Last week’s portion ended with a cliffhanger. Joseph, in the guise of authoritarian Egyptian viceroy, toys with his brothers by first accusing them of spying, then arranging it that Benjamin “steals” his personal goblet. With their youngest brother in shackles, accused of a crime that he didn’t commit, Judah steps forward: “If it pleases my lord, may your servant speak in my lord’s ear, and let not your anger flare up at your servant. For you are like Pharaoh himself!”
What follows is a monologue that breaks the autocratic camel’s back. Until now, Joseph has successfully maintained his charade, determined to teach his brothers a lesson. Judah shatters the façade, arousing Joseph’s mercy and causing him to cry out: “I am Joseph!”
Intriguingly, this isn’t the first time Judah has apologised for all that happened years prior. At the end of Mikketz, he offers a heartfelt appeal, emphasising his personal guilt (Genesis 44:16). His soul-searching is so powerful that our sages weaved it into the Selichot supplications of the High Holy Day period.
And yet, it wasn’t enough. Joseph remained unmoved, determined to take Benjamin as a slave in punishment for his heinous “crime”.
So, what was it about Judah’s second speech that it succeeded where the first failed?
At first glance, it is entirely unremarkable. Judah simply recounts almost verbatim every domino in the sequence leading to their fateful encounter with the Egyptian monarch. It is all very familiar, a concise review of events rather than a profound plea for pity.
Perhaps that is precisely the point.
Conspicuously absent from Judah’s petition are ingredients that would have made it far more emotive. There is no mention of the hardship caused by the famine; no mention of the absurdity in accusing a small group of starving foreigners of spying; no mention of how unfair it was to have taken Simeon hostage and thereby coerce them to return with Benjamin; no mention of how Benjamin himself had so blatantly been framed.
Judah’s account is refreshingly bereft of drama. Despite having his back against the wall, he focuses on facts, not speculation.
Joseph is a dreamer, a visionary gazing beyond what is to glimpse what may yet come to pass. Judah is a leader. He sees things as they are. It is his brutally honest realism and strength of character to side-step pathos when it is the easier way out of a predicament, that finally convince Joseph that his brothers are in safe hands.
Ancestor of the Davidic dynasty, Judah will establish a kingship founded on truth, honesty and uprightness — the nation’s anchor, inspiring us to confront the challenges of today before dreaming of tomorrow. And, in time, we come to realise that one is a prerequisite for the other.
