The Daily Chizuk – Why didn't Yosef (Joseph) want to meet with Yaakov (Jacob)?

Wednesday, 7th of Iyar, 5784

"Happy am I, for the daughters will call me happy" (Genesis 30:13), it is written that the daughters in the tribe of Asher did not experience the state of niddah (menstrual impurity). The daughters of Asher merited that only the Kohanim (priests) married them; the Kohanim took wives only from Asher—because they were so modest, having no impure thoughts at all, nothing, no thoughts about any young man, nothing at all.

The daughters of Asher were so pure and refined that they did not even have the state of niddah—throughout the entire period of the First Temple, there was no niddah in Asher.

And regarding Serach the daughter of Asher, it is written that she entered Gan Eden (Paradise) with her physical body. With her body, because she played the violin in order to bring the news to Yaakov (Jacob) that Yosef (Joseph) was alive.

If a person plays the violin, they will enter Gan Eden (Paradise) with their body, like Serach the daughter of Asher who played the violin, because anyone who would have told Yaakov that Yosef was alive would have died on the spot [from the shock].

In the Pesikta, Part 1, Section 3, it is written that Yosef did not want to meet his father, Yaakov. This is difficult to understand, for Yosef was the most faithful son; yet he was also upset with his father for not burying his mother [Rachel] with all the other Matriarchs.

Yosef also did not meet with him, and Yaakov said, "I know that you are angry with me." What anger he had toward his father! At the time of Rachel's passing, he was only a child of 8; now he was 30.

At age 17 they sold him, and when Rachel passed away he was a child of 8 or 9. He said to Yaakov, "Father, bury Mother now." You weren't able to then; you were poor. Yaakov rode on donkeys—after all, how did he arrive from Charan?

Yaakov was in Aram Naharaim, he was in Charan; they rode on donkeys. Today there are Mercedes, planes...

Yosef did not tell Yaakov [that he was alive] because he was afraid of his father's hakpadah (strictness/judgment), and Serach the daughter of Asher rectified (tikkun) this when she played and brought the news to Yaakov with the violin.