Dear Friends,
In the Torah reading this Shabbat we will read about the most moving event in the entire Torah – Yosef’s revealing himself to his brothers, and, above all, the meeting, embracing and weeping of Yosef and Binyamin. “He (Yosef) fell upon his brother Binyamin’s neck and wept; and Binyamin wept upon his neck.” The orphaned brothers, who had been separated for no fault of their own, meet again after more than twenty years and they embrace each other and cry.
Rashi explains, based on the Gemara, that Yosef cried about the Temples that would be in Jerusalem, in Binyamin’s Nachalah (designated estate in the land), and would be destroyed; and Binyamin wept for the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in Shiloh that would be in the Yosef’s Nachalah and would, also, be destroyed.
But why – why did they each cry about the other’s misfortune? It would have been much more logical for Yosef to cry about Mishkan Shiloh, which was in his Nachalah, and for Binyamin to cry for the Temples, which were in his Nachalah. Why did they each cry for the other, and not for themselves?
The Rebbe brings a wonderful explanation, which carries with it a lesson for life as well:
It’s o.k. to cry, and it’s permissible to cry, but only for something that has already been lost to you. If there is something that is no longer in your control, and you are in pain, you cry. But something that you can still fix, you don’t cry about; rather, you try to fix and alter the situation for the better until the last minute. There’s simply no time to cry, since there is much to do.
Yosef wept for the Temples that were in Binyamin’s intended Nachalah, because that was for Binyamin to work on. Yosef couldn’t do much for Binyamin. He could help, advise, encourage and maybe even bless, but the work itself, the Tikkun, had to be done by Binyamin. So Yosef cried, because he could no longer do anything about what was going to happen. Mishkan Shiloh, on the other hand, was in Yosef’s Nachalah, and that Tikkun was in Yosef’s hands, and therefore he didn’t cry, for he would be fighting to the end to try and save it.
The same thing is true for Binyamin. He didn’t cry for the Temples that would be in his own Nachalah, because as long as they had not yet been destroyed, he would try to correct the situation and pray that the destruction wouldn’t happen. But as regards to Mishkan Shiloh, which was Yosef’s Tikkun, he did cry, because it pained him, and the Tikkun was in his brother’s hands, not his.
Dear friends, often we encounter difficult and painful experiences. The tears are already choking us, and despair is not far behind. But here we should stop for a moment and look at the situation truthfully. If there is still a chance to correct the problem, to change something, we won’t allow ourselves to cry; we will simply do whatever we can, until the end. If there is no longer anything to do, we will allow ourselves to feel the pain and express it in tears and weeping as well.
May we know only tears of joy and crying that stems from happiness!
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski