Mikkets – Remember to Forget to Remember

In Genesis 41:51, Joseph names his first son Manasseh, meaning “God has made me forget completely my hardship and my parental home.” He names his second son Ephraim, meaning “God has made me fertile in the land of my affliction.”

I like to look for ultimate truths. Call me a philosopher. I think I’m spotting an “ultimate truth” here about human nature and the way the world works. Once again, the Torah authors had uncanny insight into how we humans operate.

Joseph says he wants to forget his home. Then he names his children so that he can’t possibly forget his home. Every time he sees his children or thinks about his children, he will be reminded of his home! It’s like telling someone not to think about a pink elephant. Try this at home and see what happens.

I have seen this idea before: we may talk about avoiding our pain or transcending our pain, but what we in fact often do is keep recreating our pain.

The relationship “experts” sometimes say that we attract people into our lives who help us work through past hurts, often with our parents. A woman with a domineering father, by this theory, will find a domineering husband to recreate and work through the feelings she had as a child, but was unable to process at that time.

Why do we keep recreating our pain? Because we are not done with it. We still have more to learn.

When we have learned what there is to learn from the pain, then we move on. If Joseph had no connection to Israel at all, if he had truly put his past behind him, he never would have given his children those names.

As the story continues, Joseph continues to recreate his pain. When his brothers appear, does he simply run up and hug them and weep? No, he does not. He recreates the past. In the past, Joseph himself put distance between himself and his brothers by lording him dreams of grandeur over them, and his brothers created distance by shuffling Joseph off to Egypt in response! Now, in Egypt, Joseph cannot overcome all this distance in a moment. He needs time, to work through his feelings. He re-creates the past distance between him and his brothers by delaying in telling them the truth, by stalling them off with various contrivances.

The most poignant moment in the parsha comes when Joseph has to leave the room to weep after he sees his beloved brother Benjamin. It is then we know that Joseph is healing, and peace will come to this family.