Joseph via Jung
As some of you know I attended the same summer camp for 12 years. Many of these, especially the early ones were painful and lonely. Recently I’ve participated in efforts to build a web-site community for the camp’s alumni. Many of the old feelings get stirred up as I hob-nob with old friends and acquaintances. All this informed my study of Joseph for a talk in shul this weekend.
I believe that Joseph is a biblical vision of a child acting-out in a grown man. A story of forgiveness and redemption.
We are offered a wealth of psychotherapeutic material. Joseph, the dream interpreter. The injured child, the unjustly imprisoned and ultimately the great achiever. I’m going to take an anachronistic post-Freudian look at Joseph’s story.
As we look together at Joseph, I hope to suggest that he sees, not his brothers, but childhood creations of his own that share their names. And that this blinds him to his own responsibility and binds him to the child’s illusion that others orchestrated his life?
Last week we read: Joseph brought evil tales about his brothers to their father, Yaakov. He got them into trouble. He was a tattletale. Were the tales true? Based on what we know of him and what we know of them we have to guess, sometimes. In the end it doesn’t matter. He creates brothers that do such things, for himself, for his father and ultimately for us. Absent his flesh and blood brothers, he will remember these creations for the next twenty-three years.
Flash forward to a different Joseph. One with responsibilities. With trust placed upon him. He has forgotten the toil in his father’s house and has been fruitful in the land of his affliction. Many of his dreams have come true. More each day. By the time we will study him, he is second only to Pharaoh. And now, this grown up is given a great test: He is put back in the company of those who “knew him when.”
What a great psychology experiment. The brothers, unaware of Joseph’s identity can no longer support his old image of himself. They cannot be blamed for bringing his “old self” out. Joseph knows the world, both dreaming and waking. But what about self-knowledge? Will his creations pull him back into the world of his childhood or will he overcome his habitual response, see his adult brothers, meet them, and relate to them as an adult?
Old habits die hard. At first he fails.
“You are spies; you have come to see the nakedness of the land.” A lie, a threat, a tale he might tell on them. It is not until the end of their first visit that we get a glimpse of the adult Joseph when he secretly returns their money. -Don’t worry; I’m not playing for keeps. Here are your marbles back. - He means well but, of course, they can’t see this. They don’t know who they’re playing with.
The child Joseph and the mature Joseph continue to alternate.
The brothers return with Benjamin under Judah’s protection. This time, it is the adult that lasts until their abortive departure when the child suddenly jumps through and sets his brothers up, just like in the old days, placing the goblet in Benjamin’s sack. This time he actually has his overseer pursue and arrest them.
Is this a stratagem? If it is, it bears no fruit. So, I think it is something else. Force of habit. The tattletale’s last hurrah. I think he is helplessly oscillating between the man he has become and the child he was.
They return and quickly (although it doesn’t happen until next week, I hope I’m not giving anything away) the adult breaks through with such a, dare I say “primal”, scream that it is heard throughout the building.
What is the revelation? Perhaps he sees in the plea for Benjamin’s freedom a Judah different from the one in his memory. One who has lived his life under a cloud. One not prepared to commit his particular crime again. But would this epiphany, if I can use that word in a shul this season, have come so loudly?
Big noise comes from a struggle within oneself. Perhaps Joseph contrasts Judah’s love for Benjamin and Yaakov with the treatment he received. Does Joseph wonder “Why will you defend Benjamin when you discarded me? Was there something about me…?” This recent toying with his brothers could have killed his father. Yet his brothers would be blameless. There would be only his own fault. Does he see suddenly how his teasing, his tale-telling, his contemptuous treatment of them could have brought on an unintended response? Is he finally ready to assume the mantle of responsibility for his fate?
In this moment, as the scales of brotherly blame fall from his eyes, he achieves full forgiveness. He asks for no apology, no restitution. There is no atonement requirement. It’s not a typical Jewish forgiveness. He comes to terms with his history with a force few of us ever muster.
His new words aim at God’s will. He assumes an -all for the best- stance. “It was to preserve life that God sent me before you [to Egypt].” Such a sentiment might seem flimsy and facile but we remember the miserable cries that just came from that same mouth. Joseph came to this new place through an anguished emotional journey.
From this point on Joseph is an adult in the presence of his brothers. The same man he must have been in his office. He behaves with the honor and fealty that befits his position both as the white knight of his family and as the second most powerful man in a powerful country.
As with Freud’s pet Oedipus, a great man resolves his struggle by coming to terms with his personal history. Unlike Oedipus, who is blinded after his realization, Joseph is freed by the removal of his blinders. A much more life-affirming conclusion.