Reflections

“The chief butler did not remember Yosef, but forgot him.” (Genesis 40:23)

This seems a bit redundant.

The Sefer Peninei Torah suggests an approach to our verse based on Proverbs 27:19, “As water reflects a face back to a face, so one’s heart is reflected back to him by another.”

It is possible to read the Hebrew of our verse in Genesis to be saying that “Yosef did not remember the chief butler” – and that’s why he forgot Yosef.

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3 Responses

  1. This reflection on Proverbs 27:19 is surprising to me; I believe I had not understood the text before; it made me think that perhaps Yosef forgot the butler because of two reasons.

    First, because the environment in which he found himself at the time did not allow its dwellers to concern themselves with how ex-convicts were doing on the outside world; and second, and most importantly, because Yosef did what Yosef did: trust only in Hashem.

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