GEN1447 Even on purely prudential grounds, a parent should act the same way toward all his children.  Thus, if a parent truly does love one child more than the others, he does the child great harm by making that known and causing the child’s siblings to envy him or her.  One suspects that, during Joseph’s days as a slave and prisoner in Egypt, he did not remember Jacob’s favoritism with gratitude.   Indeed, that might be the explanation for an action (or rather non-action) of Joseph’s that is otherwise inexplicable. When he was elevated to a high position in Egypt, second only to Pharaoh, he made no effort to contact his father and inform him that he was alive and well. Was he perhaps feeling some anger toward his father, whose behavior had helped provoke his brother’s animosity, and bring about their terrible crime of selling him into slavery in Egypt? … The story of Joseph shows that favoritism can be just as cruel to the favored child as it is to the others.   TELVOL 1:310