Yosef disappears from his father’s life for twenty-two years, and yet one sentence is enough to prove that he is still the same person.
An Unexplained Cry
Elie Wiesel was born into a family of Vizhnitz Chassidim. When he was eight years old, Rabbi Yisrael of Vizhnitz visited the town of Sighet. Elie’s mother took her young son to receive a blessing.
They arrived at the Rebbe’s lodgings and found a crowded waiting room, packed with people hoping for a moment inside. Still, they were ushered in immediately—Elie’s mother was the daughter of one of the Rebbe’s close followers. Rabbi Yisrael asked about the family, then turned to the boy. He lifted little Elie onto his lap and began asking him about his studies.
At one point, the Rebbe asked Elie’s mother to step outside. Alone together, they spoke about the weekly Torah portion, about Rashi’s commentary, and about the chapter of Talmud the boy was learning at the time. The Rebbe encouraged him warmly, especially to stay devoted to his Talmud studies. Then he kissed Elie on the forehead, told him to ask his mother to return, and sent the boy outside.
Elie later recalled that when his mother emerged from the room, she seemed like a completely different person. She was crying uncontrollably. People looked at her with pity. Elie was terrified that he had embarrassed her—that he hadn’t answered well enough.
“Why are you crying?” he asked.
She wouldn’t answer.
He asked again later that day. Then the next day. And the day after that. Each time, the same response—silence and tears.
Years passed. Elie Wiesel survived the Holocaust and eventually became its most famous survivor and witness. After the war, he moved first to France and later to the United States.
One day in the 1960s, he received a phone call from a distant relative. His uncle—his mother’s brother—was gravely ill and needed surgery. But he refused to sign the consent form unless Elie came to see him first. This uncle, also a Holocaust survivor, owned a small fish store in Manhattan. He was a quiet, chassidic man, content with his simple life.
Elie rushed to the hospital. When he arrived, his uncle took his hand and said, “Thank you for coming. I need you. I need your blessing.”
Elie was stunned. “Are you out of your mind?” he said. “You want me to bless you? I’m sure you have far more influence up there than I do.”
But his uncle insisted. At that moment, the doctor leaned over and whispered, “Why are you hesitating? His life is in danger.”
So Elie took his uncle’s hand and offered his blessing—that everything should turn out for the good, and that he should have a full and speedy recovery. The uncle smiled, signed the form, and was taken into surgery.
A few days later, when the operation had succeeded and his uncle was feeling stronger, Elie asked him, “Why was it so important to you that I bless you?”
His uncle replied, “Do you remember the visit of the Vizhnitzer Rebbe to Sighet?”
“Of course,” Elie said. “And I remember my mother crying. To this day, I never knew why.”
“I know why,” his uncle said, smiling.
Elie was shocked. “You knew all these years and never told me?”
The uncle explained that he had been sitting in the waiting room that day. When Elie’s mother came out in tears, he walked her home. Along the way, she made him swear never to repeat what she was about to say. The Rebbe had told her: ‘Sarah, know that your son will grow to become a great man among the Jewish people—but neither you nor I will live to see it.’
“That,” the uncle concluded, “is why I wanted your blessing. If Rabbi Yisrael believed in you that deeply, then surely your blessing carries weight in Heaven.”
Elie Wiesel later wrote that he did remain devoted to his Talmud studies. And when he survived the war and reached France, he met a few old friends and returned to the very same tractate of Talmud—picking up exactly where he had been forced to stop, on the day the Nazis arrived in Sighet.
How Yaakov Knew
And that brings us to this week’s Torah portion, Vayigash.
Yosef finally reveals himself to his brothers. After years of disguise and distance, he says the words they never imagined they would hear: “I am Yosef. Is my father still alive?” At first they are stunned, even frightened. Then Yosef embraces them, he cries with them, and he reassures them.
He tells them that everything that happened was ultimately for the good. Because they sold him into slavery, he ended up in Egypt, and because he ended up in Egypt, he was able to save an entire region—and their own family—from famine. “G-d sent me ahead of you to preserve life,” he says. He urges them to hurry back to Canaan and tell their father that Yosef is alive and ruling Egypt, and to bring Yaakov down without delay. As they leave, Yosef adds one final warning: “Do not quarrel on the way”—don’t start blaming one another for what happened all those years ago.
The brothers return home and deliver the news. “Yosef is still alive, and he rules over all of Egypt.” But the Torah tells us that Yaakov’s “heart stopped”—he couldn’t accept it. He simply didn’t believe them.
The Midrash comments that this is the punishment of liars: even when they finally tell the truth, no one believes them (Avot d’Rabbi Natan 30:4). The brothers had deceived their father years earlier, and now, even when they were being honest, Yaakov could not trust their words.
But then something changes.
The Torah continues: they told Yaakov all the words Yosef had spoken to them, and he saw the wagons Yosef had sent. And suddenly, “the spirit of Yaakov their father was revived.” He believed them.
What happened? What changed between disbelief and certainty?
Rashi explains (on Genesis 45:27) that Yosef gave his brothers a sign—a private sign—something only Yosef and Yaakov would know. He told them to remind their father what they had been studying together when they last parted.
When the brothers repeated that Torah teaching to Yaakov, he knew immediately: Yosef was alive. And more than that—he was still Yosef. Still connected. Still faithful.
Because when Yaakov first heard that Yosef was ruler of Egypt, he could have thought: perhaps he’s alive—but after twenty-two years in Egypt, who knows who he’s become? Has he assimilated? Has he lost himself?
But when Yosef resumed the Torah conversation they had left unfinished decades earlier, Yaakov knew. This was the same son.
So what was that final Torah subject they had studied together?
Rashi tells us it was the law of eglah arufah—the “broken-necked calf”—from Deuteronomy, at the end of Parshat Shoftim (Deut. 21). The Torah describes a case where a murdered body is found outside a city, and no one knows who committed the crime. The elders of the nearest city must take responsibility. They perform a ritual declaration stating that they did not shed this blood and did not ignore the victim.
Rashi asks the obvious question: does anyone seriously suspect the judges of murder? Why must they proclaim their innocence?
He answers that the elders are declaring that they did not send this person away hungry, alone, or unprotected. They are saying: in our city, no one is neglected. Travelers are fed. Guests are escorted. Dangerous individuals are not allowed to roam freely (see Guide for the Perplexed III:4). We did everything within our power—to care for the vulnerable and to prevent violence.
That was the message Yosef sent to his father.
The Midrash tells us that throughout the twenty-two years Yosef was missing, Yaakov lived with crushing guilt. He replayed the moment he sent Yosef to check on his brothers, knowing they hated him. “You knew they despised you,” the Midrash imagines Yaakov saying to himself, “and still you answered, ‘Here I am’” (Bereishit Rabbah 84:13).
By reminding Yaakov of eglah arufah, Yosef was telling him: Father, responsibility does not mean guilt. You did what you were supposed to do. And in the end, somehow, it was all for the good.
Spiritual Survival
Here the Rebbe adds a deeper layer.
The responsibility of a community’s leaders, the Rebbe explains, is not limited to people’s physical safety. It also includes their spiritual wellbeing. When the Torah speaks about “a slain person found in the land” in the context of eglah arufah, the Rebbe reads the verse on a deeper level: “slain” can also mean spiritually lifeless—someone whose connection to G-d has been severed.
If there is even one Jew in a community who has lost touch with Judaism, the responsibility lies with the elders and leaders. As the Rebbe explains, it is their role to do everything in their power to repair the situation—to provide what that person needs for the journey: food, which in spiritual terms means Torah, and clothing, meaning mitzvot. These are what strengthen a person and protect them from spiritual danger (see Likkutei Sichot, vol. 15, p. 223).
With this in mind, Yosef’s message to Yaakov becomes even clearer. Yosef wasn’t only proving that he was physically alive—he was showing that he was spiritually alive. By sending the “sign” of eglah arufah through his brothers, Yosef was telling his father that this teaching had stayed with him. It gave him the strength to live in Egypt without being influenced by its culture, temptations, or values. He remained whole in his Torah and integrity.The lesson, the Rebbe says (Hisvaaduyos 5745, vol. 2, p. 994), is about how we educate our children. We must give them a kind of Jewish education that becomes engraved in their hearts—so deeply that even twenty-two years later, even if they are living in a foreign land with no visible Jewish environment, they will still have the inner strength and clarity to live as Jews. And when that happens, it brings the greatest joy to parents—fulfilling the verse: “The spirit of Yaakov their father was revived.”
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