GEN1568 When Jacob was told by his sons that Joseph was still alive, he at first had some misgivings as to whether it was the same Joseph he knew and remembered who was still alive. Jacob realized that Joseph had all the psychological reasons for bitterness, resentment and revolt against his father’s home, and that, psychologically speaking, it would have been most natural for Joseph to have forsaken all the spiritual and moral values in his father’s heritage and to have adopted the then-new morality, immorality and amorality of a pagan Egypt which had recognized and elevated him while his own brothers had betrayed him.   Nevertheless, Jacob did not doubt the veracity and truthfulness of his son’s statement. When he beheld all the wagons that Joseph had sent to carry him and his family to Egypt in love and in respect, when he saw that Joseph still adhered to the concepts of chessed, hat he had imparted to him while he was till sitting at his feet, then Jacob became convinced that it was the same Joseph who was still alive, that Joseph had been able to maintain his spiritual and moral identity, that Joseph had not deviated even one iota from the moral values in his father’s tradition, and that Joseph throughout the years of exile, bondage and excruciating anguish had not born any bitterness, resentment or hostility to his brothers and to his father’s home. How did such maintenance of spiritual and moral identity in the face of so many adverse psychological factors and contrary to all laws of psychology come about? The answer is that Jacob was able to maintain the loyalty of Joseph through the father image that he, Jacob, had furnished and implanted into the mind and heart of Joseph. Jacob had been able to implant this father image into the mind and heart of Joseph by impressing upon the heart and mind of Joseph the ethical message and concept inherent in the law of egloh arufoh. The law of egloh arufoh is based upon the concepts that man, as a being created in the image of God, is to be treated with respect and consideration regardless of his station in life and his moral caliber, even if he appears to be a vagabond and a criminal.   BUILD 26