In our Parsha, the Torah informs us that Yosef’s brothers were shocked into silence. The Torah writes (Bereishis 45:3), “The brothers were not able to answer him (Yosef), they were frozen before him, from their shame.” What did Yosef do? How did he remedy the situation? How did he start his relationship anew with them? First, he reminded them of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe, Hakadosh Baruch Hu, and how He is in charge of every detail of life, and it was He who sent him to be the conduit for good for the entire region and save everyone from famine.
The question remains: how did he address their shame? How did he convince them that they were simply the messengers who sold him into slavery? Rashi answers this question (ibid. 45:12) when he elucidates the words, “Behold your eyes see and the eyes of my brother Binyamin.” What did their eyes see? Also, why was Binyamin singled out? Did Binyamin see something different than they did? Rashi tells us they saw his glory, that he became second to the king, that he was their brother - circumcised like them - and that it was his mouth talking in Hebrew to them. Why was Binyamin mentioned separately? Rashi tells us he considered all of them together as equals, as if to say, that “just as I have no hatred towards my brother Binyamin since he was not present at my sale, so too there is no hatred in my heart towards you!” This finally restored their equilibrium and after this, we see in the Pasuk (ibid. 45:15) that they started talking together. Although Yosef didn’t outright forgive his brothers, His emunah and bitachon were so strong that he considered all of his brothers as innocent as Binyamin! That is a huge madreigah (level). The Gemara (Rosh Hashanah 17a) writes: “Rava says: ‘anyone who forgoes his gripes here on earth, Heaven will forgo his sins as it says (Micha 7:18) ‘Who pardons iniquity and removes transgressions’. To whom does he pardon iniquity? To the one who overlooks the injustices committed against him by others.”
This is the level Yosef reached. Yosef showed us the way to behave with our spouses. Working on our emunah and bitachon in Hashem will enable us to see clearly that our spouse is just a shliach (messenger). No matter what happens in our life we need to see Hashem as the Orchestrator - as the Almighty - and if something happens to upset us, we need to hold back the blame, like Yosef did when it came to his brothers. This is a very high level, but to have our sins forgiven and overlooked also warrants a very high reward.
We were given the tremendous power to overlook and forgive Every day we have a new unique opportunity to look at our spouse with kindness and compassion and instead of blaming them, forgo, forgive, and come one step closer to shleimus (our personal perfection). As Rabbi Shmuel Golshevsky puts it, let go and let G-D! Let us make a supreme effort to trust that Hashem does not make mistakes, and we should not find fault with our spouse. The dividends of such an attitude are worth the effort. May Hashem fill our homes with the light of Shalom Bayis.
