This week's Torah portion is like arriving at the climax of an intense drama.
In the previous episodes, we watched the story of Joseph and his bothers unfold. It began with favoritism, jealousy, and betrayal. Then Joseph's wandering, new career, and subsequent libel played itself out. Followed by the incarceration, dramatic rise from rags to riches, famine, the decent, maltreatment, identification, and entrapment.
We finally arrive at the climax: "And Joseph could not contain himself any longer", and is about to reveal his true identity to his brothers.
We would expect his catharsis to begin by first unleashing the anger he must have built up over twenty-two years, then finally settling the score, for having abused a helpless 17-year-old... after all, the brothers were now at his absolute mercy.
But none of that happens.
Instead, Joseph is soft-spoken, he even weeps as he talks of his empowering mission, and the position G-d placed him in, to save the country and his family. He refuses to submit to the narrative of a poor helpless victim, instead, he adopts the narrative of an empowered mission-driven life.
As an audience watching a drama film, we may have preferred the closure of revenge. As grandchildren though, we got a most valuable life lesson from our dear zayde.