“They told him saying, Yosef is still alive, and he is ruling over the land of Egypt. His [Yaakov’s] heart stood still, for he could not believe them.” (Bereishis 45:26)

In the above verse, the brothers relate to Yaakov that Yosef is alive, but Yaakov does not believe them. They relate it a second time, and then it sinks in. Rav Pinchas Hirschprung Z”L (1912-1998 Montreal) asks an obvious question: Why did Yaakov need to be told the same thing twice? Was anything added the second time which caused Yaakov to believe them?

In our lives, we say certain things without much thought – almost as a cliché. You ask someone, “How are you doing?” and he responds almost without thinking, “Baruch Hashem, fine!” It is rare that soneone responds, “Baruch Hashem, lousy!”

Recently I heard a joke about a gentile who said, “I don’t want to have the miracles of a Jew, but I would love to have the problems of a Jew!” He explained: A Jew may have a car accident, get banged up, and still say, “Baruch Hashem, miracles!” On the other hand, a Jew may find an item and his problem is that he now can’t figure out to whom to return it. The gentile says, “I don’t want the Jew’s miracles, but would instead want his problems!”

Indeed, we Jews are peculiar. Whatever happens to us, we almost automatically put Hashem into the picture, acknowledging both His presence and His being the ultimate cause of all. In fact, the Medrash in last week’s parsha tells us that Binyomin, who had no part in the sale of Yosef, was put in jail for no reason. Yet by Binyomin accepting this as the will of Hashem, he merited that the Beis Hamikdash would be partially on his tribe’s land.

Yaakov knew Yosef well and found it odd that in the message that Yosef sent to him, Yosef didn’t mention Hashem’s involvement in the story. This trait of mentioning Hashem in everything that we do was a hallmark of Yaakov’s way of speaking. We find that when Yaakov arrived quickly to receive the blessings from Yitzchak, he told his father that Hashem worked it out for me. The commentators say that Yitzchak was surprised because the name of Hashem was always on the tongue of Yaakov, but not Esav. Therefore, Yaakov was also surprised that his son Yosef, who was his prize student, would mention good fortune without giving recognition to Hashem. Therefore, Yaakov did not believe the message.

Yaakov then pressed the brothers to repeat the message verbatim, but this time they included Yosef’s mention of Hashem (45:9). This is what convinced Yaakov that Yosef was truly alive.

I heard that a certain Rosh Yeshiva asked a bochur, “How are you feeling?” and the bochur responded, “Baruch Hashem!”, to which the Rosh Yeshiva retorted, “I am happy to hear that you are religious, but how are you feeling?” For indeed a person should be able to say, “Baruch Hashem, I feel lousy!” The Rosh Yeshiva was saying, “When you just answered by saying only ‘Baruch Hashem’, it is as if you only attribute Hashem to things that are going well, but when things are less rosy, you leave Hashem out of the picture.”  This is a great mistake because we must recognize that Hashem is there in all situations, both good and bad!

My great uncle who lived in Jerusalem went through the 1929 massacre (which also took place in Jerusalem), after his health was failing when he was asked, “How are you feeling?” would sigh and say, “We thank Hashem for whatever He gives us.” It is not within all of us to appreciate that all that Hashem does for us is ultimately for our good; but at least we should make a statement that we understand that it is all – even the bad – from Hashem.

I believe that there is no better example than the sale of Yosef to help us see that even what seemed to be the worst of things was done to bring about security for Klal Yisrael in Egypt. As bad as our situation is today, we should take inspiration from this week’s parsha that this could bring about the ultimate hatzala for all of klal Yisrael!