Parshat Vayiggash (Gen 44:18-47:27)

Never See My Face Again

This week we are continuing the story of Joseph and his brothers, the longest story in the book of Genesis.  I’ll remind you that in last week's post we talked about the word בִּלְעָדָ֑י bil’adai.  We heard Joseph tell this to Pharaoh in Gen 41:16, when he was hauled out of prison and Pharaoh asked him to interpret his dreams.  Joseph said, bil’adai — you don’t need me for this.

He was speaking very modestly and perhaps also trying to make sure that he was protected if something went wrong.  We also said last week that in v. 44 of that same chapter Pharaoh used the same word to indicate Joseph's rise to greatness, saying, “I am still Pharaoh, but no one will lift a hand or a foot in this Kingdom to do anything without you”: bil’adekha.  Whatever Joseph meant when he himself said that word, he definitely took full advantage of his newly granted power.

Given that he had woken up that morning in prison, you might certainly say that Joseph was catapulted to greatness — and the shift in usage of the word bil’adei signifies that.  Joseph’s dramatic rise is confirmed in a very interesting and unusual way in the first verse of this week's reading, when Joseph's brother Judah approaches him and says the following:

Please, my lord, let your servant speak a word in my lord’s ear.  Don’t be angry at your servant; like you — like Pharaoh. [Gen 44:18]

We have the expression in English, “like father, like son.”  Judah is using a very similar idiom to confirm precisely what Joseph already knows:  To me, you are just like Pharaoh, his “equal” as the NJPS translates.  Just a few verses later, in Gen 44:23, we hear this equivalence again in a very, very interesting way, when Joseph tells his brothers that if they do not return with Benjamin, they should not expect to see his face.

You remember that the ten men seeking to buy food for their families in Canaan do not recognize the man standing before them as their brother.  They think that he is the grand vizier of Egypt and that he holds their fate in his hands. (Indeed, both those things are true.)  In their previous meeting the brothers blurt out that there are 12 of them — but one has stayed behind in Canaan and one is “missing” (Gen 42:13).  As Judah recounts the story, first to their father Jacob and now again to Joseph himself, Joseph had told them that when they returned to Egypt, if they didn’t bring with them the brother who had stayed behind, “You will not see my face” (Gen 43:3 and 5, 44:23 and 26).

 We do not hear Joseph himself use this expression.  But if your biblical antennas are up, you recognize that another biblical character did use it.  In Exod 10:28, a different Pharaoh orders Moses to leave his presence and warns him, “You shall not see my face again.”  Moses responds, “You got that right!  I will not see your face again.”  (Exod 12:31 implies that they did see each other one last time, but no matter.)

Now, at least through the eyes of Judah, we have Joseph anticipating exactly what a future pharaoh of Egypt would tell Moses.  “Like you, like Pharaoh” — and it's a Pharaonic thing to say “You shall not see my face again.”

The assertion “you shall not see my face” is not a common one.  We do find someone else saying it: King David, in 1 Samuel 3 and again in 1 Samuel 14.  No doubt you will remember the other biblical character who says it to Moses:

You cannot see My face, for a human cannot see My face and live … I will shield you with My hand until I pass by and then remove My hand and you will see My back.  But My face cannot be seen.

Joseph, then, is acting like a king, as he has indeed been deputized to do by the reigning Pharaoh.  He is also acting in loco dei, perhaps assuming the same semi-divine nature that the Egyptian Pharaohs claimed.  We readers of the Torah, though, also understand something Joseph claims to know but does not actually comprehend.  He really is God’s representative on earth, in the sense that he is manipulating events as God wants them manipulated.

Later in this week’s reading (Gen 45:8) and again in 50:20, he will tell his brothers that it was not really they who sent him down to Egypt, but God.  Indeed, if Genesis 15 is to be believed, that is certainly true — but Joseph understood nothing about it.

I’m reminded of Mozart explaining that he makes sure everyone will enjoy his music even though it is full of details that only cognoscenti can appreciate.  Vladimir Nabokov, too, spoke of putting “gifts” into his writing that would be found only by the good readers.  When we hear Judah putting into Joseph’s mouth the assertion “You shall not see my face again,” we can see it as a plot device and imagine that we understand it completely.  However, if we go on to notice that this is a kingly, even godly thing to say, I believe we are appreciating the Torah at a deeper level. As a friend of mine likes to say, “If you think it’s deep … it’s so much deeper.”