Guilt, Shame and Letting go: Parshat Vayeshev and One-Sided Reconciliation
Rabbi Lauren Grabelle Herrmann, 5785/2025
Brene Brown, famed academic researcher and public speaker, offers a helpful and profound distinction found in her research on the human emotion of shame.
Brown argues that there is a profound difference between SHAME and GUILT. Guilt is something I DID, an admission of a mistake or action that one would like to acknowledge and make amends for.
Shame is an internalization of guilt, so that we move from something I DID to WHO I AM. Guilt, she argues, “is holding something we’ve done or failed to do against our values and feeling psychological discomfort.”
Shame, on the other hand, is “the intensely painful feeling or experience of believing that we are flawed and therefore unworthy of belonging” because of something we have done or failed to do.
Guilt on the one hand is helpful and adaptive. It can motivate us to change, to get in more alignment with our core values and who we want to be. It allows us to confront a mistake with healthy self-awareness and regret while also allowing us to move on.
Shame on the other hand, she argues, is or can be destructive and hurtful. It does not typically lead to true reconciliation or wholeness in relationship with others and one’s self. Shame is not a tool for change.
This distinction between guilt and shame is a really helpful framework in looking at this week’s Torah portion Vayeshev and specifically in examining the question of whether reconciliation is achieved or not (or even possible) between Joseph and his brothers as he reveals his true identity.
In this Torah portion, there is a tremendous feeling of release and unburdening. We see raw and realistic human emotion and pathos that we do not in other parshiot, with scenes that if we look closely and allow ourselves can really open our hearts and make us want to cry along with Joseph.
Weeks since their initial reunion- albeit a one sided reunion since the brothers do not know Joseph is the one they are speaking to — Joseph has been deep in his feelings. He had the initial emotional experience of seeing his brothers and likely putting a plan of testing them into place that he had dreamed about for years. He has had moments where his pain and buried feelings of hurt and betrayal almost come out — but he moves into private spaces to cry, to refresh himself and come back to play the part he has designed for their meeting — the cruel and arbitrary viceroy.
But as he hears Judah speak about their father and their father’s concerns about his full brother Benjamin, he can no longer hold back.
His tears come like a tidal wave — intense, all consuming, and LOUD like crashing waves. Even though he has ordered all non-family members out of the room for his self-revelation, his cries are so loud that according to the text, they reach through the land all the way to the Pharaoh’s house.
I want to argue something that may be a bit against the grain of interpretation but that speaks more honestly I believe to the text and more realistically to human relationships: Although Joseph experiences a catharsis — and a wholeness and freedom because he can finally stop pretending to be someone he is not, it is less clear from the text that this is an experience of mutuality and repair.
It seems there is something getting in the way of it being so — and I would argue it speaks back to the dynamic Brene Brown speaks about — the difference between guilt and shame. There are clues in the text that something isn’t quite right here — subtle clues that are explored more fully in medieval commentary and midrash.
Here are some examples:
#1: Gen. 45:3–4
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יוֹסֵ֤ף אֶל־אֶחָיו֙ אֲנִ֣י יוֹסֵ֔ף הַע֥וֹד אָבִ֖י חָ֑י וְלֹֽא־יָכְל֤וּ אֶחָיו֙ לַעֲנ֣וֹת אֹת֔וֹ כִּ֥י נִבְהֲל֖וּ מִפָּנָֽיו׃
Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph. Is my father still well?” But his brothers could not answer him, so dumbfounded were they on account of him.
וַיֹּ֨אמֶר יוֹסֵ֧ף אֶל־אֶחָ֛יו גְּשׁוּ־נָ֥א אֵלַ֖י וַיִּגָּ֑שׁוּ וַיֹּ֗אמֶר אֲנִי֙ יוֹסֵ֣ף אֲחִיכֶ֔ם אֲשֶׁר־מְכַרְתֶּ֥ם אֹתִ֖י מִצְרָֽיְמָה׃
Then Joseph said to his brothers, “Come forward to me.” And when they came forward, he said, “I am your brother Joseph, he whom you sold into Egypt.
After Joseph speaks the words “I am Joseph. Is my father well?” The Torah informs us that the brothers could not speak, “because they were so dumbfounded.”
While silence in the face of the shock of seeing their brother again is warranted and understood, their extended silence is telling. The awkwardness or strangeness of their stunted and prolonged silence is picked up on the commentaries. The great medieval French sage Rashi comments on this verse: “They were silent on account of their embarrassment.”
To further this point, we only need to look at the very next line. Joseph gives them direction: “G’shu na elay.” “Come closer to me” in the translation — but that does not account for one word: na/please, I beg of you.
Why would Joseph need to say that? Why would Joseph need to actively tell them to come closer to him?
On this, Rashi comments: “Joseph saw them shifting backwards and realized “My brothers are ashamed” so he spoke gently and comfortingly.
#2: Gen. 45:14–15
וַיִּפֹּ֛ל עַל־צַוְּארֵ֥י בִנְיָמִֽן־אָחִ֖יו וַיֵּ֑בְךְּ וּבִ֨נְיָמִ֔ן בָּכָ֖ה עַל־צַוָּארָֽיו׃
With that he embraced his brother Benjamin around the neck and wept, and Benjamin wept on his neck.
וַיְנַשֵּׁ֥ק לְכׇל־אֶחָ֖יו וַיֵּ֣בְךְּ עֲלֵהֶ֑ם וְאַ֣חֲרֵי כֵ֔ן דִּבְּר֥וּ אֶחָ֖יו אִתּֽוֹ׃
He kissed all his brothers and wept upon them; only then were his brothers able to talk to him.
Joseph reaches out for his brother Benjamin and the text goes out of its way to make it clear that their embrace is mutual. The words are nearly an exact mirror of each other “Vayipol al tzavaray Benyamin achiv v’Benyamin bacha al tzavarav.” One wept on one’s neck and the other does the same. The text makes it clear- in this moment, some kind of genuine, authentic, two sided reunion happens.
Now remember that Benjamin is his full brother. Also, most scholars do not believe Benjamin was part of the brothers’ horrific plan at the beginning of the story both because he was too young and he would have never gone along.
After this linguistic parallel, we see something very different in the next line — “And Joseph kissed all his brothers and wept on them….” Unlike Benjamin, they do not weep back!
The brothers are caught in their own feelings of unexpressed regret and shame, so they cannot even embrace the brother they have harmed and bring him back into their lives and heart.
#3: Gen 45:24
וַיְשַׁלַּ֥ח אֶת־אֶחָ֖יו וַיֵּלֵ֑כוּ וַיֹּ֣אמֶר אֲלֵהֶ֔ם אַֽל־תִּרְגְּז֖וּ בַּדָּֽרֶךְ׃
As he sent his brothers off on their way, he told them, “Do not be quarrelsome on the way.”
When packing them up and sending them to get their father and bring him back, Joseph says something seemingly unnecessary:
“AL TIRGEZU BADERECH” do not quarrel on the road. Why? Why would he say that?
Rashi again brings a human emotional dimension to his interpretation: Since they had been embarrassed, he worried they might quarrel about having sold him. “It was your fault” “You said nasty things and made us hate him.” Each blaming the other.
Joseph is picking up on the lingering tension between them. On the fact that what happened was never processed and resolved individually or collectively.
#4: Midrash Genesis Rabbah 100:8
Burying their father, the brothers all travel to Canaan to bury their father as his wishes stated. According to the midrash, they come across the very same PIT where the brothers left him for an unknown fate — potentially for death.
When they see the pit, Joseph goes up towards it and has a quiet meditative moment. He goes towards it and spends a few minutes there. When the brothers see Joseph at the pit, they fall into a tremendous panic. According to the midrash: Upon seeing this, they said, “He still bears a grudge in his heart. Now that our father is dead, he will make his hatred of us felt.” But in fact Joseph’s motive was a pious one — he wanted to utter a blessing for the miracle that occurred for him in that place.
They are afraid for Joseph to confront his past because the past still haunts them.
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The framework of Brene Brown, along with all these examples, helps us see a more complicated vision of reunion.
While Joseph had a release, his experience is still very one sided. The brothers never “get there” — they never truly move forward. They are embarrassed, ashamed. They have internalized their actions. Maybe they have lived in denial, which I might argue is another side of shame.
As I often say, the Torah is a mirror for our human experience. In complex human relationships, we likely have experienced a one-sided healing — when we have done OUR work yet know that those who hurt us have not, and we need to negotiate and navigate that dissonance while also accepting and celebrating our own freedom.
In our own lives, we have surely experienced or do experience moments of shame that make it hard for us to show up as authentically as we want in relationships where we have hurt others.
And even if we have been given permission to move on, we find it difficult to do so.
We might even relate to the seeming paranoia (or more kindly panic or self sabotage) of the brothers who cannot keep thinking that the person they hurt will turn on them when the opportunity arises.
We might relate to how hard it is to be present with those we have hurt, how hard it is to believe we can move forward (because we have not accepted our own guilt or not yet forgiven ourselves)
We learn from our ancestors good deeds and their missed opportunities. Just as we ask how the brothers could have responded differently when Joseph revealed himself or hugged them, perhaps we can find a way to consider how we might let go of the shame that holds us back from vulnerability and connection.
And perhaps this story might serve an impetus to face ourselves and our passion with both accountability AND compassion.
In the words of Brown: “Owning our story can be hard but not nearly as difficult as spending our lives running from it. Embracing our vulnerabilities is risky but not nearly as dangerous as giving up on love and belonging and joy–the experiences that make us the most vulnerable. Only when we are brave enough to explore the darkness will we discover the infinite power of our light.”
