Why Can Genesis Only Close After Forgiveness?

Parashat Vayechi (Genesis 47:28–50:26)

These ideas grew out of reading and meditating on Rabbi Sacks's 10 to 15 weekly essays on the parasha, and on his books and worldview.

After Jacob's death, the brothers of Joseph are afraid. Several years earlier, Joseph told them that he forgave them for selling him into slavery. He forgave them and told them: Look, it was not you who sold me. It was God who intended for me to be here ahead of you, and saved lives. Yet the brothers were not fully convinced. They were not fully reassured that he completely forgave them. And they are afraid that perhaps, just as Esau said that after Isaac dies he would come and avenge and try to kill Jacob, maybe Joseph too was waiting for the time that Jacob would pass, in order to eventually take his revenge on the brothers who sold him into slavery.

So they ask again for forgiveness and tell him: Please, Jacob told us to tell you, please forgive us for selling you into slavery. And so Joseph once again has to tell them: I forgive you. It was not you who sent me down to Egypt, but God who wanted this to happen.

Joseph forgives. For the first time in literature, we find forgiveness.

This is remarkable, because until now what we saw in Genesis is sibling rivalry. There were Cain and Abel, the first brothers. Later on there were Isaac and Ishmael, then eventually Jacob and Esau, and finally the brothers and Joseph. And so the question is: can brothers live peacefully? If brothers cannot coexist peacefully, how could a nation live peacefully? How can two nations be okay with each other? How can the whole human race continue and evolve and survive?

Only now, with Joseph and his brothers, is there complete reconciliation. Only now could we move on with the story. Only now could we go from a family to a nation. Only now could we progress in the story.

And this idea of forgiveness is not found in any other culture. It is first found in the Bible, and it is completely different from the alternatives of the past, namely revenge that goes back and forth. You dishonor my family, my tribe, and I go and take revenge on your tribe, and we go back and forth. And this could only end in appeasement: when someone humiliates the other and gains back the respect of the family, or when someone gives riches to the other and tries to appease them, or in other humiliation rituals.

This is similar to what we see with Jacob and Esau. They don't forgive each other. They merely appease each other. Jacob gives him wealth, gives him goods, gives him flocks of animals, calls him sir, and all different types of appeasing, which is not forgiveness.

It is only in Judaism that we could find forgiveness, because forgiveness is only compatible with a guilt culture, not with a shame culture. In shame cultures, we shame the person for the sin they made, and we say the person is a bad person because he did a bad thing. The person becomes the evil itself. In contrast, in guilt cultures like Judaism, we don't believe the person is a bad person because he sinned. He is merely a person who sinned, and that person can repent and become better and elevate his status. But it is never to the detriment of the person.

And so in the contemporary world, we see people who have done wrong, and they are publicly shamed. These people try to clear their name. They try to say: I couldn't help it. It was not that bad. It was human nature. I got carried away. Eventually, they hope you forget. And this is an ugly kind of culture, a shame culture. In it, we don't believe in giving people a second chance, or in letting them defend themselves, or in becoming better ourselves.

But we believe in guilt, not in shame. We believe we could change the world only if we change ourselves. That's why the book of Genesis can only close after forgiveness. Because only when we believe we could change as individuals can we move on to the nation of Israel, which is tasked with changing the world. You first have to change yourself in order to change the world.

Teshuvah is the ultimate assertion of freedom. Time becomes the arena of change, the future redeems the past, and a new concept is born: the idea that we call hope.

And thus, when Jacob says, "Gather around and let me tell you the future to come," he cannot predict anything, because we believe we make the future by our own choices. That is why we're free. We make choices. We make mistakes. We learn from those mistakes and we grow. We're free because we're not merely objects; we're subjects. Because we could choose how to react, and not always react. We have our choice. We have minds, not just brains. We have thoughts, not just sensations. We're made in the image of God; thus, we're free. We're sustained with the blessing of God, so we could become more than we could ever foresee.

Only when we can atone and forgive are we the supreme expression of human freedom: the freedom to act differently than we acted in the past, under the same circumstance, under the same opportunity. But we act differently. We're supremely free. Only a society and a civilization based on this forgiveness, based on this freedom, can conduct a civilization not doomed to repeat its cycle of vengeance and cycle of time. We can grow and become better and break through the cycle and the repetition of the past, where we can create a holier and better civilization, for us and for everybody else.

Shabbat shalom.