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Sometimes you can only see what’s right in front of your face.
Sometimes, not even that.
I know that there is complexity and grandiosity to our history as a nuclear family that turned into a People. There is complexity in the way that the world works.
It is complicated and beautiful.
Sometimes, it’s mind numbingly frustrating. And we don’t understand why things happen the way they happen, or why they happen at all.
We wonder what we did to deserve it all.
Perhaps no one thought that more than Yosef.
Purely looking at the verses, without interpretation from any commentators, Yosef is just a slightly self-involved, immature, annoying little brother.
Little brothers love to do that; they like to annoy their older siblings.
He must have thought that his older brothers were over-reacting to him.
Cut to 17 years later.
His older brothers threw him in a pit in the middle of the desert. He went through the slave trade, being sold either to the Madanim, Midyanim, or the Yishmaelim first, but hands were exchanged over him at least three times.
If you look at the verses, his brothers just threw him into a pit… They went away to eat lunch, and when they came back, they were shocked to find that he was gone.
Sometime after, Yehuda goes before the leader of the free world at that time, and begs for some compassion on his father’s behalf.
For his father…whom this Egyptian man (for all intents and purposes) doesn’t know, therefore, Yehuda gives him the backstory to tug at the heartstrings of this seemingly tyrannical leader.
Why Yehuda thinks that the viceroy of Egypt would care about his old father back at home is a question that needs to be asked, although there is no really good answer. Why he thinks that an Egyptian man would care even one iota about his father is still baffling.
But, when a person is up against the wall, and has nowhere else to go, he uses every arrow in his quiver to make his point…
Clearly, Yehuda hit a bull’s-eye.
Yosef can’t contain his emotions anymore, and he reveals that he is the brother that they sold down to Egypt.
Yehuda’s attempt to make an impression worked.
It was incredibly brave of Yehuda to make his appeal to the Egyptian viceroy.
Yehuda could have been sent back to his country without food, or he could have been jailed, or killed, but because he was willing to be vulnerable to a complete stranger and sacrifice his own comfort for the sake of his family.
This Sunday night, December 28, 2025, at 8 PM, I am going to make myself vulnerable by joining my mother at The Jewish Center of Teaneck, 70 Sterling Place, Teaneck, NJ, and sacrifice my own comfort level (and maybe that of other family members) in order to speak on behalf of my family. We will speak about our family’s unique experiences and challenges as 5 of approximately 100 around the world who are afflicted with Juvenile Onset ALS.
Here is the link to a story about my family in The Jewish Link:
Herzfeld Family Launches ‘Life Rewritten’ Speaking Tour and Dec. 28 Fundraiser
Hers is the link to the Chesed Fund, where one can donate to help our family:
https://thechesedfund.com/herzfeld/the-herzfeld-family