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Yosef’s brothers didn’t recognize him. It is hardly a wonder, when you realize that 22 years passed since the last time that they had seen each other. Yosef as ruler of Egypt certainly had little resemblance to the 17-year-old youth who they neither were really willing to hear or to see when they sold him to a caravan of merchants headed for destination unknown.
Now they did. Rav Tzvi Meir Zilberberg, one of today’s up and coming thinkers, points out that the Torah is telling us something far deeper than the fact that they couldn’t see physical resemblance between the man they faced and the boy they abandoned. He tells us that most of us never recognize anyone, least of all ourselves.
There are hidden potentials that we are hesitant to confront, both in our own personalities and in the soul of the people we encounter. Yosef’s holiness, his profound self-discipline and self-awareness came forward the day that he faced his great challenge. When Potiphar (his Egyptian master) left for the day to attend a religious festival, Yosef was alone in his house. Or so he thought. The inner conflict that he faced when Potiphar’s wife threatened to accuse him of rape (a threat that she lived up to) if he wouldn’t betray Potiphar by succumbing to her was real. He was 17, away from home, and only flesh and blood. When he sat in prison for year after year because he had faced up to his temptation and suffered for it, he never lost faith in God. The result is that when he was released and came to high office, he “recognized” himself enough to show who really was all along to his brothers.
His compassion, forgiveness and trust that Hashem knew what was best for all of them was the real Yosef.
How many times have you seen yourself or anyone else?
What is stopping you from really looking?
Why do you fail to penetrate the surface?
How can you make things different?
The time to think about this is now.