Parshas Vayigash must be one of the most dramatic parshiyos in the Torah. Yehudah pleads one final time “How can I go back up to my father if the lad is not with me, lest I see the evil that will befall my father!” (Bereishis 44:34).
The pasuk then says, “And Yosef could not endure in the presence of all who stood before him, so he called out, ‘Remove everyone from before me!’...” (Bereishis 45:1)
Even though throughout all these parshiyos, Yosef has been giving the impression that he is not Yosef and he had been making his brothers really sweat, he can no longer do that. The viceroy of Mitzrayim certainly always had attendants, staff and servants in his presence. He had not been alone with his brothers. He ordered everyone other than his brothers to leave the room. Then the pasuk concludes: “...Thus no man stood with him when Yosef made himself known to his brothers.”
But this conclusion of pasuk 45:1 is redundant! The beginning of that pasuk already says that Yosef ordered everyone out of the room. Why do we need the end of the pasuk to restate the fact that no man stood with Yosef when he made himself known to his brothers?
Rabbi Shmuel Brazil shlita offers a beautiful answer to this question. However, in order to appreciate this answer R’ Frand offers the following analogy:
