The Joseph narrative arc reaches its dramatic peak, as the unrecognizable Vice Pharaoh finally reveals himself to his slack-jawed brothers. But in that reconciliation lies another tension: a statement on the essential human capacity for free will. Joseph comforts his brothers, while offering a rationale to justify their actions and his willingness to forgive, by concluding that: “It was to save life that God sent me ahead of you.” On one level, this seems a concession to fate and a denial of human agency, as even the renowned Maimonides attributes the foundational need for Torah to our ability to choose. But the contemporary commentator Nehamah Leibowitz offers some telling insight as a kind of resolution:
Nechama Leibowitz
Fortunate is he whom it is granted to detect in
the metamorphoses of his daily existence and the
vicissitudes of his personal affairs, the workings of
Providence a mission on which he has been sent by God.
In essence, it is the task of a lifetime to seek to align one’s attitudes and actions with a perceived will of God, with enough honesty and self-awareness to distinguish individual rationalization from the pursuit of the greater good.