Genesis Chapter 42: The Stories We Carry

Each time I’ve read the famous encounter between Joseph and his brothers in Egypt, I’ve always seen Joseph as the one in control. He is composed, powerful, and getting read to toy with his brothers. I’ve always seen Joseph in the driver’s seat here.

This year, something new caught my attention. The Torah tells us that “Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him.” (verse 8) Maybe they weren’t the only ones who failed to recognize someone in that moment. Perhaps I, too, have been missing a crucial element of Joseph’s experience.

Perhaps Joseph was truly afraid. No matter how much we grow, succeed, or change, many of us still carry the stories and dynamics of our past. So many of us have had that feeling of stepping back into an old role - the way a visit home for Thanksgiving can suddenly transport us back to our teenage selves. Old family patterns, familiar emotions, unhealed wounds - they have a way of resurfacing the moment we walk through the door of our old homes, or in the case of Joseph, when “home” finds a way to reenter our lives.

When his brothers stand before him in Egypt, Joseph isn’t only a big powerful guy in Egypt. He is, on some level, also that seventeen-year-old boy, betrayed by his brothers. So when he asks, “Where do you come from?” (verse 7), and when he accuses them, “You are spies!” (verse 9), perhaps it isn’t only an elaborate scheme taking form. Perhaps Joseph is wrestling with the flood of emotions and memories that have suddenly returned.

Genesis 42 reminds us that even when we’ve moved on from difficult chapters of our lives, they never disappear entirely. When we heal, the scars do remain. The past has a way of visiting us when we least expect it. Like Joseph, we may find ourselves face-to-face with what once hurt us - and we, too, must be aware of why we are reacting in the way that we are at any given moment.

-Rabbi Jason Bonder