he didn’t see them, and continue his extraordinary life and brilliant career in Egypt, the most powerful country of antiquity. Why would Yosef want to rebuild his relationship with his brothers, who acted worse than his worst enemies? He didn’t need them in his life again! But Yosef does not ignore them. When he sees them, he comes up with a master plan of several moves: he accuses them of espionage and demands that they bring in Binyamin, his younger brother. When Binyamin arrives, he imprisons him on a false accusation and proposes to the brothers that they return home “safe and sound,” leaving Binyamin as his slave in Egypt. In this way, Yosef reenacts and reconstructs –in the best or only way possible– a scenario similar to the one that took place 20 years ago. Yosef allows them to redeem themselves and show that they are now willing to sacrifice one for the other. When Yosef realizes that his brothers have learned their lesson and are unwilling to repeat their mistakes, he reveals his identity and forgives them.
RECONCILIATION
The level of forgiveness we see in Yosef’s story is exceptional and almost superhuman. Since Yosef does not forgive them with a speech full of reproaches or resentment, it is a total reconciliation. In the first place, Yosef’s gesture is selfless since Yosef has nothing to “gain” in terms of his career or prestige in Egypt by forgiving his brothers.
Yosef acts out of pure altruism and extraordinary kindness. Secondly, Yosef takes one more unexpected step. Far from accusing them, he does his best to relieve his brothers of their guilt and tries to convince them — with a euphemistic version of the events– that the tragic actions of the past “were not their responsibility.” Those were events orchestrated by the Almighty to save millions of Egyptians and his own family from starvation. Far from looking for distance, Yosef offers his brothers to live “with him” in the prestigious neighborhood of Goshen in the Nile Delta. Yosef achieves what seemed impossible: reuniting a family that was completely broken. Rabbi Sabato, from Yeshiva Birkat Moshe, explains that Yosef is called Yosef haTzadiq, Yosef the Just, not only because of what he went through (or did not go through) with Potiphar’s wife but because of his incredible ability to forgive.
EXONERATION
Dr. Stephen Marmer, a psychiatrist at the University of California, UCLA, describes three types of forgiveness: 1. Release. 2. Tolerance and 3. Exoneration (we are referring here to forgiveness between family members, friends, and colleagues, and not to forgive crimes, terrorism, etc.).
“Release” is unilateral forgiveness. In other words, when the offender does not apologize to the victim and does not have the will to repair or ask forgiveness. However, the victims choose to “forget” the incident, thus preventing the toxic memory of the offender from living inside their minds and freeing themselves from the poisonous effects of resentment. There is no reconciliation here, and the parties remain estranged.
“Tolerance” is when the victim has received a partial or insincere apology because the offender, for example, has not taken sufficient responsibility for their actions. However, the victim chooses to forgive and rebuild the relationship since it is important for him to maintain it, although now he will act more cautiously.
“Exoneration” is the highest level of forgiveness, which occurs when one seeks to restore the relationship to the level before the offense occurred. Exoneration often occurs when the victim realizes (or voluntarily or strategically chooses to assume) that the offense was an accident. Or the offender acted impulsively without realizing they were causing you pain. Or when the offender sincerely regrets his mistake, takes full responsibility, and apologizes for what he did.
Let’s go back to Yosef. First, and even before he saw his brothers, Yosef unilaterally decided to forgive, and as an act of free will, he freed himself from resentment. Later, he chose not to ignore his brothers and sought to reconnect with them. But his nobility did not end there. Yosef completely forgave his brothers. He understood – or chose to assume – that they acted impulsively, and now they did Teshuba. That is, they repented and changed. Yosef does not turn the page. Yosef starts a new book. The new relationship between the brothers will not be as it was in the past. It’s going to be better! This type of reconciliation and exoneration between siblings, friends, or husband and wife can be “magical”, and it has the power to take us from the depths of hostility to an unimaginable, higher than before, level of relationship, where the sky is the limit.
