ואל שדי יתן לכם רחמים לפני האיש, “and may G–d Almighty give you mercy before the man what prompted Yaakov to single out the attribute of G–d known as shadday when blessing his sons before they commenced this journey? It teaches you that Yaakov had already endured many trials in his life. These had commenced already when he was still in his mother’s womb and Esau fought with him to become the firstborn. (Compare Genesis 25,22, when his mother was distraught and asked G–d what was going on inside her womb.) The sages concluded that the two as yet unborn children had already struggled for possession of two worlds. Esau tried to kill Yaakov already as soon as he was born as is evident from Amos 1,11, על רדפו בחרב אחיו, “when he pursued his brother with the sword (simile for trying to kill him). He had to flee to Lavan to save his life, and had endured many problems while with his “uncle” for 20 years. As soon as he left there Lavan pursued him. He lists them during the encounter with Lavan. (Genesis 31,40) Esau then came towards him in order to attack him, As a result he lost a great deal of the wealth he had acquired by buying him off with a gift. Next his best loved wife died on the way and he could not even bury her in the ancestral gravesite. Next his daughter Dinah was raped, and then his beloved son Joseph was lost. When he felt that finally he could settle down to a normal life in one place, (Genesis 37,1) the problems with Joseph began. During the brothers’ first trip to Egypt Shimon, his second oldest son was incarcerated and he now had to Shimon being incarcerated and his sons forced him to allow Binyamin to travel to Egypt in order to secure the release of Shimon. He could have said, as did Job in Job 3,26: “I had no repose, no quiet no rest; trouble came.” (Based on Tanchuma on our portion, section 10.) In light of all this, Yaakov now called on that attribute of G–d to signal that he felt he had undergone sufficient tribulations, i.e. די, to warrant a favourite response to his blessing/prayer.

ויעש האיש כאשר אמר יוסף, “the man did as Joseph had said. According to our sages, the “man” was his older son Menashe, [who could not have been more than nine years old at the time. Ed.] This is difficult in light of Rashi’s commentary in the Talmud Avot chapter 5, that the rule that men have to observe the Torah’s commandments from the age of 13, is derived from Shimon and Levi, Joseph’s brothers when we calculate their ages at the time when they took their swords and killed the male population of the town of Sh’chem. (Genesis 34,25) If they were 13 at the time, it is clear that Menashe at this time could not have been older than nine years old. The Torah had spelled out that Joseph’s sons had been born before the onset of the famine. Seven years had elapsed since Joseph had married, seven good years and 2 years of famine. How could the Torah refer to Menashe as a “man” then? (Attributed to Rav Chayim who quoted Rabbi Eliezer avi ha-ezri.) The problem deserves further study.

?השלום אביכם הזקן אשר אצרתם, העודנו חי “is your aged father of whom you have spoken well, is he still alive?” From the order in which Joseph asked, it is clear that the “old father” whom he spoke of was a reference to his grandfather, to Yitzchok. The brothers, answering about their father being alive did not want to mention the negative event of their grandfather having died. We find something similar in the Talmud, tractate Pessachim, folio 4, where when Rav was asked if his father was still alive he responded by saying that his mother was alive. He avoided having to spell out that the person he had been asked about had actually died.

ויתמהו האנשים, “the men (Joseph’s brothers) were astounded;” their amazement did not concern the order in which they had been seated- as might be understood- but it concerned the separation of Egyptians, themselves and Joseph, the Torah indicating this to us when stating that the separation had to do with the different eating habits of the Egyptians on the one hand and the Hebrews on the other. They wondered which race Joseph belonged to, seeing that he appeared to be neither Hebrew nor Egyptian.