The Sublimity of Insincerity – Thoughts on Torah Portion Vayechi

The Sublimity of Insincerity

Thoughts on Torah Portion Vayechi 2024

©Rabbi Mordecai Finley

There is one passage in our Torah portion that has always bothered me. I’d never heard a satisfactory teaching on this passage until I listened to Avivah Zornberg’s teaching, linked here. (Thank you, Rabbi Manning, for recommending this to me.) I am paraphrasing from Zornberg’s fabulous teaching. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAbGHlO7AK0&list=PLv2rnAORLiVBR3CtLpbrq-JXwIT9FTVLe&index=17)

Here is the back story. After their father Jacob died, Joseph’s brothers were afraid that Joseph would now take vengeance upon them for selling him to a caravan of Ishma’elites, who passed him on to Midianites, who then sold him into slavery in Egypt. Their solution was to prevaricate:

When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrong that we did him!”

So they sent this message to Joseph, “Before his death, your father left this instruction:

So shall you say to Joseph, ‘Forgive, I urge you, the offense and guilt of your brothers who treated you so harshly.’ Therefore, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father’s [house].” And Joseph was in tears as they spoke to him. (Genesis 50:15-17)

There is no record of Jacob ever having given such an instruction. Teachings in the Midrash assume that the brothers, in great fear, made this up. Now that Jacob was dead, he could not refute their words. Joseph would be obligated not to take revenge.

Why did Joseph cry when he heard this? According to teachings in the Midrash, Joseph knew that his brothers fabricated Jacob’s “last will” out of fear. Joseph cried, according to the Midrash, because even though Joseph and his brothers had reconciled in the previous week’s Torah portion, the reconciliation obviously did not go deep. The brothers assumed that Joseph was lying, and that Joseph saw through them. Joseph cried, the Midrash says, because Joseph realized that his brothers were terrified. The brothers did not believe that Joseph forgave them.

How does Joseph console them? Here is the verse that had always bothered me:

But Joseph said to them, “Have no fear! Am I a substitute for God? Besides, although you intended me harm, God intended it for good, to bring about the present result—the survival of many people. And so, fear not. I will sustain you and your dependents.” Thus, he reassured them, speaking kindly to them. (Genesis 50: 19-21)

Joseph is saying that God will judge them, not he, Joseph. He is also saying that though they intended to harm, God intended good, so in some grand scheme of things sort of way, the brothers are forgiven. What has always bothered me about this verse is Joseph’s palpable insincerity. The brothers meant to do evil, regardless of God’s grande scheme.

I see a version of that insincerity (sincerity being characterized as speaking without pretense) when people say, “This was meant to be.” I believe people mean well when they say that, but that the thought itself is insincere as much as it is meaningless,  Sometimes we aren’t sure what to say when we see suffering. Somehow saying that something is destined, meant to be, is supposed to take the bite out of the stings of life. When I hear this, I sometimes ask, “Meant to be, by whom? Who meant it to be, and for what purpose?”

I don’t think, in general, that things are meant to be. I don’t believe in predestination. I don’t think that everything works out in the end. I don’t believe that immoral acts are justified because some good occurs down the line. We are ravaged by war, destruction, disease, famine and sorrow. None of these are “meant to be.”

The fear of the brothers reveals that the reconciliation with Joseph only went so far. Their fear was matched by a truth in Joseph’s heart, that Zornberg points out:  Maybe God will find a way to forgive them, but Joseph had not forgiven them. I believe, as Zornberg suggests, that despite Joseph’s saying “It all worked out in the grand scheme of things,” Joseph wanted revenge. Not that he would act on it.

Joseph cried, perhaps, not because his brothers did not believe him and they were terrified. Their being terrified perhaps reminded him how terrified he was when they threw him in the pit and then sold him to a caravan of Ishmaelites. Perhaps he cried remembering the trauma inflicted on him. He cried when he remembered what they had done to them. Brothers do terrible things to each other. The Bible tells us so.

A few things here:

The desire for vengeance is natural, or there wouldn’t be a commandment against it. Feelings are involuntary and we must feel our feelings and admit to them in order to deal with them.

We are not obligated to forgive, especially if someone has not apologized nor offered some kind of compensation, if only an apology. In fact, we are taught, we are to seek justice.

Once one sees in one’s heart a desire for revenge, we are taught that we must instead replace that with a desire for justice. First you must know, however, that there is vengeance in your heart, before you can strive to replace the desire for vengeance with the will to justice.

I was relieved by Zornberg’s teaching because from her I learned that Joseph had decided to be insincere, “sincere” in the sense of being genuine.  Joseph wasn’t able to say, “I want revenge; I will settle for justice.”  Instead, Joseph was insincere. Insincerity is better than expressing the desire for vengeance, especially in families. Sometimes when one honestly shares their hurt, the other will not apologize. Sometimes the other will find reasons, exculpations, and excuses. “It’s your fault I did it.” “Well, I had a bad childhood.” Or they will just get angry too.

Instead of saying to his brothers, “Your fear is justified because I would love to take revenge,” Joseph goes to the insincere “it was meant to be” bromide. In this case, insincerity is a great moral accomplishment, compared to the next thing – expressing the genuine desire for vengeance. Insincerity helps us bide our time, work things through within until the time is ripe for working things through with others. Insincerity can be a strategy of patience. Better a banality than a bitter argument. Joseph’s brothers traumatized him. He decided, it seems, not to do to others what was hateful to him.

Thanks to Avivah Zornberg, I am no longer bothered by Joseph’s saying, “It’s okay you tried to kill me and then sold me into slavery. It all worked out in the end!” as opposed to saying what he was really thinking. I am reminded of my 10 Contrarian Commandments for a Good Marriage: “Don’t say what you are thinking. The only thing worse than saying what you are thinking is saying what you are feeling.” These Contrarian Commandments apply, of course, only when your thoughts and feelings are toxic. Calm yourself, find your way to sanity and reasonableness, maybe even to love and empathy, and then share your thoughts and feelings. You might realize, by the way, that you had a part in things, too. Justice might entail your doing a little apologizing on your end.

In the meantime, a little insincerity can go a long way.