Are We Drifting Apart?

Last week, I got an email from Rabbi Scott Kahn, who has created the Jewish Coffee House podcast network. He sent me an article he wrote proposing that American Jews stage a mega-rally in front of the UN to demonstrate to Israelis their concern for Israel. He explained that he has questions about “whether American Jews care enough about Israel.” There was an outburst of American Jewish support for Israel after October 7th;  yet slowly but surely,  rallies for Israel have disappeared, visits to Israel have diminished, and charity has decreased. He urged me to push for this rally, “in order to demonstrate to Israelis that the gap between them and their American counterparts is not as wide as many now suspect.”

I saw things differently. We exchanged emails, and eventually decided to do a podcast about the subject.

My exchange with Rabbi Kahn is not just about Israel and America; it is also about relationships. Even the best relationships can fall victim to inertia. While we are busy tending to our own success, we often fail to notice how we are drifting apart from those closest to us. Sometimes the results can only be seen years later.

After Jacob dies, Joseph’s brothers are gripped with fear. They say to themselves: “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may repay us for all the evil which we did to him.” They decide to send emissaries to Joseph with the following story: Jacob, on his deathbed, asked Joseph to forgive his brothers.

This is a bald lie. They fabricate this story because they think that Joseph is about to punish them. The brothers then approach Joseph, fall to the floor, and beg for their lives, saying, “We are prepared to be your slaves.”

Joseph cries, and instead speaks to them gently and comforts them.

This interaction is puzzling. Joseph had already reconciled with his brothers seventeen years earlier; and for the entire time after that, Joseph and his brothers had lived together. Everything should have been fine by this point. So why were the brothers still afraid of Joseph?

To answer that question, one must first step back and consider whether Joseph ever forgave the brothers seventeen years earlier. When Joseph first reveals his true identity to his brothers, he says  “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt. And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you… it was not you who sent me here, but God.” Joseph makes it clear that he sees his slavery as divinely ordained, and no longer blames his brothers for what they did; what remains unclear is whether he actually forgave them.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks is particularly taken with Joseph’s forbearance, and sees it as transformative. He calls it “the first recorded moment in history in which one human being forgives another.” He wrote several essays on the topic of Joseph’s forgiveness, which he sees as a central Jewish lesson.

But many commentators have taken a very different view of Joseph’s behavior, and for good reason. One must listen to Joseph’s words carefully. He speaks about God’s plan, and that even though the brothers intended evil against him, God changed their plans. Rather than opening his heart to his brothers, Joseph tells them he is ignoring their wrongdoing because he prospered in the end. Rabbeinu Bachya in the 14th century writes that: “…the Torah does not explicitly state that Joseph forgave his brothers…Even though the Torah mentions that he comforted them and spoke kindly to their hearts, which seems to indicate that they were appeased by Joseph, we do not see the Torah explicitly mentioning that Joseph forgave them, nor that he acknowledged that he pardoned their sin and wrongdoing….” Joseph might have reconciled with his brothers, but we have no indication he forgave them.

Perhaps the brothers are insecure for precisely this reason: Joseph had never truly forgiven them.

But other commentaries offer an even more intriguing possibility: Forgiveness is not the same as a happy ending.  In this case, (and many others,) a great deal of dysfunction still remains. Echoes of the initial estrangement can still be heard, years later.

Forgiveness occurs when the person who was hurt releases their resentment and agrees to reconcile with the offender. And Joseph had done that. However, if forgiveness is granted too readily, the offender may still feel a deep sense of guilt; they have not gotten a chance to rehabilitate themselves.

Ironically, the brothers remain uncomfortable precisely because Joseph’s behavior is so saintly. The Malbim describes the brothers’ angst this way:

The greatest revenge against one’s enemy is if, instead of harboring hatred and repaying the harm they caused, one makes them a guest at their table and treats them only with goodness and kindness. This way, the enemy is constantly reminded of the crime they had intended to do.

The Malbim, as well as the Ohr HaChaim, explain that the brothers found their guilt to be unbearable. They wished they had been punished for their crimes instead. The brothers may have been granted forgiveness by Joseph, but don’t feel forgiven. And so the dysfunction lives on.

Guilt leads to significant cognitive distortions. Automatic thoughts take over, and people no longer see reality clearly. In such an environment, small actions can be misinterpreted. And that explains why even seventeen years later, the brothers worry that Joseph will take revenge against them after Jacob’s death.

One Midrash says the brothers began to worry when they saw Joseph, on the way back from Jacob’s funeral, visit the pit the brothers threw him into before selling him. Joseph visited because he wanted to thank God for saving his life; but the brothers took a far more paranoid view. Another Midrash says that their worries arose because Joseph stopped inviting them to dine with him after his father died. Joseph’s intentions were respectful; he didn’t want to seat himself at the head of the table in his father’s place. The Midrash writes: “Rabbi Tanḥuma said: His intention was only for the sake of Heaven. But that is not what they thought, but rather: “Perhaps Joseph will hate us.” In a fraught environment, even an innocuous gesture can create worry.

The brothers can’t see Joseph’s constant goodwill because they are blinded by their own guilt; and Joseph, leading a large empire, is oblivious to the widening distance between them. They may have reconciled when they moved to Egypt, but they never became true brothers. They tend to their father together, they sit together at meals, and live together as one family. But they don’t dare to talk about the elephant in the room, the attempted murder and sale into slavery of Joseph.

And now that Jacob is dead, the cracks in their relationship reappear. They had been together, yet drifting apart, for seventeen years.

Could this happen to American Jews and Israelis? Even before the October 7th war broke out, many worried that the relationship was fraying. There are longstanding fractures between the two communities, over fundraising, aliyah, loyalties, and politics, that go back to the very beginnings of the State of Israel; yet we have always managed to hold those tensions in the background. But unity should never be taken for granted. The two communities live far away from each other, in very different realities. Most American Jews know very little about Israelis, and vice versa.

Now that the shock of October 7th has worn off, American activism is fading, because the situation no longer feels like an emergency. So it is understandable that Israelis, who have suffered enormous trauma, feel alone. At the same time, American Jews have their own struggles with antisemitism and assimilation. Each community is absorbed with meeting the challenges ahead, as they should be. However, this is also the recipe for drifting apart.

But there is also room for optimism. Not everyone is disconnected.

Last year, I spoke to several groups of Israeli leaders who were brought to New York by Gesher, to foster greater understanding between communities. As an American, my questions for the Israelis were about how they were wrestling with wartime problems; but with each group, several Israelis asked me how American Jews are dealing with antisemitism.

I was taken aback. To me, antisemitism is a problem, but nothing at all comparable to Israel’s challenges. So I told them it reminded me of an old Jewish legend:

Two brothers inherited a field from their father and divided it equally. One was married with a large family, and the other was single. At harvest time, the single brother would sneak out at night, take some bags of grain, and toss them into his brother’s field; after all, his brother needed more, because he had a large family to support. The married brother would also sneak out at night and toss grain into his brother’s field; after all, the single brother needed to save money, because he had no children to tend to him in old age. One night, as they were sneaking out with their bags of grain, the two brothers bumped into each other. They realized what the other one was doing, and embraced.

A divine voice called out then and said that this place of love would be the place where the Temple would be built.

Brothers can be there for each other. And when they do, it is truly divine.

And it is this type of mutual concern that I saw during the Gesher visits. And if we can find a way to keep worrying about each other, we won’t drift apart.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.