Someone I know posted on his Facebook feed this morning that today is October 78, 2023, which is exactly how these past few months have felt to me and perhaps to you.
It feels like October 6, 2023 was so long ago and since then the world has changed for all of us in incalculable ways.
In Parshat Vayigash the emotions that Joseph has kept inside of him for so many years come out as loud weeping when he talks to his brother Yehudah about his father and younger brother, Benjamin. At this moment Joseph cries out and bursts into loud crying. Who knows what was in Joseph's heart at this moment? Deeply buried memories of his childhood, which left him scarred for years. Memories of his father and his younger brother? Memories of deception and cruelty? Or perhaps it was as Joseph believed, that God had indeed placed him in Egypt for a reason, but this emotional encounter allowed Joseph to weep.
We weep when words no longer work.
For the past few days I have seen a number of videos as soldiers return home from the front and surprise their children or their parents. In each of these videos are these same pent up tears that are shed so freely. Again, when words do not suffice, holding each other and weeping are all we can do.
It is ok to cry. Some of us consider it beneath ourselves to shed tears, but in times of overwhelming emotion, tears are the soothing balm we all need.
It’s OK to Cry
Its ok to cry
when words fail
and emotions run deep.
When the walls are too high
and expectations are impossible.
It’s ok to cry when that forever moment finally arrives.
Tears of joy and of sorrow.
A thousand hurts, each a tiny spear;
a thousand words cannot equal a single tear.
It’s ok to cry, for lost moments that are mourned
and people who seem so far away.
For the missing.
For fathers, mothers, daughters and sons.
Those you know and those you don’t.
Cry when you are finally reunited
or when it feels like you will never meet again.
It's ok to cry.
Joseph could no longer control himself before all his attendants, and he cried out, “Have everyone withdraw from me!” So there was no one else about when Joseph made himself known to his brothers. His sobs were so loud that the Egyptians could hear, and so the news reached Pharaoh’s palace. 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.
וַיִּתֵּ֥ן אֶת־קֹל֖וֹ בִּבְכִ֑י וַיִּשְׁמְע֣וּ מִצְרַ֔יִם
וַיִּשְׁמַ֖ע בֵּ֥ית פַּרְעֹֽה׃
Genesis 45:1-3