In this week’s Parasha “Vayigash” (he approached),says “And Yehuda approached Yosef and he said, please my master, allow your servant to speak in the ears of my master. And do not become angry at your servant for you are like Pharaoh.” (Bereshit 44:18)
At the end of last week’s Parasha “MIKETZ”, Yosef had made a believe that Benjamin his little brother had stolen his silver goblet from him. When he confronted the brothers he told them they could go but they had to leave Benjamin as his slave. He did all this to see how the brothers would react and if they had repented from what they had done to him so many years ago.
Yehuda was willing to sacrifice himself for Benjamin and in the way he approached Yosef we can learn a lot from his communication skills.
We can see that in a time of high stress he was able to contain himself and speak respectfully and paused. He asked Yosef to not become angry for what he was going to say and called him master twice. This allowed the other to be more receptive. When dealing with a hard situation we should be proactive and not reactive. Think what you want to accomplish first. Emotional intelligent people don’t need to be right, for them it is more important to achieve positive results.
Once traveling in a wagon driven by horses, Rabbi Wolf Zbarazer would not allow the driver to whip the horses. He would say to the driver: “when you know how to speak to them in the right way, you do not need to use force.” If this is true with horses so much more so with people.
Positive communication, letting the other know you value them and respect them will allow you to say what needs to be said but it will be received also in a positive way.
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