Make Some Midrash Sense

Midrash can be quite odd. One famous midrash I heard as a kid is that Yaakov realized his son Yosef was alive based on seeing the agalot (wagons) that were sent. He reasoned that the last thing Yosef and he were learning before the disappearance was eglah arufah ("Eglah Erufa is an offering made by the elders of a town when a corpse is discovered outside the borders of the municipality. The implication is the Elders and residents are partially responsible because they permitted the victim to leave the town unaccompanied, leaving him vulnerable to highway men."-Dov Bear) Agala and eglah are similar spelling and sound in Hebrew so that must be the connection.

This explanation seemed quite ridiculous to me and far fetched that they were learning such a piece of Torah. And even if they did, what was so special about the eglah law and its relevance to the story of Yosef? It seems to me that much of the intent and lessons of midrash have been lost or due to shift in our consciousness, things that would be obvious to our forefathers are more obscure to us today. But let me propose an interesting thought.

From Yosef's perspective, his father sent him to his brothers that fateful day, his father abandoned him, never sought him out (he didn't know that brothers told father he was killed). Now that his father is to be reunited with his son after so long and after feeling so rejected,  now it's time to send his father a message. Make him understand the residual pain and resentment of feeling cast out.

As is the case by Eglah, the elders who were not directly responsible for the tragedy nonetheless had culpability because they failed to prevent it, so too Yaakov should have intervened in the growing discord between the brothers and Yosef. He publicly denounced Yosef's dreams. He shares some blame for not nipping things in the bud. So perhaps this was a subtle way of telling Yaakov that Yaakov had an element of guilt in leaving him vulnerable. 

As children, we have an idealized visions of our parents and when they let us down, the pain and resentment can simmer for years. But there reaches a point where those feeling must be dealt with, sent out on a wagon, if you will, to cross the expanse that has divided a family. And once shared, closure and reconciliation can follow just as the spirit of Yaakov was revived once he saw the wagon and what it represented. So now the journey towards peace and harmony in the family could begin.