The story of Joseph forgiving his brothers is rightly celebrated as a founding paradigm of repentance and forgiveness. But who, exactly, is being forgiven? Joseph's brothers, obviously. But I believe Joseph is also forgiving someone else along with them.
To understand why, let's borrow a reading method from David Ball's Backwards & Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays.
In a well-plotted drama, Ball notes, every action drives the story forward, with each action causing consequences which, in turn, all spur further actions. Well-written plays are lean in plot; there isn't any unnecessary fat between the actions, the consequence, and the resulting new actions. So to really understand a well-written play, Ball writes -- to understand how the causes and effects fit together -- you have to read the script backwards. When you do, even familiar stories can reveal new insights.
Since the Torah is written by the ultimate Author, we can be certain that every word is necessary, and so Ball's methodology of reading backwards should be instructive.
Let's begin at the exact moment of forgiveness.
Let's ask the David Ball question: what happens immediately before Joseph clears the room to reveal his identity and proclaim his forgiveness? It is clear from our verse that Joseph held out until he absolutely couldn't contain himself. And this moment follows Judah's famous speech. But which exact line was it that Judah said which pushed Joseph over the emotional edge?
Clearly the emotional peak for Joseph relates to his father even more than to his brothers.
Reading under the common assumption -- that this moment is all about the brotherly reconciliation -- it's pretty odd that Judah got as far as verse 34 before Joseph broke down. If, as we are always told, what moves Joseph to tears is just Judah's willingness to sacrifice himself for Benjamin, then the point at which "Joseph could no longer control himself" should come one verse earlier, after verse 33:
But this isn't quite enough. Joseph lets Judah keep talking for one verse more after this one, moving back to speaking about Jacob's potential grief, and only then does Joseph break down.
Why should it be Jacob's grief that finally slays Joseph's poker face? To understand that, let's move backwards a few verses further still in Judah's speech, to verses 20 and 27-28.
It's easy to skim by this quickly because for Judah, and for the reader, all of this is not news. We saw it happen in direct narration earlier. This seems to be mere exposition that Judah is providing so that the Egyptian official (who he doesn't know is Joseph) will understand the family situation. Of course, unlike Judah, the reader also knows that the Egyptian official, being Joseph, really does understand much of the family situation.
But since we, the readers, know that Joseph knows these characters intimately, it's easy for readers to forget that part of this exposition really is news to Joseph. Verse 28, in particular, would have landed on Joseph like a ton of bricks.
This is the first time Joseph has ever heard that Jacob thought Joseph was torn by a wild beast. We can confirm this by moving further back in the story, to chapter 42, during Joseph's first meeting with his brothers. The entirety of what the brothers tell Joseph about their brother (who they don't know is standing in front of them) is here, in verse 13:
"One is no more." That's all they said. Joseph had never heard that his father had any particular theory about, or reaction to, his disappearance. He wasn't there when his brothers smeared his coat with blood. He wasn't there to see his father mourn him for so long.
And reading backwards, it's strikingly odd that Joseph didn't, by then, have any information about what his father ever thought had happened to him. Of course, it's natural that he had no word from his father when he was a slave (even a high-status slave) and then a prisoner. But once he was freed and made Prime Minister of Egypt, there's an obvious "dog that didn't bark:" why, during the years leading up to this point, didn't Joseph ever send word to Jacob?
Perhaps, one might think, he resisted contacting his father simply because he didn't want to contact anyone in the family, lest he be in a position of seeing the brothers who had sold him into slavery. But that explanation is unsatisfactory. It would have been easy enough, as a rich and powerful government official, to send word to his father that Jacob, alone and without the treacherous brothers, should come down to Egypt to see him.
Keep moving backwards, to chapter 41:
The English in this source doesn't capture something critical in the Hebrew: "...ve'et kol beit avi." God made me forget all of the household of my father. With that "all," Joseph could hardly be any more clear than this that his resentment extended not only to his brothers, but to his father as well.
It's not hard to understand why. Moving back to chapter 37, it is universally recognized that Jacob bears some responsibility for the bad blood between Joseph and his brothers, because of his initial favoritism toward Joseph:
It is also obvious that there was explicit tension between Jacob and Joseph themselves, as seen when Jacob rebuked Joseph for telling his family his dreams of domination.
These tensions have long been appreciated. But here's something which, I think, may not be: the timing of that rebuke in relation to Joseph being sold into slavery.
Joseph's journey to his brothers -- the journey that ends with his slavery -- begins with Jacob asking him to go find his brothers in chapter 37, verses 12-13. Have you ever noticed that Jacob's rebuke of Joseph happens immediately before this, in verses 10-11?
By now you know what David Ball would think of this: there is significance to the fact that one incident immediately follows the other.
And that juxtaposition, I think, more than Jacob's initial favoritism, explains why Joseph never reached out to his father. Sure, perhaps Joseph could have assumed the best of his father. He could have assumed that his sale into slavery was the doing of his brothers and his brothers alone.
But if he had assumed that, why didn't he reach out to his father when he was made Prime Minister? It seems more likely that in the despair of slavery and prison, Joseph may have thought back on his father's rebuke and his father's request, seemingly shortly thereafter, that Joseph to go out to find his brothers. Perhaps, Joseph thought, his father was in on the sale all along.
And perhaps that's why it was the mention of Jacob's grief that pushed Joseph over the edge. Giving his famous speech, perhaps Judah not only redeems the brothers but, without realizing it, redeems Jacob in Joseph's eyes as well.