The Ohr haChaim answers that when Yosef saw his brothers in
shock, he realized that either they did not believe him or were overcome with
fear. His responded to both
concerns. “Ani Yosef achichem” – “I am
your brother.” Even when you despised
me, even when you sold me into slavery, even despite all the travails I have
endured, my brotherly affection did not waiver.
There is no need for fear. “Asher
michartem osi” – “…Whom you sold.” No
one – not Ya’akov, not Pharoah, not any other family member or friend – knew that
Yosef had been sold into slavery. Only
Yosef himself and his brothers knew that fact. Yosef asked them to come close
so as not to reveal the embarrassing truth in public, and then he told them a
fact that only he and they could have known to prove that he was telling the
truth and he was indeed their long lost brother.
Chazal comment on this parsha that if Yosef’s brothers were
so overcome that they could not say anything when Yosef revealed himself,
imagine what our reaction will be when we face our Maker and he reveals the truth
about what we did with our lives! The
Tolna Rebbe says an amazing vort based on this Ohr haChaim. What Yosef revealed was that he remained “achichem,”
his feeling of achavah remained through think and thin. When we meet our Maker, what he will reveal
is that he remained always by our side as well, through thick and thin, even
when we thought he had abandoned us and we ran off to do aveiros or be involved
in other things. It is Hashem’s enduring
love which will overcome us.
(I hate to ruin such a nice vort with a pshat question, but aren’t
Chazal are commenting on the first half of Yosef’s statement, which seems to
have been the cause of the brothers “behalah,” not the second half of the
statement, which is the focus of the Ohr haChaim?)
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