The man had to be Benjamin. Still, Joseph was shocked. He stared at him, trying to make the thirty-two-year-old face fit the memory of his brother as a rosy eleven-year-old, a boy who adored him and followed him everywhere. Anxiety and deprivation had faded the boy’s flesh and dimmed his eyes, but as Joseph kept looking, the two mental images—past and present—approached each other and merged. He could feel deep emotion rising in him again, love and compassion and gratitude for being here at the end of this journey, an end that was contiguous with its beginning, like the ritual serpent biting its tail.
It was too much to contain. He hurried out of the room. He had to exert all his willpower to keep the tears from spilling out before he reached the door to his office.
The Banquet
AFTER HE HAD WEPT TO HIS HEART’S content, Joseph washed his face, composed himself, and came out. He had the butler lead everyone to the Dining Hall, which was almost as large a room and just as splendid. There they were joined by several dozen Egyptian dignitaries, who had been hastily invited for the sake of appearances. Two long tables were laid out with elaborate settings of crystal, silver, and linen.
Once the Egyptians had been seated, he ordered the butler to seat his brothers in order of their ages, the eldest first and the youngest last. As he did, Simeon gave Levi a silent poke. Gad and Asher exchanged glances of bewilderment. Reuben leaned over to Judah and whispered that the great lord must have some kind of supernatural insight. It was one thing for him to see that he, Reuben, was the eldest, or that Levi was older than Zebulun. But how could he tell that Simeon was older than Levi (they looked like twins), or that Judah was older than Dan, who had been born just four months after him, or that Naphtali was older than Gad, Asher than Issachar? Yet he hadn’t hesitated and hadn’t made a single mistake. Something uncanny was happening again.
The footmen served Joseph first, on the dais, where because of his exalted position he ate alone. Then they served the brothers and the Egyptian guests, separately, since Egyptians weren’t permitted to eat with Hebrews. (Hebrews were considered unclean, and eating with them would have been what the priests called an abomination. For Egyptians, other nations were not quite human. There were exceptions, such as Joseph, but these were rare. Barbarians ate cow flesh, and cows were sacred. Sheep, too, mustn’t be eaten under any circumstances. This made Hebrews repulsive to any decent, right-thinking person.)
So the brothers feasted and drank with Joseph. There were pitchers of ale, lager, and stout on every table, and sommeliers circulated, pouring wines from the finest old vintages. After the hors d’oeuvre—roast pork in pomegranate sauce (the concept “kosher” wouldn’t exist for another four hundred years)—there was a seafood course of raw oysters, grilled lobster, and six kinds of fish in a mustard/white wine sauce, then main courses of roast goose, partridge, and venison, with grains and vegetables, followed by a fruit course, ices, two dozen kinds of pastry, and dessert wines, brandy, and liqueurs.
The lavishness of it all was beyond their grasp. Only Judah and Benjamin showed any moderation. Most of the brothers gorged themselves and got drunk, joking, laughing, tossing bread pellets at one another from across the table, and paying no attention to the musicians or the dancing girls, or to the splendidly clothed Egyptian noblemen who from the other table glared at them with undisguised contempt.
The Silver Cup
AFTER THE BANQUET WAS OVER and the brothers were comfortably settled in the guest bedrooms, Joseph said to his steward, “Fill the men’s packs with grain, and put my silver cup in the pack of the youngest one.”
The point was to choose a valuable object, and there was nothing more valuable to the Egyptians than a divination cup. Joseph didn’t believe in divination, but everyone else in Egypt did. As with the other psychic disciplines, there were hundreds of textbooks, academies, and self-confident experts, and three major schools of thought: oilism, wineism, and waterism, among which the arguments about the efficacy of their respective methods dated back thousands of years, to the earliest dynasties. (Joseph had seen experts from all three schools declaim before Pharaoh and fail in equally undetectable ways, with prophecies that used vagueness as a methodology.) On rare occasions, when he thought that a decision of his would cause more than the usual resistance, Joseph used this superstition to his political advantage. He had bought an ancient, historic divination cup, a masterpiece of the silversmith’s art, which had belonged to one of the priestly dynasties for centuries, and on these occasions he would fill it with the prescribed portion of wine, drop the prescribed portion of oil into it, gaze solemnly at the patterns, and solemnly announce his conclusions to the exasperated rich.
But, you may be wondering, why all this drama around the cup? Why didn’t Joseph reveal himself to his brothers in the Great Hall or during the banquet? Did he really need to test them in this way, pushing them to the brink of despair?
Well, if you play it out, you’ll see how much more satisfying a conclusion our story has with this test than without it. Joseph was an artist of events, and his intuition here was as aesthetic as it was moral. He didn’t want half-knowledge and lukewarm acceptance. If his brothers were still callous, he wanted to know that. They had changed; they had repented; but how deep did their contrition go? How would they react if Benjamin seemed to be in mortal danger? Would they come to his defense? Or would they be willing to break their father’s heart all over again? The test was not only for his sake, it was for theirs as well. It would give them the opportunity to reveal themselves to themselves as well as to him. His own self-revelation would have an entirely different quality if it was made to men who were sincerely sorry for what they had done, rather than to men with hearts still calcified in envy and resentment.
Found!
DAYLIGHT CAME, AND AFTER THE MEN were sent off with their donkeys, Joseph said to his steward, “Follow them. When you catch up, say, ‘Shame on you! Why have you stolen my master’s silver cup, the one he looks into to see what lies hidden?’” Joseph was clear about cause and effect, and in that sense he could indeed see what lay hidden. It had nothing to do with the silver cup, of course. But he spoke in the language of psychic powers in order to ratchet up the pressure on his brothers. This was the drama’s climax. With all his heart he wanted them to pass the test.
The steward took along a dozen guards. When he caught up with the brothers, he repeated Joseph’s words. Reuben said, “How can you accuse us of such a thing, sir?”
“It’s outrageous!” Levi shouted. “How dare you!” He took a step toward the man, but Simeon caught his arm and held him back.
Judah said, “Sir, haven’t we proved our honesty by bringing back the money we found in our packs, all the way from Canaan? How could we repay your master with such wickedness?”
There was a collective murmur of agreement.
“If you find the cup with any of us,” Reuben said, “go ahead and put that man to death, and make the rest of us slaves.”
The steward nodded gravely. “What you propose is fair,” he said. “Still, if I find the cup with any of you, only that man will be made a slave. The rest of you will go free.”
Each of them quickly took down his pack and opened it. The steward searched all the packs. He found the cup in Benjamin’s.
How? Who? Why?
NONE OF THE BROTHERS KNEW; only Benjamin did. Their minds shuttled between doubt and conviction. Could he have done it? No. Yes. How could he have done it and gotten them into such trouble? Well, if it was his fault, maybe they should just leave him here. But that would kill their father. But it was not as if they still had a choice. Or was it God who had put the silver cup in his pack, as with the money? However this had happened, it spelled disaster. Reuben wanted to bite his tongue. Judah was even more appalled than the others. He had made a solemn promise to his father, and now there would be no way to keep it.
For Benjamin, however, there was no question of a theft. He pondered. Denying the theft would do no good, since the evide
nce would so clearly make him a liar. He knew to keep silent when there was nothing useful to say.
It might be God who had acted here, or it might be a human. If a human, it couldn’t have been one of his brothers. Who, then? The Egyptians were all under the command of the great lord, who had seemed to show such partiality to him. So in the end it would come down to the great lord.
But why would he have played such a nasty trick on them all? To make him his slave? Benjamin couldn’t believe that. The great lord seemed like a decent, generous man. He had to know that detaining Benjamin would kill their father. He would never do something like that.
Then why had he done it?
Judah Reflects
THE GREAT HALL OF JOSEPH’S PALACE was filled with dignitaries and government officials. Clerks fluttered about with unsigned documents. The Fan Bearer on the Viceroy’s Right and the Fan Bearer on the Viceroy’s Left stood holding their tall black-and-white ostrich-feather fans upright on either side of Joseph’s throne. The fan bearers’ function was purely ceremonial, even on warm days like this. It would have been beneath their dignity to actually wave the fans.
The brothers, frightened and dejected, were escorted into the hall by a phalanx of guards. When they came within twenty-five feet of the dais where Joseph’s throne stood, they stopped and prostrated themselves before him, palms and foreheads pressed against the cold marble slabs of the floor. The dignitaries and government officials looked at them with disgust. There was whispering and hushed laughter.
“How could you do this?” Joseph said. The interpreter echoed his tone of grave displeasure. “Don’t you know that a man like me sees what lies hidden?”
“What can we tell you, my lord?” Judah said, lifting his head to speak. “How can we claim that we are innocent? God has uncovered our crime.”
Judah saw no point in denying the theft. How the cup had found its way into Benjamin’s pack—whether it was by supernatural intervention or whether Benjamin had suddenly lost his wits—was irrelevant, though how Benjamin could even have gotten near the cup, with all those soldiers standing at attention around the dining table, was more than Judah could comprehend. He believed they were all innocent of this crime, but that didn’t make them innocent. For more than two decades he had been waiting for the other crime to be punished. God is subtle in His ways, but He is not careless, and He brings all things to their balance in His own sweet time. Sooner or later there is always a balancing, as Judah had learned abruptly in the almost fatal mistake he had made with Tamar, which had shaken him to the core.
Now, devastating as it was to contemplate the possible consequences of this theft, he felt a strange relief about it. God was certainly at work here. He was showing them all what they had been too immature, too craven, to realize when they had succumbed to their jealousy and rage. How could they have been so brutal as to shut their father’s grief out of their minds when they attacked his favorite son? Well, once again God was holding their father’s grief before them, this time about Benjamin. It was horrible to behold. They would have to relive it when they went home, only this time it would be even worse. And the fault would be Judah’s alone.
“I Am Joseph”
“MAY WE HAVE YOUR LORDSHIP’S PERMISSION to stand?” said Judah.
“Yes, yes,” Joseph said with an elegant wave of his right hand. The interpreter waved his right hand as well.
“We come here as your slaves, my lord,” Judah continued after they were all on their feet, “not only our brother who was found with the cup, but the rest of us as well.”
“No,” Joseph said, “that wouldn’t be right. Only the man who was found with the cup will be taken as my slave. The rest of you may go back to your father in peace.”
But there was no peace in the offer. It wasn’t possible for them to leave: the news of Benjamin’s enslavement would kill the old man. Nor was it possible to stay in Egypt, since if they did, their families would starve.
Then Judah stepped forward and said, “I beg your indulgence, my lord. Let your humble servant speak a few words, please, and listen to what he says, even though you are as great as Pharaoh.”
“Speak,” Joseph said, leaning forward.
“You asked us about our family, my lord. We told you that we had an agèd father and a child of his old age, a young man whose full brother is dead, so that he alone is left of his mother’s children. And you said to us, ‘Bring him to me. Unless he comes with you, you will not be admitted.’ When we told your words to our father, he said, ‘My wife bore me two sons. One was taken from me, and now you want to take this one too, and if he met with some disaster, you would send my white head down to the grave in anguish.’”
Judah paused for a few moments. Joseph was doing everything he could to hold back the tears that were rising in his throat and behind his eyes.
“And so, my lord,” Judah continued, “if I go back to our father and he sees that his son isn’t with us, he will die of grief, and it will be my fault. I told him that I would take care of his son. I promised I would bring him home. And so I beg you, my lord, please, let me stay here as your slave instead of this man, and let him leave with the rest of us. If my brother is not with me, how can I go back to my father? How can I bear to see the anguish that will consume him?”*
Joseph could no longer control himself. “Leave my presence!” he shouted. “Everyone!”
The viceregal fan bearers and the dozen chief ministers filed out first; next, the fifty deputies and heads of departments, carrying their ostrich-skin briefcases full of papyrus work. Last went the three hundred scribes, heralds, and pages, who crowded toward the front door with a clatter of sandals. A few, unable to master their curiosity, glanced over their shoulders on the way out, at Joseph standing to the right of his throne and weeping in silence, but immediately they had to turn their heads forward as they were swept along toward the front door.
So no one else was there when he made himself known to his brothers. But many of the Egyptians stood listening outside the door.
“—Ani Yosef,” he said. (“I am Joseph.”) These were the first Hebrew words he had spoken in almost twenty-two years. He hadn’t heard his own name once in all that time, and it stirred nameless emotions in him, sounds and smells, his mother’s voice singing to him as she held him in her arms, the feel of his father’s palms on his forehead as he blessed him—memories suddenly so vivid that they reached down and drew up tears from the depths of him.
At first he could barely see his brothers through the mist that filled his eyes. Then he was able to observe them. Shock, incomprehension, terror. He would have to say more.
Stupefied
“IS MY FATHER REALLY ALIVE?” Joseph said. (He spoke Hebrew with a slight Egyptian accent.)
The brothers couldn’t answer. What had just happened was impossible. How could the great lord say he was their brother? Was he testing them? Was he joking? Was he out of his mind? And how had he learned their humble language? Their minds whirled with unanswerable questions. They were stupefied. All they could do was stare.
“Come closer to me,” Joseph said. And when they came closer: “I am your brother Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.”
VI.
The Way of Forgiveness
No Blame
FIRST HE HAD TO PROVE TO THEM who he was. So: their crime first. Who else but he could know that? He wished not to exaggerate or diminish it, but to state it plainly, without judgment, and move on.
The next thing was to let these terrified men know that he had forgiven them, that he felt no anger or resentment, no residue from the event, and that he was standing before them with an open heart. Actually, forgiveness was an inaccurate word for what he was experiencing, since it implies that a magnanimous “I” grants something to a not-necessarily-deserving “you.” It wasn’t like that at all. He wasn’t granting anything or even doing anything. He realized that his brothers were guilty, but he also saw the innocence in that guilt. True forgiveness, he
had learned, is the realization that there is nothing to forgive. His brothers simply hadn’t known what they were doing. And given the violence of their emotions, there was nothing else they could have done.
“Don’t be troubled now,” Joseph continued, “and don’t blame yourselves for selling me.” He paused. This dimension of forgiveness was something he couldn’t convey to his brothers, or to anyone else. They would have to discover their own innocence for themselves. The most he could do now was to hint at it, to suggest that they follow his example. If he, who was the apparent victim, didn’t blame them, why should they blame themselves? He knew that this reassurance would do little if any good. His brothers would have to blame themselves; they wouldn’t be able to see their own innocence until their minds slowed down enough to understand their crime in the greater scheme of things. In the meantime, they would necessarily be grieved and angry at themselves, and they would suffer needlessly from a remembered—that is, from an imagined—past that they could neither retract nor change.
There was one last thing to help them understand. “God sent me ahead of you to save lives,” he said. Since they all believed in God’s power to do whatever He wants—at least, Joseph presumed that they did, being sons of his father—they might be able to realize that there are no accidents in the world. Everything happens according to God’s will; everything that happens, whether apparently good or apparently bad, is meant to happen, precisely because it did happen; though the future has infinite possibilities, the past has only one. Therefore, it was God’s will that he be sold into Egypt. They couldn’t disagree, since this was the obvious truth of it. And how could they blame themselves for something they’d had no control over? Ultimately, it wasn’t they who had thrown him into the pit: it was God. It wasn’t they who had sold him into Egypt: it was God. God was the only creator in this whole drama; they were simply His instruments, His actors. Their crime had been for the good of them all, though that hadn’t been their intention. So there was nothing to reproach themselves for. What they had done as revenge was actually a blessing in the long run. In reality, nothing is as it seems to be through the filter of a fearful mind. Everything, even the most painful experience, turns out to be pure grace.
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