This week’s parasha is downright exciting – a suspense story reaching its climax. Yosef cannot restrain himself anymore and he makes himself known to his brothers. No less moving is the fact that in the same sentence in which he reveals himself and says, “I am Yosef,” he adds something, thus revealing how much he had been missing his father: “Is my father still alive?”
Very soon afterwards he sends an invitation to his father to come to Egypt, and even tells his brothers, the bearers of this message: “Take wagons for yourself from Egypt.” Afterwards, when the brothers come to Yaakov and tell him that Yosef is alive, he doesn’t believe them so easily – after all, they had already sold him a story about a wild animal that never was – but when he sees the wagons that Yosef sent him, immediately “And the spirit of Yaakov their father was revived.’
Why? What was in those wagons that revived Yaakov’s spirit?
Rashi explains that sending those wagons was a hint to Yaakov: “When I left you… I was dealing with the parasha of eglah arufah” (the procedure to be done when a dead body is found, the murderer unknown, which includes beheading a female calf; eglah hinting to agalah – wagon). The last topic that Yosef learned from his father was about eglah arufah, and he was the only one who knew what he had studied with his father. Therefore, when Yaakov saw the wagons he understood the hint and knew that indeed, “My son Yosef is alive.”
I heard another interpretation – very humane and beautiful – from my colleague and friend, Rabbi Shalom Rosenfeld of Zurich. If the children go and live far away, and every time that the parents want to come and visit they say, “No need, don’t bother, we’ll come to you,” this should raise concern. It’s a sign that they have what to hide; they’re afraid that the parents will be upset when they see how their homes are being run. But when your son has lived away from home for many years, moreover, lived alone among other nations, and he sends you wagons and asks: “Abba, come to my home,” then you know that everything is alright, that he is proud of who and what he is, that he has nothing to hide from you. So it is clear why, when Yaakov saw the wagons, immediately, “And the spirit of Yaakov their father was revived.”
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Zalmen Wishedski