Vayigash: 5783 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful insight for the weekly parsha, Parshas 'Vayigash'. "I am Yosef; is my father still alive? But his brothers could not answer him, for they were terrified before him." What is the meaning…

00:00 Speaker 1 Shimon, please.

00:03 Speaker 2 There’s an interesting Midrash about what we learn in the parsha: “Yosef said, ‘I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?’ But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed before him.” The Midrash says in the name of Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah: “Woe to a person on the Day of Judgment; woe to a person on the day of rebuke. If Yosef, who was flesh and blood, left his brothers unable to answer him, what will a person answer on the Day of Judgment, before Hakadosh Boruch Hu, who is not flesh and blood but exists eternally? How can a person stand before that rebuke?” There are several things here that need to be understood. First, where does it say that Yosef rebuked them? On the contrary, he comforted them: “And now, do not be distressed. It was not you who sent me here, but G-d; He sent me to preserve life.” Where does it say he rebuked them? That’s the first question. Second, Yehudah keeps speaking to Yosef about their father: if he doesn’t bring Binyamin back, their father will hear and die. His soul is bound up with Binyamin’s soul. So why is the first thing Yosef says to them, “I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?” They’ve been talking about their father the whole time. What does “Is my father still alive?” mean? There’s a very interesting explanation here. What does Yehudah say to Yosef? He says, “Listen, we can’t come back to our father without—listen, we can’t come back to our father without Binyamin. His soul is bound up with Binyamin’s soul; Binyamin is the only one he has left from Rachel.” So they can’t do it. The moment they come back without Binyamin, “When my father sees it, he will die.” Yosef says to them, “I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?” When you sold me, did you make that same calculation—that our father might not survive, that he might not be able to bear the news? You didn’t take that into account. He stayed alive, and he’ll stay alive now too. “But his brothers could not answer him.” They couldn’t stand before him; they had no answer. That is

02:14 Speaker 2 the rebuke with which Yosef rebuked his brothers. And about this Rabbi Elazar ben Azaryah says: Woe to a person on the Day of Judgment, on the day of rebuke, right? That is the rebuke Yosef gave his brothers.

02:27 Speaker 1 Yasher koach.

02:28 Speaker 3 What’s the height? After all, he can’t ask them.