“Soy Yo”: the art of forgiving the unforgivable

They had everything, but they had achieved nothing. The family was torn to pieces. Nothing could have any return. Jealousy, envy and egos had destroyed them and each other. But above all things, the silences, the unsaid and his inability to speak, was what had broken them. The years of distance were already longer than the kilometers and the desert that divided them.

The biblical story of Joseph and his brothers hurts because of its rawness. They had sold their own brother to a caravan of desert merchants to get rid of him. Joseph arrived in Egypt, naked, hungry, and forgotten. He lived as a slave and in prison, but nothing stopped him. His vision and his faith would lead him to achieve his dreams of greatness. Suddenly he was now the new prince of all Egypt. On the other side of the world, his brothers believed him surely dead. His father had hurt him without consolation all this time. Meanwhile, Yosef only accumulated resentment, anger, pain and shame.

After more than 20 years, fate would unite them again. In Canaan, where Joseph’s brothers lived, hunger was raging. News came that in Egypt a prince had managed to store enough grain to survive the years of drought, so they decided to travel to the land of the Pyramids. Upon arrival they meet the famous prince, who of course was their long-lost brother. But the text hurts: “Joseph recognized his brothers, but they did not recognize him” (Gen 42: 8). How broken can a bond be, not to recognize your own brother? Joseph however sees them and remembers everything. The well, the cold, the indifference, the supplication, the table with his father, the smile of his mother, the childhood in his Canaan. Remember forgetfulness, loneliness, the unforgivable. Nostalgia for the good times. What cannot return. The time lost, the lives lost.

Then make a plan. More than him, his revenge is the one who arms him. He accuses them of spies, thieves, liars. With his power he threatens to make them slaves, not to return to their land. He wanted them to live the same as him, now in his skin. After the threats and anguish, he tells them that he will keep the youngest of them, Biniamin, as his slave. They had to go back to tell their father that they had lost another child. The one they had promised to take care of with their life this time. The old man would undoubtedly die of sadness. The lives of those men were thrown. Everything was the end.

It is then when in an instant of inspiration, everything changes. Joseph’s soul speaks to him through his shaking body. His eyes blur, tears blur the faces of his brothers in front of him. Undone by years of sadness and fatigue, he understands that he cannot continue to lose his loved ones. Then, with a small voice, Yosef strips his being and says to them: “Ani Yosef”, “It is I, Yosef” (Gen 45: 3).

The great Hasidic Master and writer of the Mei Hashiloaj, the Ishbitzer Rebbe, says that until then the situation of the brothers was a catastrophe. All for them was the darkness of an uncertain future, laden with the pain of the broken ties of the past. But with just those two words, his whole world changes. Suddenly, the whole world begins to turn the other way.

There are times when we live in situations where nothing seems to have a way out. Where we do not find any rational option to leave the place where we are. We think then, that we will continue like this forever. That we are going to continue in that crisis from which we will not be able to return, because we feel that there are things that are too unforgivable. However, sometimes with just two words we can change everything. It all comes down to the spiritual courage to decide to speak it, say it, express it. That we have been silent for so long. Undress who we are. For the whole world to start over.

Sometimes the ones who are broken and estranged are ourselves from our own self. Pieces of what we were. Broken inside, we do not forgive ourselves for having sold ourselves as slaves to a life we ​​do not want. We see the enemy everywhere and it turns out that he only lived in there. Looking in the mirror, saying “It’s me” and deciding to forgive ourselves is the beginning of everything.

As many others, we do not forgive others what we do forgive in ourselves. The distance then becomes eternal and the unforgivable has a higher priority than what the heart asks for. We become slaves of resentment no matter how much we cry secretly. Telling our eyes “I am” is an act of courage. Undressing the being and rediscovering ourselves with those bonds that we thought were broken is the beginning of the fall of that long night.

Dear friends. Friends all.

The Sefer HaZohar, the sacred book of the mystics, teaches us that in the future those who succeed in transforming the dark into light and the bitter into sweet will be able to study at the table of Mashiach. Wise is not the one who moves away from the dark or the bitter, but the one who learns to face it. The one who discovers that this bitterness is his sweetness at this moment in life and that that night is his day. The one who understands that he must reveal his own self, enter the problem, face it deeply, learn to forgive and bet on living higher. The one who becomes a witness that bitter times are the basis of a life where you can enjoy more of the sweet, and that dark nights are the origin of all enlightenment.

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