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Can Joseph Break the Cycle of Familial Violence in Genesis: A Midrashic Answer

Dr. Tamar Kadari
| 07/01/2025

Vayechi, the Book of Genesis’ last portion breaks the cycles of familial hatred and jealousy.

What was your relationship with your siblings? Was there always love, or sometimes also jealousy and anger?

Parashat Vayechi is the final parasha in the Book of Genesis. Our ancestors’ stories reveal the great complexity that exists in family relationships.

This is how it is portrayed in Midrash Pasikta D’rav Kahana:

If only you were to me like a brother, who was nursed at my mother’s breasts,  like what brother?
As Cain to Abel? Cain killed Abel.
As Ishmael to Isaac? Ishmael hated Isaac.
As Esau to Jacob? Esau hated Jacob.
As Joseph’s brothers to Joseph? Joseph’s brothers hated Joseph.

The Midrash opens with a verse from the Song of Songs (8:1) “If only you were to me like a brother” and asks: like what brother?

The midrash points to the unpleasant reality. In almost all the families described in the book of Genesis, tension existed between the brothers: Isaac and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau, Joseph and his brothers. Intense jealousy led to hatred, and even, in the case of Cain and Abel, to murder.

If so, what does the verse mean by saying: “If only you were to me like a brother.”

Before we answer the question, presented at the end of the midrash, we will turn to our parasha. Parashat Vayechi tells us about another incident in the stormy relationship between Joseph and his brother. As you remember, Jacob and all his sons, seventy members, went down to Egypt to live there during the difficult years of the famine.

And now Jacob is dead, and Joseph’s brothers are afraid:  When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “Perhaps Joseph will hate us, and may actually repay us for all the evil which we did to him.” (Genesis 50:15)

They cry, fall on their faces, and even offer themselves as slaves.

We too ask ourselves, how will Joseph behave now after his fathers’ death? Will he take advantage of his position and power as a ruler and take revenge on his brothers for their behavior?

However, Joseph does not look down on his brothers, and forgives them wholeheartedly. The midrash ends:

If only you were to me like a brother,…As Joseph’s brothers to Joseph? Joseph’s brothers hate Joseph. But as Joseph to his brothers. You find that after all the bad things they did to him, it is written: “Now therefore do not fear; I will support you and your little children. And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them.” (Genesis 50:21)

Joseph does not take revenge. He weeps and comforts his brothers. He repays them good for bad. And even after his father’s death, he continues to provide for his brothers and take care of all their needs.

This is the Midrash’s answer to the phenomenon of hatred and jealousy between siblings that happens again and again throughout the Book of Genesis. Joseph teaches us that it is possible to break the cycle of hatred, to forgive one another wholeheartedly, and to restore one’s family. We too can learn from Joseph’s behavior, to stop the cycle of hatred between brothers and to increase the love among us.

 

Shavua Tov from Schechter

Image: Joseph Forgives His Brothers, Providence Lithograph Company, 1907 (via wikicommons)

Tamar Kadari is a senior lecturer for Midrash and Aggadah at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. She received her PhD in Midrashic literature from Hebrew University in Jerusalem and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Judaic Studies at The University of Pennsylvania. In 2009, Dr. Kadari received a grant from the Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) to head a research group preparing a critical edition of Song of Songs Rabbah. Her research interests include biblical women in the eyes of the rabbis, aesthetics and beauty in rabbinic literature and literary readings of midrash. Dr. Kadari is also a sculptor whose work has been exhibited in galleries in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

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