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A Painful Silence


“Joseph ordered his chariot and went to Goshen to meet his father Israel; he presented himself to him and, embracing him around the neck, he wept on his neck a good while (46:29).”

‘Here, also, he wept greatly and continuously — more than is usual. Jacob, however, did not fall upon Joseph’s neck nor did he kiss him. Our Rabbis say: the reason was that he was reciting the Shema (Rashi).’

Someone directed me to “The Missing People Choir,” with some parents missing their children for decades. “Imagine,” he said to me, “if one of those missing children, a wealthy communications specialist, moved by the heartbreaking appeal, sped home to reunite. One parent doesn’t speak, as he wonders, ‘twenty-two years you didn’t contact us!’ Is it possible,” he asked, “that is why Jacob did not fall upon Joseph’s neck nor did he kiss him”?

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