Et Ahai Anokhi Mevakesh. “It is my brothers that I am seeking,” says Yosef to the mysterious “man” who helps him along his way when he is sent out by his father to check on his brothers. This statement seems a deep truth about the Yosef story as a whole. The seeking of brotherhood drives the entire narrative.
The word ah, brother, and its various forms, ehav and ahinua and aheikha, appear 20 times in chapter 37. Something has shifted in the Torah’s narrative. Whereas in every previous generation, one son was in and one son was out, now for the first time, all will be chosen, and they need to learn to live together, as brothers. There can no longer be the amicable divorce of Yaakov and Esav. The book of Breishit ends with the reunion of all the children of Yaakov.
This is a difficult task, to learn to be brothers, to live together and love each other in spite of the uneven way life (and fathers) treat each of us, in spite of the resulting jealousies and the difficulties of various arrogant or violent personalities. Somehow, they and we, must come together.
Et Ahai Anokhi Mevakesh. I seek my brothers. I seek the peace that we pray for so many times in our services, the kind of peace that comes from a place beyond jealousy, beyond counting who gets one cookie and who gets 2, the kind of peace and love that sometimes, as here, unfortunately only comes after much harm and heartbreak and forgiveness. We are not there yet, either in the Torah’s narrative, or in our lives, but it is something to seek. Et Ahai Anokhi Mevakesh.
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