The Torah records at least eight different times that Yosef cried. Why does it say that he cried so much as opposed to his brothers who don’t cry at all?
Throughout his life, Yosef went through a great deal of suffering with being thrown into a pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, and put into jail. It is said that someone who suffers a lot in life, is often more emotional and openly expresses those emotions, such as crying, even when all is going well. Yosef’s brothers, on the other hand, had relatively easy lives without these kinds of tribulations.
Yosef channels his trials to become someone who was empathetic to other people’s sorrows. That is why he said to have cried over others’ suffering. For example, he cried when he had ruach hakodesh that both the first and second beit hamikdash would be destroyed. This is also one of the key reasons that Yosef was chosen to be a leader–he empathized with the plights of others.
By: Kayla Wolfson (10th Grade)