The Torah (45:14) relates that after Yosef revealed to his brothers who he was, he and Binyamin embraced, and they cried on each other’s necks.
Rashi, based on the Gemara, explains that Yosef and Binyamin were crying because they foresaw the tragedies that would befall their descendants many centuries later. Yosef foresaw the destruction of the two Batei Mikdash which were built in Binyamin’s territory, and Binyamin foresaw the destruction of the Mishkan in Shilo, a city in the region allotted to the tribe of Efrayim, Yosef’s descendants. Why would Yosef and Binyamin have cried over these calamities specifically now, at this festive moment, when they finally reunited after twenty years of separation?
The Divrei Yisrael of Modzitz explained that Yosef and Binyamin cried not over these tragedies themselves, but rather over the fact that these calamities would be caused by שנאת חינם, the baseless hatred that would plague Am Yisrael throughout the millennia. The fraternal strife that caused so much pain and grief to Yaakov’s family would, sadly, continue, leading to tragedy and devastation. This is why Yosef and Binyamin cried. They realized that although the family had now come back together, and the fight that tore apart the family now ended, this was only temporary. The brothers succeeded in bandaging the wounds, but not in curing the ill of שנאת חינם entirely. The process of reconciliation was left incomplete, and the tensions and hard feelings did not fully heal. These lingering tensions and feelings would continue for centuries, to this very day, causing so much grief and anguish, and so Yosef and Binyamin cried.
Their tears challenge us to redouble our efforts to eliminate שנאת חינם from our midst, to do more to ease tensions, to forgive, to respect others, and to treat our fellow Jews the way they should be treated, so that we can once and for all cure the terrible scourge of שנאת חינם and be worthy of the rebuilding of the Beis Ha’mikdash.
