Meiketz: Remembering Oneself Last week’s parsha ended with the ominous sentence: 23. But the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph, and he [the cupbearer] forgot him [Joseph]. - Bereshit 40:23
ׁשקִים אֶת יֹוסֵף ְ וְֹלא זָכַר ׂשַר ַה ַּמ.כג :ׁש ָּכחֵהּו ְ ִ ַוּי
As a result of the cupbearer’s forgetfulness, Joseph remains in his second “pit” prison - for an additional two years. Joseph, however, is a survivor. In order to survive as he does, Joseph alternately forgets and remembers details of his life and his trauma throughout the parsha, finding his way from active repression of his past to painful confrontation, to eventual forgiveness and healing. Part One: The Trauma Joseph, the loved and favored son, gets thrown into an empty pit by his jealous brothers. The brothers later remove him from the pit and sell him into slavery. Throughout the narration of these episodes, we have no recorded testimony from Joseph himself – no resistance, no pleas. In Avivah Zornberg’s reading, we don’t hear Joseph because he was completely unheard by his brothers. As he gets thrown in the pit and then traded away, Joseph experiences an erasure – a dissembling. “The boy is not (einenu)!” Reuben cries to his brothers, when he returns to the pit looking for Joseph. “Joseph is torn, torn-to-pieces (Taraf, Taraf Yoseph)!” Jacob cries, when presented with Joseph’s bloodied coat. Even while Joseph’s body is actually intact, these acts of cruelty and erasure create emotional tearing that become etched into Joseph’s psyche. He is terrorized and traumatized by the experience.
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