Menashe, the Hakuna Matata Man

Why forgetting is not the answer

There’s a part in this parsha that troubles me.

It’s this.

וַיִּקְרָ֥א יוֹסֵ֛ף אֶת־שֵׁ֥ם הַבְּכ֖וֹר מְנַשֶּׁ֑ה כִּֽי־נַשַּׁ֤נִי אֱלֹהִים֙ אֶת־כׇּל־עֲמָלִ֔י וְאֵ֖ת כׇּל־בֵּ֥ית אָבִֽי׃

Joseph named the first-born Manasseh, meaning, “God has made me forget Heb. nashshani, connected with “Manasseh” (Menashsheh). completely my hardship and my parental home.”

-Genesis 41:51

Joseph names his son “God has made me forget.”

And he is thanking God for helping him to forget his hardship and his father’s house.

Obviously Joseph cannot really have forgotten his past- no one has done an ‘Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind’ number on him. So what does he mean by this? And why the shift later on to asking about the welfare of his father if he was glad that he had forgotten his father’s house? ( Joseph’s statement supports the tragic theory that a betrayed Joseph might have believed Jacob was in on the plot to be rid of him. This is Rav Yoel Bin Nun’s approach- you can read more here.)

The commentaries struggle mightily with what Joseph is saying. Some suggest that Joseph received Divine assistance in ‘forgetting,’ as it were, the honor due to his father. (Almost like a later Pharaoh would receive when it came to having his heart hardened!) The reason Joseph could not contact his father is because his prophetic dreams could not come true if he were to interfere. But this is not convincing to the modern-day reader, who finds it difficult to believe Joseph could be so cold (even with God’s assistance.)

I like Shadal’s approach. He suggests:

ואת כל בית אבי: מה שעשו לי בית אבי (הם אחיו) ואין הכוונה ששכח ממש, כי הנושא על שפתיו זכרון דבר מה, הנה לא שכח אותו. אך הטעם נתנני אלהים במצב שלא ארגיש עוד ברעה אשר מצאתני בית אבי, כי במה נחשבת היא נגד הצלחתי וגדולתי?

Here is my translation:

And my father’s household: What my father’s household did to me (referring to his brothers). The intention is not to suggest Joseph truly forgot them, because the fact that he’s speaking about it demonstrates he still remembers. But the point is, in Joseph’s mind, “God has placed me in a situation where I will no longer feel the evil that I found in the house of my father, for why would I think on this compared to all the success I have achieved and the greatness I have found?”

This is a very human reading. It suggests that Joseph is thanking God for the success God has showered upon him. Now Joseph’s mind is occupied with his current life, and so he is not dwelling on past grievances. (I’m thinking of songs like Sk8er Boi by Avril Lavigne or One Angry Dwarf and 200 Solemn Faces by Ben Folds Five that depict the central character’s surprising rise to success.)

But then there’s Rabbeinu Bachya’s reading, which I find very insightful.

כי נשני אלהים את כל עמלי ואת כל בית אבי. מזה קורין ז"ל בית אביה של אשה בי נשא כלומר בית השכחה, על שם הכתוב (בראשית ב) על כן יעזב איש את אביו ואת אמו ודבק באשתו, וכן האשה בבעלה. . כי נשני אלו-הים את כל עמלי ואת כל בית אבי,

“for G’d has enabled me to forget all my problems including those which I have suffered in my father’s house.” This verse prompted our sages (Baba Batra 12) to conclude that the house in which a woman grew up is called בי נשא, “a house inducing forgetfulness.” The origin of this psychological fact is the verse in Genesis 2,24 “for that purpose (to get married) man leaves the house of his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife.” [As long as Joseph had not founded a family he was still deeply attached to his father’s house. Ed.] What holds true for the emotional reaction of a man when he gets married is equally true of the wife once she is married.

Rabbeinu Bachya is suggesting that Joseph could not forget his family of origin until he had created a family of his own. He accomplished this by marrying Osnat (either the biological daughter of Potiphar and his wife, or their adopted daughter but the biological daughter of Shechem and Dinah- see a fascinating midrash on that here) and fathering children with her. When Joseph had a child of his own, and looked down into that infant’s face, he felt that he had finally moved on. Having taken solace in his wife, he felt like he was building something, creating something, that could stand on its own merit.

There is certainly truth in that.

But I want to suggest another reading, one based on my own experience.

I think when Joseph called his son Menashe, it was true, but only to a point. At this point in the story, Joseph is 30 years old. Everything that had happened with his brothers occurred when he was 17, thirteen years ago. At this point, Joseph prefers to focus on the future he has rather than the past that he lived through. And the future is bright- he is respected, revered, and his marriage is a political stroke of genius. (Since he is married to Potiphar’s daughter, it stops that family from slandering him further. It’s the highest way of proving his innocence- as no one would believe Pharaoh would marry a rapist to the daughter of the woman he raped.) And so, at this point, Joseph truly believes that “the past is the past” and it ought to remain there. (“It doesn’t mattter. Hakuna Matata. It’s something I learned out here. Sometimes bad things happen and there’s nothing you can do about it- so why worry?”)

But then something happens that shatters the peace that Joseph has found - just like Nala shatters Simba’s peace, and his Hakuna Matata mantra.

His brothers show up. The same brothers he thought he had forgotten.

And once he’s looking at them, he realizes he has not forgotten. Not at all. He thought he had. He convinced himself he had. But he never did.

And now he’s called to act.

I think this is the reason the Midrash is so convinced that Menashe is Joseph’s right-hand man. There is something ironic that the very son who was named after Joseph’s Hakuna Matata motto- “for God has made me forget my troubles” is the son who is deployed to assist Joseph in putting his brothers through empathy boot camp. The fact that Menashe is called upon to work so hard- to interpret, to return the money, to hide the goblet- in the eyes of the Midrash- demonstrates that his name is false. Joseph can lie to himself but that’s what it is, a lie. He hasn’t forgotten- he will never forget. The only question is what he will do with the knowledge.

The symbolism of Menashe’s name follows him when he receives blessings from his grandfather. Jacob accepts both Menashe and Ephraim into the fold, counting them as his own. However, he asserts that Ephraim is the child who is truly worthy of the blessing of the firstborn, not Menashe. Why? I would suggest that it has to do with their names. Jacob would not want to hold up as a motto a quest to forget, especially to forget one’s father’s house. Instead, he would prefer to support Ephraim, the child whose name references thanking God for allowing Joseph to be fruitful in a foreign land.

(Indeed, subsequent episodes in the book of Exodus will demonstrate this- it is important to be fruitful in the foreign land of Egypt, and it is incorrect to forget one’s father’s household, and one’s heritage.)

Many of us wander through life having “forgotten” our past and the negative memories it evokes. But some of us receive special opportunities where we do not just “forget” our past, or bury our past, but are actually able to redeem it. We perform alchemy. We turn suffering to gold.