Max Hollander
Where is Yosef?[1]
Yosef is a central figure of the Passover seder, hidden within its subtle details. One example is the association Rabbeinu Manoach makes between the dipping of karpas with the brothers’ dipping of Yosef’s ketonet passim (striped cloak) into blood (Bereishit 37:31).[2] Another is the Talmud Yerushalmi’s suggestion that the four cups of the seder are sourced in the four times the word kos (“cup”) is used in the cupbearer’s dream in Yosef’s story.[3],[4] Highlighting the significance of Yosef’s presence in the Haggadah, Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter has suggested that references to Yosef’s story of redemption in the seder remind us that, despite the orderly way in which the four cups of redemption are presented, our own paths to redemption more often resemble Yosef’s long and chaotic one.[5] Alternatively, Rabbi Shlomo Kluger has suggested that Yosef’s presence at the seder is a reminder of the baseless hatred and strife that led to our enslavement in Egypt, which shouldn’t be repeated.[6]
Yosef’s role in the Passover seder is not often raised, but it’s a powerful idea and, more importantly, a reasonable one. On a night when we study our national story and instill the lessons of our past — including the mistakes that led to our enslavement — in the present, to the point that we include Yosef’s own redemption in the seder, why is he so hard to find?
I would like to suggest that it isn’t just Yosef’s presence that is significant, but his absence too. Yosef’s hidden, elusive, and almost forgotten role in the seder is an extension of the forgetfulness and neglect that plagued him over the course of his life. Our searching for him is an expression of what made us, and continues to make us, worthy of redemption.
What Makes Us Worthy?
Mekhilta de-Rabbi Yishma’eil, a third- century collection of midrashim on Sefer Shemot, records a debate between Rabbi Matya ben Heresh and Rabbi Eliezer ha-Kappar regarding why the Jews were commanded, in the days leading up to their escape from Egypt, to guard the animals designated for their respective Paschal sacrifices.[7] Rabbi Matya ben Heresh claimed that they hadn’t performed any mitzvot that would have made them worthy of redemption, and therefore needed to do something to earn salvation. Rabbi Eliezer ha-Kappar, however, said that they had in fact observed four mitzvot in Egypt that made them worthy of redemption: avoiding sexual promiscuity, avoiding slanderous speech about one another, maintaining traditional Jewish names, and continuing to use Hebrew as their native tongue.[8]
This midrash has a complicated history. There are several versions of this passage across midrashic collections, some of which have either a different number of commandments that the Jews kept while in Egypt, or a different set of commandments. However, it is striking that, across variations, the Jews’ worthiness is most often rooted in their maintenance of parts of their cultural and social memory, with some versions of this text even describing their preservation of comparatively mundane identity markers such as Jewish cuisine or clothing style as meritorious. The latter went on to play an important role in European Jewish history as a justification of the European ultra-Orthodox uniforms of the 19th century.[9] However, the oldest combination, and the one found most frequently across the textual variants, is that the Jews merited redemption because they maintained their identity through the use of their native language and names, and their memory of each other’s intrinsic value through the observance of ethical treatment of one another.[10]
I would like to suggest that the emphasis on memory as meritorious above other mitzvot, such as Shabbat,[11] acknowledges pitfalls in Sefer Bereishit that led to the Jews’ enslavement in Sefer Shemot. Mistreatment and apathy towards other human beings — especially the less fortunate, such as people experiencing homelessness — is often born out of a failure to remember their innate value as people born be-tzelem Elokim, worthy of kindness and love.[12] Although Jewish tradition sees a divine goal behind our enslavement in Egypt, the steps that got us there can still serve as models for behavior we should avoid in order to ensure that we don’t experience another calamity of that caliber. If what saved the Jews was the memory of their national identity and the value of one another, what doomed them was forgetting those things in the first place.
Forgetfulness, as I am using it, is the neglect of people in society such as the downtrodden, and/or parts of ourselves, like our history and identity, until those forgotten things best serve us. Or, as 19th century Polish rabbi, R. Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg (Ha-Ketav Ve-Hakkabalah), puts it in a comment on our story that we will revisit later, “Most of the usage of forgetting is just about not putting one’s attention to something, in that it is not important in his eyes to put his mind to it.”[13]
The final chapters of Sefer Bereishit recall the lives of Yosef and his brothers,as well as the events that led to the Jews’ enslavement in Egypt as recorded in Sefer Shemot. The narrative offers a picture of maintaining faith in a divine plan in spite of hardship, and is best summed up by Yosef himself, who attributes everything that had happened to him to God’s divine plan which placed him in a position to help the rest of the world during a deadly famine.[14] By presenting Yosef’s story as the precursor to Egyptian enslavement, the Torah is offering readers a picture of what treating people the way Yosef is treated can lead to. This turns the mistakes of the past into models for paths we should avoid today.[15] Additionally, should the image of a victim of repeated neglect by people who are able to help him not be sufficiently clear, the story also offers a window into the inner turmoil of a victim of that behavior with whom we can/should empathize.
What it Looks Like to Forget
Yosef is one of the most unfortunate characters in Tanakh, left forgotten, and left feeling forgotten, throughout much of his life by people occupying positions of status and authority—people who could have otherwise pulled him out of the various “pits” he falls into but chose not to. These moments serve as major points of progression in Sefer Bereishit that drive our story—and tragedy—forward.
The first moment of forgetfulness in Yosef’s story was when he was sold into slavery after being left in the pit by his brothers. Famously, the party responsible for the sale is a point of controversy among commentators. While a majority of Jewish literature assumes that Yosef’s brothers are responsible for his sale, the text doesn’t explicitly attribute the act to them, nor do the brothers ever admit to any misdeed beyond deliberately neglecting Yosef and his suffering (Bereishit 42:21; 50:17).
When Midianite traders passed by, they pulled Joseph up out of the pit. They sold Joseph for twenty pieces of silver to the Ishmaelites, who brought Joseph to Egypt. (37:28)
Rashbam (R. Samuel ben Meir) suggests that, although the brothers were last seen eating nearby, it was not they who sold Yosef.[16] While the verse notes Yosef’s purchase and subsequent removal from the pit, it does not specify the seller. Furthermore, in 40:15, Yosef initially describes his situation as having been “stolen” rather than having been sold into slavery. Should this be true, the brothers’ neglect would be at least partially responsible for his sale/kidnapping, leaving room for us to consider the possibility that had they actually paid attention to him, they might have taken their own advice and changed their minds.
They said to one another, “Alas, we are being punished on account of our brother, because we looked on at his anguish, yet paid no heed as he pleaded with us. That is why this distress has come upon us.” Then Reuben spoke up and said to them, “Did I not tell you, ‘Do no wrong to the boy’? But you paid no heed. Now comes the reckoning for his blood.” 42:21-22
The second moment of forgetfulness occurred most plainly when Yosef was thrown into prison after being falsely accused of sexual misconduct by Potiphar’s wife. There, Yosef interpreted the dreams of the royal cupbearer and baker. After foreseeing the cupbearer’s freedom, Yosef asked the cupbearer to remember him once he was released from prison, and to then advocate for Yosef’s freedom. Sadly, the cupbearer immediately forgot him.
The text states, “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Yosef; he forgot him.”[17] Traditional commentators address the seemingly unnecessary repetition of the verse first stating that the cupbearer had “not remembered” Yosef, and then re-stating that he had “forgotten” Yosef. Rashi, among others, sees the inclusion of this extra term as a signal of some kind of extra punishment for Yosef, having chosen to put his faith in a human being to free him rather than rely upon God. This approach emphasizes the theme of divine intervention as being paramount in the story, and almost a requirement for Yosef’s survival. Yosef, this approach asserts, would not, and could not, be rescued by anyone other than God.
However, some take a more human approach to understanding the verse. Rabbi Hayyim ibn Attar, an eighteenth-century scholar known as Or Ha-Hayyim, offers the possibility that the extra emphasis on the cupbearer’s forgetfulness highlights the fact that the forgetting was deliberate. To “forget” and to “not remember” can be distinguished by active and passive behaviors. To forget, Or Ha-Hayyim claims, is to actively “blot something out” of one’s mind.[18] Had the cupbearer not done so, he should have at least remembered Yosef from time to time. Or Ha-Hayyim also highlights the fact that the cupbearer went so far as to forget Yosef’s name[19] when mentioning him to Pharaoh.[20] Poignantly, Rashbam further emphasizes the fact that the cupbearer only remembered Yosef when Pharaoh’s dreams proved impossible to interpret and it was thus beneficial for him to remember his promise.[21]
Alternatively, Bereishit Rabbah can be read as highlighting a natural human flaw that went into the cupbearer’s actions, or lack thereof.
“And the chief butler did not remember…”: Each day, he would stipulate conditions, and an angel would come and reverse them. He would tie knots and an angel would come and untie them. The Holy One blessed be He said to him: ‘You forget him, but I will not forget him.’ That is what is written: “And the chief butler did not remember.” Bereishit Rabbah 88
This midrash paints a picture of the cupbearer trying to fulfill his promise to Joseph by leaving reminders for himself to tell Pharaoh about Joseph’s plight, only for an angel to later dismantle them. While this text can be read as divine beings actively orchestrating events in such a way that God was Yosef’s only hope for survival, it can also be a creative way of depicting the natural human tendency to easily forget the things that aren’t important to us, regardless of whether or not they should be. According to this midrash, an innocent man is in prison and the only thing preventing the cupbearer from freeing him is whether or not a string is tied or untied. A caring and/or grateful person would have tried to free Yosef immediately! In line with Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg’s description of forgetting,[22] the midrash’s description about how easily the angel upended the cupbearer’s reminders to rescue Yosef may be highlighting how little the cupbearer cared about rescuing him at all. The midrash subsequently lists the many characters in Tanakh who faced challenges but were saved by the divine, emphasizing that God, unlike human beings, will never forget the downtrodden.
Regardless of which of these approaches most resonates with the reader, they all highlight the human elements of forgetfulness and apathy that could have gone into the cupbearer’s decision—or lack thereof—to save Yosef. Once again, Yosef was left in what he and the jailers refer to as another pit,[23] only pulled out when it best served the selfish needs of the person who took him out. Here, it was when the cupbearer needed Yosef to interpret Pharaoh’s dreams. If forgetting the less fortunate, especially those who were there for you when you needed them, wasn’t acceptable behavior, Yosef would have been freed long before the events of Pharaoh and his dreams unfolded.[24]
Finally, Yosef was forgotten for the third and final time, at the beginning of Sefer Shemot, after saving Egypt and the surrounding nations from starvation. We’re informed that a new king rose to power “who did not know Yosef.”[25] The Talmud in Tractate Sotah records a debate between Rav and Shmuel about this verse and whether it was truly a new king from the royal line or the same king who decided to ignore the impact Yosef had on Egypt.[26] And yet, regardless of which side of that debate is true, the emotional and practical impact of these events is that Yosef, despite begging to be remembered by his brothers when they leave Egypt, is once again forgotten, this time by the Egyptian kingship and Egyptian society at large. His memory is buried in a “pit” along with his body, which the Midrash claims had been lost in the Nile.[27] To make matters worse, Yosef’s legacy is tainted by an antisemitic propaganda campaign, portraying the people who had been brought to Egypt as a threat to that same nation’s existence.[28] The consequences of this act of memory manipulation are obvious.
While we can acknowledge the net-positive outcome of this story, we can’t ignore the human error that harmed Yosef and still harms others today. What these events underscore are the real and drastic consequences of memory and forgetfulness. In all three instances, Yosef was a victim of the whims of the powerful, and is ignored or forgotten by those who can support him but don’t—until it serves their needs, if at all. Yosef’s life is a microcosm of a universal experience of being forgotten and manipulated by the people who we should be able to trust. But if what happened to Yosef over the course of his life paints a picture of what being forgotten looks like, the actions Yosef undertook reveal the forgotten’s inner world.
What it Feels Like to be Forgotten
Yosef’s story is a story of gradual assimilation, arguably a result of his repeated experiences of rejection, being forgotten, and subsequent loneliness, not only the allure of new surroundings.
At the beginning of his story, Yosef fights for his freedom and holds onto his identity as a Hebrew raised with the values of his childhood in Yaakov’s house. According to Tractate Sotah, he resists the sexual temptations of Potiphar’s wife after having visions of “his father in the window,”[29] which urge him to maintain his allegiance to the values of his home and remain within the covenant.[30] In prison, Yosef fully identifies as a Hebrew from Canaan.[31] And yet, he eventually finds his place in the new world thrust upon him. In Egypt, he obtains a position of power as viceroy[32] and assumes a new identity, complete with new clothes and a new name, Zaphenat-Panei’ah.[33] However, the traumas of his past begin to haunt him when he starts a family and establishes a future of his own. The Torah tells us that when Yosef had children, he named each of them after an aspect of his life:
Before the years of famine came, Joseph became the father of two sons, whom Asenat daughter of Poti-phera, priest of On, bore to him. Joseph named the first-born Menasheh, meaning, “God has made me forget completely my hardship and my parental home.” And the second he named Ephraim, meaning, “God has made me fertile in the land of my affliction.” 41:50-52
The meaning of Menasheh’s name is a subject of debate – and discomfort – among biblical commentators. They struggle with the idea of Yosef wanting to forget his past life in Yaakov’s home, and offer readings of his childrens’ names that reframe them in a more positive light.
Alshikh (16th century, Safed), interprets Yosef’s words as gratitude for his ability to overcome the emotional distress of being away from his family, so that he could perform what he saw as his sacred duty to bring God down to Egypt for the eventual exile.
For if not, I would have told my father’s household. But the Lord [granted him a child] so that his father would not redeem him from his distress with all of the wealth of his house, and so that [he would not] command him to return to his land. And [then] the entire preparation of the exile which He, may He be blessed, prepared by having His Divine presence come to Egypt with Joseph…” Alshikh on 41:51
Doubling down on his interpretation of Menasheh’s name as being, at its core, positive, Alshikh sees the meaning of Ephraim’s name as calling attention to Yosef’s loathing of life in Egypt and his desire for his father’s home.
Netziv frames this naming scheme as a reference to Yosef’s ability to forget the honor of his family, thereby making it easier to facilitate the fulfillment of his prophetic dreams that his family would bow down to him.[34]
Alternatively, Rav Hirsch re-interprets the word “nashani” to mean something completely different from its traditional translation.
“Forgetting” is not the only meaning of nun-shin-hei. The understanding of nun-shin-hei is also [a reference to] one who is owed, to a creditor. And so the understanding of “nashani” would be “God has made my disaster and my father’s household into creditors.” That which until now appeared to me like a disaster and torture, God has made into a tool to form my happiness. I owe a great debt to my disaster and to my family…[35]
Rather than framing Yosef’s life and family as sources of sorrow to be forgotten, Rav Hirsch’s translation transforms them into sources of joy to be grateful for. Robert Alter also associates “nashani” with some form of debt collection, translating the verse as “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Menasheh, meaning, God has released me from all the debt of my hardship and of all my father’s house.”[36] He supports this reading of Menasheh’s name by suggesting that “such an unambiguously positive verb is a better parallel to ‘made me fruitful’ in the next verse.”[37]
These thinkers can be broken down into two perspectives: either Yosef’s naming scheme reflected a total rejection of Egyptian life, or a full embrace of Egyptian life. However, they fail to take Yosef’s lived experiences into consideration when interpreting and translating these verses. Regardless of whatever bigger picture Yosef is able to recognize at the end of the story, the fact is that at this stage of his life, he’d been left for dead in a pit by his brothers and subsequently left for dead in prison. Gratitude for being able to move past setbacks that would have left many people broken and frozen is warranted, but inner conflict is expected.
Despite Alter’s objection to the classical interpretation of Menasheh’s name being about forgetting, on the grounds that it pairs poorly with the verse that follows, and Netziv’s interpretation of Ephraim’s name as highlighting Yosef’s disdain for Egypt and longing for his father’s home, I think the conflict inherent in his children’s names is a reflection of Yosef’s internal turmoil. At a life stage as momentous as childbirth and the beginnings of a family, where generally memories of one’s past inform how they proceed into the future, Yosef was not able to do so. At this point, Yosef had spent over a decade without any contact with his family, and had spent years in prison waiting for his one lifeline to return for him. His memories had been tainted. He couldn’t build a future with a past that discarded him, and he was left frozen between the two as a result. The conflict inherent within the names Yosef chose for his children reflect a sense of being trapped, a feeling that someone going through this trauma might experience: Yosef had survived the suffering of his past, but was too traumatized, despite his success, to be able to see the present and future as anything other than “affliction.”[38] That kind of pain necessitates a change – a new name – in order to go on. But, being so distraught, Yosef needed to be given a name by someone else, rather than take one for himself, in order to find a path forward.[39]
But the past never really leaves us. It lives on in the ways we behave, the names we use, and the language we speak, and Yosef’s experiences are no exception. Despite years of distance and a clear desire to forget his past, he couldn’t forget it. Upon seeing his brothers in the following chapter, Yosef’s memories come roaring back,[40] but we soon learn that he never really let go of them:
They did not know that Joseph understood, for there was an interpreter between him and them. 42:23
Yosef still spoke Hebrew and, strikingly, the Midrash powerfully asserts that he taught it to Menasheh, his interpreter,[41] too. There is no greater testament to Yosef’s inability to let go of the past than the fact that he taught his son, who was literally named after his aversion to his past, to speak the language of his youth.
Ultimately, Yosef is a character consumed by internal conflict, oscillating between letting go of the past that was torn away from him and embracing the future that was beginning to take shape with a lucrative position and a beautiful family – and he couldn’t let go. A core element of the experience of neglect is the inability to let go of the past. During the confrontation with his brothers, Yosef constantly fought between maintaining his identity as an Egyptian and wanting to embrace his identity as a Jew by revealing himself to his brothers. He is the embodiment of his name, with a root, yud-samekh-fei, that can be used to mean both to “take away” or to “add.” It is also a name that was chosen while his mother meditated on her own past and future, referencing the past disgrace that was now gone and the possibility for new life that lay ahead of her:
She conceived and bore a son, and said, “God has taken away my disgrace.” So she named him Joseph, which is to say, “May God add another son for me.” 30:23-24
Yosef’s story shines a light on the struggles of individuals discarded by society. While at first they seek a way back, they eventually search for a path forward, only to discover that letting go of their past can be just as painful as having it taken away. It is a lonely experience. When I was in college, I had a number of encounters with individuals experiencing homelessness in New York City. On one occasion, I spoke to a formerly homeless gentleman who told our cohort of college students at Drisha that one of the hardest parts of experiencing homelessness was the isolation. He had gone months without speaking to another person or hearing someone say his name.
Even at the end of his long journey, society needs to recognize that all of the forgotten, like Yosef, still want to belong.[42] Tragically, he had to wait a very long time for that to happen.
Memory Makes Us Worthy
The story of our communal enslavement is the result of characters in Sefer Bereishitforgetting and discarding the things that keep a people together and thriving, the very things which the Mekhilta credits the Jews with maintaining once they were enslaved in Sefer Shemot. Victims of oppression and misfortune within society are overlooked, and the trauma and internal conflict that those victims face push them to forget who they are and where they come from.
A surprisingly appropriate parallel might be found in modern insights into the psychology of people experiencing homelessness. Victims of homelessness are the textbook definition of the forgotten and overlooked. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, when interviewing potential rabbinical students for the Jewish Theological Seminary, used to ask candidates if they’d seen “the homeless woman on 96th street… the veteran on 117th” on their way to the building from the subway. When they said no, he would ask them, “How can you become a rabbi if you don’t see the human beings around you?”[43]
And much like Yosef who was taken from his home and stripped of autonomy and control, experts describe victims of homelessness as often having “lost a sense of home, community, stability, or safety.”[44] Furthermore, “what homeless individuals have in common is an internal, ongoing terror, as well as loneliness, despair, fear, and dread.”[45] Yosef’s story should prompt readers to pause and remember the members of society we often forget about: those who are falling through the cracks of our social safety nets.
Appropriately, Moshe’s final act on his way out of Egypt was not gathering up his belongings or his family – it was remembering his promise to Yosef:
So God led the people roundabout, by way of the wilderness at the Sea of Reeds. Now the Israelites went up armed out of the land of Egypt. And Moses took with him the bones of Joseph, who had exacted an oath from the children of Israel, saying, “God will be sure to take notice of you; then you shall carry up my bones from here with you.” Shemot 13:18-19
Netziv points out that the placement of this verse doesn’t seem to make sense, since Yosef wasn’t buried in Succoth (where the Israelites were at the time). He posits, instead, that the Torah placed this verse here to honor Yosef.[46] Regardless of his answer, Netziv’s question highlights the fact that this verse has unique significance. Perhaps, rather than highlighting the significance of Yosef, it highlights the significance of Moshe’s act of remembering Yosef being his final one on the way out of Egypt. When one member of society is forgotten and left unredeemed, national redemption is impossible.
Yosef’s story also highlights the internal conflict and the destruction of identity from which the forgotten suffer. There is internal conflict to being discarded, wherein the individual tries to move on but often can’t actually to let go of their people and their past, much like God can’t – and won’t – let go of us in Exile.
I am God, the God of your father’s [house]. Fear not to go down to Egypt, for I will make you there into a great nation. I Myself will go down with you to Egypt, and I Myself will also bring you back; and Joseph’s hand shall close your eyes. 46:3-4
Look for Yosef
Yosef’s concealment in the seder is an expression of the ways he was forgotten throughout his life, presenting participants with an exercise to find and remember him. “In every generation, each person must see themselves as if they went out of Egypt,” and, by remembering Yosef specifically, we fulfill our promise to him to bring up his bones when we leave Egypt[47] every year.
However, our rededication to remembering the less fortunate doesn’t end there. Maggid, the section of the Passover seder where we retell our foundational story of the Exodus and reaffirm our national identity, doesn’t start with an in-depth analysis of the story. It begins with Ha Lahma Anya, an invitation to the less fortunate without seders of their own to join ours, and a public declaration that we haven’t forgotten them. Once we all come to the table and recall the story of our national identity, we become worthy of redemption, and we can then sing Le-Shanah ha-ba’ah bi-Y’rushalayim, together.
[1] I am immensely grateful for the mentorship, time, and advice of Rabbi Dr. Jacob J. Schacter, who took the time to review this piece and offer invaluable suggestions to improve it significantly. I’d also like to thank my wife, Ruthie, for tolerating my obsession with the piece, the members of the KJ community who attended the shiur where I worked out many of these ideas, and my friends Morgan Figa and Zach Beer for looking at early drafts and offering suggestions and support when I needed chizzuk the most.
[2] Rabbeinu Manoach on Mishneh Torah, Laws of Chametz and Matzah, 8:2.
[3] As opposed to the general approach that the four cups represent the four stages of redemption.
[4] Yerushalmi, Pesahim 10:1.
[5] Rabbi Jacob J. Schacter, “Seeking Redemption in an Unredeemed World: Yosef at the Seder,” in And You Shall Transmit to Your Children:A Pesach Haggadah (Yeshiva University, 2014) 23-30.
[6] Rabbi Shlomo Kluger, Yeriot Shlomo: Siddur Beit Yaakov.
[7] Shemot 12:6.
[8] Mekhilta De-Rabbi Yishmael, Pischa 5.
[9] Elli Fischer, “‘They did not Change their Names, their Language, or their Dress’: The Life-cycle of a Peculiar Midrashic Variant,” in Always Hungarian, Hungarian Jewry Through the Vicissitudes of the Modern Era (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University press, 2021), 251.
[10]ibid., 239.
[11] Kitzur Ba’al Ha-Turim on Shemot 1:1 suggests that the Jews were worthy of redemption by observing Shabbat and brit milah.
[12] Rabbi Jonathan Sacks makes a similar point in an essay on Parashat Noach, highlighting God’s need to emphasize the idea of tzelem Elokim after humanity grew corrupt before the flood. The Trace of God, https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/noach/the-trace-of-god/
[13] Ha-Ketav Ve-Hakabalah on 41:51.
[14] 50:19-21.
[15] This reading was partially inspired by my time at FASPE: Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics. The fellowship’s goal is to bring cohorts of young professionals such as doctors, lawyers, journalists, and clergy at the beginning stages of their careers to Germany and Poland, to study the ethical transgressions professionals within our own fields made that allowed for the Holocaust, and to use their mistakes to inform our decisions today.
[16] Rashbam on 37:28.
[17] 40:23.
[18] Or Ha-Hayyim on 40:23.
[19] ibid.
[20] Bereishit 41:12.
[21] Rashbam on 40:23.
[22] Ha-Ketav Ve-Hakabalah on 41:51.
[23] 40:15; 41:14.
[24] It is worth noting that even outside of the Yosef narrative, forgetfulness plays a subtle, yet major, role in how Jewish history transpired. In the story of Tamar and Yehudah, Tamar, after having been widowed by not one but two husbands, was left to rot in her father’s household for an undisclosed amount of time until Yehudah’s third son would be ready to marry her. Rashi even asserts that this excuse was just a way of pushing her away and placing her out of sight. This act of forgetting eventually paved the way to the birth of King David.
[25] Shemot 1:8.
[26] Sotah 11a.
[27] Midrash Tanhuma, Beshalah 2.
[28] Shemot 1:9-10.
[29] As cited by Rashi on 39:11.
[30] Sotah 36b.
[31] 40:15.
[32] ibid., 41:41-44.
[33] Ibid., 41:45.
[34] Ha’ameik Davar on 41:51.
[35] Rav Hirsch on Chumash, Bereishit (Feldheim Publishers, 2nd edition, 2010), 770.
[36] Robert Alter, The Hebrew Bible: A Translation with Commentary (W. W. Norton and Company, 2018), 161.
[37] ibid.
[38] 41:52.
[39] Starting a family can stir up old feelings. Speaking personally, my father lost his mother, father, and brother all within the span of a single year, and when he got married and I was born, he legally petitioned to have our family name changed, from the name he was born with to a new one, soon after. Like Yosef’s new name, it isn’t clear where it came from, and, now that he passed away, I will never know for certain. My only clue is from a friend of my father who told me that when my grandparents and uncle passed away, my father felt like he needed a new start. In a way, that fresh start began with me, born on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that my zayde participated in when he was a teenager.
[40] 42:8-9.
[41] Midrash Rabbah 91:8 identifies Menasheh as the interpreter.
[42] On another occasion, I had a routine walk from the restaurant that I worked at as a mashgiah in college, the formerly kosher Promenade Bar and Grill, and I passed two men experiencing homelessness on a nightly basis. Every night we would wave to each other from across the street, but one night I sporadically decided to engage with them and I introduced myself, asking them for their names. The first to speak up shared that his name was Josh, and unpromptedly shared that he had a family but that they hadn’t been on speaking terms for years. He said that he was all alone and started to tear up, but the second man sitting on the ground next to him put his arm around him and said, “You aren’t alone, you have me!”
[43] Ariel Burger, Witness: Lessons from Elie Weisel’s Classroom (HarperOne, 2018), 175.
[44] “Trauma & Homelessness: What’s the Connection?,” (The Bowery Mission, 2024), https://www.bowery.org/updates/2024/05/trauma-informed-care/
[45] Robert T. Muller, Ph.D., “Homelessness as Trauma,” Psychology Today (August 16, 2013), https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-trauma/201308/homelessness-trauma-0
[46] Ha’ameik Davar on Shemot 13:19.
[47] Shemot 13:19.
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