Talk about drama! It is one of the most captivating moments in the book of Bereishis, if not the entire Torah. After all the turmoil unleashed by the sale of Yosef and his disappearance from his father’s life - the caravan of Arabs, the house of Potiphar, the jail cell, the butler, the baker, the dreams, Paroh, the brothers, the goblet, the revelation, the reunion, each story with its own jaw-dropping tension - Yaakov finally comes down to Mitzrayim to see the face of his beloved Yosef once again. They behold each other and cry, Yaakov’s spirit is revived, and then, as they settle into Goshen, he summons his son Yosef, and, in the most climactic scene in Bereishis, Yaakov finally asks him, “Yosef, what really happened? How did you wind up in Mitzrayim to begin with?” Who among us can forget Yaakov’s reaction to learning that his own sons had tried to murder Yosef, and ended up throwing him in a pit, and then selling him. Remember what Yaakov says?

No, of course you don’t, because Yaakov doesn’t say anything. That ultra-dramatic scene does not appear anywhere in the Torah.

If you were writing the screenplay for this story, you would have assuredly included the set piece of a broken-hearted Yaakov learning about Mechiras Yosef before his passing. But the Torah does no such thing. For all we know, Yaakov never found out about Mechiras Yosef through the day he died. There is no record of any conversation between Yaakov and Yosef or between Yaakov and the other shevatim chastising them for selling their brother. It simply sounds like Yaakov never knew what we all know. 

Yes, the brothers told Yaakov last week:

עוֹד יוֹסֵף חַי וְכִי־הוּא מֹשֵׁל בְּכׇל־אֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם

Yosef is still alive; yes, he is ruler over the whole land of Egypt.

But they kind of left out some details from their account. Wouldn’t Yaakov Avinu be naturally curious how this all went down? 

Many Rishonim argue that Yaakov in fact remained in the dark. The Ramban (45:27) writes:

יראה לי על דרך הפשט שלא הוגד ליעקב כל ימיו כי אחיו מכרו את יוסף אבל חשב כי היה תועה בשדה והמוצאים אותו לקחוהו ומכרו אותו אל מצרים כי אחיו לא רצו להגיד לו חטאתם אף כי יראו לנפשם פן יקצוף ויקללם כאשר עשה בראובן ושמעון ולוי (להלן מט ג-ז) ויוסף במוסרו הטוב לא רצה להגיד לו
It appears to me that Yaakov was never told in all his days that the brothers sold Yosef. He thought that Yosef was lost in the field and someone found him and kidnapped him and sold him to Egypt. The brothers did not want to tell of their sin. They were fearful that Yaakov would be angry at them and curse them as he did to Reuven, Shimon, and Levi. And Yosef with his positive outlook, did not want to tell him.  

Our rabbis also argue that after Yaakov’s death, when the brothers tell Yosef that Yaakov commanded him to not take vengeance upon the brothers, the brothers were in fact lying. Yaakov never said such a thing:

שִׁנּוּ בַדָּבָר מִפְּנֵי הַשָּׁלוֹם, כִּי לֹא צִוָּה יַעֲקֹב כֵּן, שֶׁלֹּא נֶחֱשַׁד יוֹסֵף בְּעֵינָיו 

They altered the facts (they stated something that was false) for the sake of peace, for Yaakov had given them no such command because Yosef was not suspect in his sight (Yevamot 65b).

How did Yaakov not know about Mechiras Yosef? Well, certainly the brothers weren’t eager to tell him about it. The old man is finally at peace with his family reunited, and we’re going to ruin his life again by sharing this secret? Yosef also refrained from filling in the glaring blanks in the narrative. When Yaakov becomes ill, the pasuk says:

וַיְהִי אַחֲרֵי הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה וַיֹּאמֶר לְיוֹסֵף הִנֵּה אָבִיךָ חֹלֶה

Some time afterward, Yosef was told, “Your father is ill.”

The Midrash (Pesikta Rabbasi 3) picks up on the fact that someone else had to tell Yosef that his father was sick. Wouldn’t Yosef know this automatically from his interactions with his father? Apparently not. Yosef purposely stayed away from his sick father:

שלא רצה להתייחד עם אביו, שלא יאמר לו: היאך עשו בך אחיך? ומקללם
He did not want to be alone with his father so [Yaakov] couldn't say to him: What did your brothers do to you, and then curse them. 

This is an incredible change of personality on Yosef’s part. Yosef’s past was animated by one central character fault:

וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת־דִּבָּתָם רָעָה אֶל־אֲבִיהֶם

And Yosef brought bad reports of them to their father.

And now, Yosef is in the possession of the juiciest, most salacious and damning nugget of information he has ever possessed, the kind of tabloid fodder that would go viral in about 3.2 seconds nowadays. And what does he do? Nothing. He sits on it. Never speaks about it again. As far as Yosef is concerned, this chapter in his life is over and there is nothing to be accomplished by resurrecting it and reliving all the trauma again. Yosef has no need to settle the score. His maturity is revealed in what he does not talk about. 

The brothers constantly feared this was not the case. The Torah reports that they were scared to death when Yaakov died. What was Yosef going to do to them? The Midrash Tanchuma elaborates on the specific cause for their fear:

בעת שחזרו מקבורת אביהם, ראו שהלך יוסף לברך על אותו הבור שהשליכוהו אחיו בתוכו, וברך עליו, כמו שחייב אדם לברך על מקום שנעשה לו נס, ברוך המקום שעשה לי נס במקום הזה

When they returned from burying their father, they saw Yosef go to make a blessing over the pit into which the brothers threw him, and he blessed on it like one is obligated to recite a blessing over a place when a miracle happened to him: "Blessed is the Lord Who performed a miracle for me in this place."

Can you imagine what Yosef was thinking as he stared down into the black hole where had been entombed, left for the dead, snakes and scorpions all around him? His whole life must have been flashing before his eyes. Part of the healing process for some people with PTSD, or people who have been assaulted, is to return to the scene of the crime. They can’t be healed until they revisit the location where the trauma took place and confront what happened. So Yosef is now peering into the bor, the place from which history unfolded. The brothers fear this will dredge up everything from the past. But no. Yosef has grown and matured into a tzaddik. Instead he declares:

ברוך המקום שעשה לי נס במקום הזה

"Blessed is the Lord Who performed a miracle for me in this place."

I was saved here!

This is the outlook and attitude of one who feels the gentle guiding hand of Hashem throughout his life. Someone who is at peace with the world and can recognize miracles even in the darkest of places. Throughout the millennia, we have stood on Yosef’s shoulders and have been able to build from tragedy, to project positivity instead of bitterness. Many of the Holocaust survivors who have enriched our lives have stood at the mouth of the pit, shared their story, and have found it within themselves to say:

ברוך המקום שעשה לי נס במקום הזה

And so have the citizens of the State of Israel as they contend with threat after threat after threat. It begins with Yosef and trickles down through the generations to us. The ability to search for a neis, that which is amazing and wonderful, is in our DNA.

How incredible and jaw-dropping it is to read and see how recently released hostages are describing their relationships with God after emerging from their pits in Gaza. They are writing books and going on speaking tours as a way of processing their trauma and attempting to heal. They are using their personal experiences to inspire and inform. And, uncannily, even the least "religious" among them are quite open about saying, "Blessed is the Lord Who performed a miracle for me in this place." I could easily have perished as did so many of my friends and neighbors, but I felt Hashem keeping me safe. I am here as a survivor and I thank God for getting me to the other side. Within those subterranean spaces, the hostages grew closer to their Creator, and found purpose. They revisit the scene of the crime with the hardy perspective of a Yosef. They look not to assign blame but to restart their lives anew. 

The re-unifications which are now seared into our souls were positively biblical, leaping from the Chumash into the contemporary Jewish experience. The hostages' reentries have proven no less earth-shattering, illuminating an authentic path forward for all those who have endured challenge and tribulation, and revealing that they are as righteous as Yosef HaTzaddik.