And Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept upon them and after that his brothers spoke with him.
Genesis 45:15
In traditional Jewish communities, the family is the locus. For those of us whose parents are alive, we put much energy into relationships with our parents. Those of us who have siblings attempt to stay in touch, to see each other as often as we can. And if we have children, we expend a great deal of time caring for and nurturing our children. We are to prioritize our life values by placing our families first.
In Parshat Vayigash, we see Joseph and his brothers going to extreme measures in their attempts to honor their family relationships. Joseph’s brothers engage in meeting Joseph’s demands while balancing their obligations to their father Jacob, who fears losing his youngest son Benjamin. Joseph struggles with his own anger at his brothers, while knowing that he ultimately wants to reconcile with them. But before he uncovers his true identity, Joseph sends all of the Egyptians out of the room. Rashi, the medieval French commentator, tells us that the reason why Joseph did this, is because he wanted to spare them being shamed in front of the Egyptians. Even in his anger, Joseph is thinking about his brothers’ dignity. And so the rest of the story plays out in a fairytale fashion. Reconciliation, forgiveness are all a part of the scene and as Jacob is brought down to Egypt, they are once again a big happy family.
But where does this picture-perfect scene leave us? What if our own personal narrative reads of a botched reconciliation or a non-existent one? What if we were not able to make that dramatic scene of forgiveness happen? What if our families are not the scene of mutual acceptance and peace?
Many of us know this reality. We have attempted to reconcile, but have been rebuffed. We tried to open the conversation, but were told that there was no conversation to have. We made efforts to honor the family connection, but were told that it wasn’t worth our effort. Some of us have even found ourselves in familial relationships that pose harm to ourselves either physically or psychologically.
There is a saying that you can pick your friends, but not your family. While that may be true in the most literal sense, Jewish tradition does place limits on how far we must go to honor these relationships and what our obligations are in the realm of reconciling with those who have hurt us with those whom we have hurt. Sometimes we must step away from these relationships or radically alter our expectations of them. And we must seek out our own community of supportive and loving relationships to help meet our needs. We can be family to each other, when the family in which we were raised fails to meet that need for us.
A Judaism that is focused on community and on supporting each other can help to create a different reality for us. This Judaism makes claims on us by asking us to open up our homes and families to others. And those who need family in their lives, must express the need to be a part of a family and to contribute to it. As Jane Howard put it, “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family: Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”