Finding the messages we need to hear

Shortly after revealing himself to his brothers, Yosef tells them that “It has already been two years of famine throughout the land, but there will be five more years where there will be no plowing and [no] harvest.” (45:6)

Why doesn’t he just say there will be no food? Ramban translates Yosef’s statement here to mean exactly that — but if that’s what Yosef meant, why didn’t he just say it? Furthermore, why mention both? Isn’t it obvious that if you’re not plowing, you won’t be harvesting?

To the latter question, Rabbenu Tam noted that there are lands that do not require plowing to be fertile. When they have a Nile River which provides as a constant source of water, harvesting can take place without the plowing.

But the former question still remains: Why is Yosef so specific when all he needed to say was, “There won’t be food. I will provide the food for you.”

The Baal HaTurim notes that Yosef was actually quite careful with his language. There is one other place in the Torah when the concept of people harvesting is noted — in Parshat Noach, after the flood, when G-d promises that for the remainder of the existence of the world, seeding the ground which will lead to harvesting will never cease to be a function of the natural world. If you know how to farm, you’ll produce food to eat. The terminology G-d uses there is “Zera V’Katzir,” while Yosef says there will not be “Charish V’Katzir.” Yosef’s point was that we have zera (the seeds to plant), but that we will be much better off eating those seeds than having them go to waste during a time in which the plowing will not produce a harvest.

But how did Yosef know that the seeding of the ground would not work? All he told Pharaoh in his interpretation of the dream was that there would be years of famine; maybe if they could somehow bypass the dryness and build some super plumbing system, they could make the desert bloom!