Parshat VaYeishev: The Progression of Yosef’s Speech

In Parshat VaYeishev, the twelve sons of Ya’akov begin to take center stage in the Torah’s narrative.  With so much drama going on between the brothers, one thing that stood out to me was something that didn’t take place in the Torah.  When Yosef’s brothers essentially kidnap Yosef, throw him into a pit, and ultimately sell him to Ishmaelites, he does not speak once!  What’s more is this is on the heels of a section where Yosef doesn’t seem able to keep his mouth shut!  Yosef has two dreams that appear to imply his brothers and parents will bow down to him and serve him.  And despite the fact that these are quite obviously not dreams his brothers would enjoy hearing, Yosef all too eagerly shares them with his brothers.  This seems to be the last straw of his brothers’ tolerance of him and the catalyst that causes them to want to kill him (although they settle for selling him into slavery, thanks to Reuven’s moral conscious).  So why is it that the brother who was so talkative, is all of a sudden at a loss for words? 

First, let us look at Joseph’s speech prior to being sold into slavery.  The first time he is directly quoted in the parsha he tells his brothers of a dream:

Hear this dream which I have dreamed: There we were binding sheaves in the field, when suddenly my sheaf stood up and remained upright; then your sheaves gathered around and bowed low to my sheaf.  (Genesis 37:6-7)

The second time Yosef speaks, he relays another dream to his brothers:

Look, I have had another dream: And this time the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me.

Soon after these dreams, Yosef, who speaks so much when he should keep silent, doesn’t say a single word to his brothers when they capture him.  Although he very well may have had some sort of plea to his brothers to have mercy on him, the Torah doesn’t mention him begging for forgiveness, crying for help, or doing anything else to try to save himself.  The Torah instead portrays Yosef as silent throughout this ordeal.  This also appears odd given the importance of dialogue throughout Bereishit: Isaac and Avraham during the Akeidah (“The Binding of Isaac”), Jacob and the Angel, Jacob and Esav, Tamar and Yehuda, Rebecca and Eliezer, Eve and the Snake, Adam and Eve, Lavan and Jacob….   But in the text at hand it is only Yosef who is silent and only his brothers who have a voice – primarily Yehuda and Reuven. 

The answer as to why may come in the form of one word: Hineni (“Here I am”).

This is Yosef’s answer to his father, Jacob, when Jacob calls him to send him on a mission to find his brothers in the fields, the mission that will result in Yosef being sold into slavery.  The mission is to search out his brothers.  And Joseph’s acceptance of the mission – as implied by the word hineni – is unconditional.  Indeed Yosef’s last words before he encounters his brothers and becomes silent are: I am looking for my brothers.  Could you [a passerby] tell me where they are pasturing?  This has been interpreted as a loving mission, where Yosef is seeking the brotherhood that his brothers have denied him…and perhaps, I might add, also the brotherhood he partially deserved to lose due to his own actions. 

But the very mission itself, of searching out his brothers who “hated him so that they could not speak a friendly word to him” and “hated him even more for his talk about his dreams,” shows a maturity and a brotherly connection that was not apparent in the beginning of the parsha.  Perhaps the familial connection is something that was not internalized by any of the brothers in their early years, but that Yosef grew into as he learned from his youthful mistakes.  And perhaps this is why he was silent when his brothers – who had not yet achieved a feeling of kinship with Yosef – sold him into slavery.  Rav Zvi Shimon says:

It is the will of God, then, that Yosef be taken down to Egypt.  While man functions independently and is responsible for his actions, he is nevertheless a tool for the accomplishment of God’s will.

Yosef is responsible for his actions, for the negative consequences that result from relaying hurtful dreams to his brothers.  And this is cause for his being mistreated by his brothers and sold into slavery – although certainly not an excuse for his brothers’ actions.  And at the same time, Yosef is being used to fulfill God’s will which requires him to descend to Egypt, the land where the Jewish people will ultimately emerge from.  If Yosef recognized this two-fold reason for why he was being kidnapped by his own brothers and sold into slavery – that is was partially his own fault and partially a part of a divine place – his silence make sense.  If he recognized God’s hand in his situation and even views this as a part of the mission his father sent him on, it is must easier to accept his silence.  Indeed his mission was to find his brothers, not just in the physical sense which he has already accomplished, but in the spiritual sense which is only accomplished later, in Egypt, when his brothers discover that Yosef is still alive and finally embrace him as a true brother.  At that point, not at any point in this week’s parsha, Yosef will have accomplished the mission Jacob sent him on. 

So we can see Yosef progress from a young man (na’ar) who careless used his speech at the beginning of this parsha, to someone who recognizes the time to remain silent at the time of his kidnapping and sale, and further (as shown later in this week’s parsha and throughout the rest of his life) to become a person who only uses the gift of speech – a gift only given to man – in a much more thoughtful, meaningful, and righteous manner.