Brothers, But Never Without Their Father

Abstract

Joseph received the announcement of his vocation as a boy in a dream in Canaan, he saw his sheaf standing straight in the middle of the field and the other 11 sheaves (his brothers) prostrate in front of it. Only after many years and after a lot of pain does Joseph manage to interpret the dreams of his boyhood. Sometimes it takes a lifetime and mountains of suffering to decipher our dreams and those of others, to understand that the talents of a brother (or a colleague, a member of our community...), that had first appeared to us only as a threat were salvation for all instead. ‘I am Joseph! Is my father still alive?...I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.’ The culmination of the cycle of Joseph is entrusted to a few, very human and wonderful verses. Up to this cry-out Joseph was a brother only as the son of the same father; now he becomes a brother again through a new bond of brotherhood generated by pain and love.

‘It is me. It is me, your brother Joseph.’

‘But of course it’s him!’, shouted Benjamin, almost suffocating from joy and rushed forward, up the steps to the upside, where he fell on his knees and clasped the knees of the Newly Found One vehemently.

‘Yashub, Joseph-el, Jehosiph’, he sobbed looking at him, raising his head. ‘It is you, it is you, of course it is you. You are not dead.’

(Thomas Mann, Joseph and His Brothers)