Keep it To Yourself?

Speech and Silence When they Matter Most

In the underrated movie Broadcast News one of the main characters asks the other “What do you do when your real life exceeds your dream?” Albert Brooks answers, “Keep it to yourself!” If only this advice was available to the protagonist of this week’s Torah portion. But Joseph, who literally has dreams that promise the most extraordinary life, makes the decision not to keep any of it to himself and tells his already jealous brothers. In fact this entire Torah portion is made up of moments of speaking when silence would be wiser and keeping silent when speaking is called for, with one exception which proves the rule,
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Jacob is a major offender as he does not hold back in expressing his favoritism for Joseph but when he sees his other sons seething at their arrogant brother he “keeps the matter to himself.”
Perhaps if Jacob had recognized the part he played in priming his son’s malice to Joseph he could have stemmed the tide before they took matters into their own hands and attacked him. But he stays silent and the catastrophe unfolds.

It is so much easier to be silent rather than speak up against something wrong, especially when we are to blame.

The exception is Judah who overcomes silence when the stakes are highest. His daughter-in-law Tamar is driven to extreme measures because Judah withholds from her his last remaining son, Shelah,whose brothers both died while married to her without producing an heir. Which is another story. Tamar dresses as a prostitute and sleeps with Judah without him knowing who she is. To ensure payment he leaves his signet, cord and staff but when his friend goes to bring her payment and retrieve the identifying items, she is gone. She becomes pregnant and, being unmarried, is accused of sexual impropriety and sentenced to death, She then produces the signet, cord and staff and claims that it is the owner of these items who has impregnated her.

Judah could easily have sidestepped his responsibility and doomed her by being silent and leaving her words uncorroborated. Instead he not only speaks up, revealing himself as the one who slept with Tamar, but goes so far as to take responsibility for the circumstances as well, recognizing his error in not allowing Shelah to marry Tamar.

And it is precisely there, in that moment, that the Torah teaches its most enduring lesson about speech and silence. The question is not whether to speak or to remain quiet, but why and how. Speech that protects ego or amplifies self-importance - Joseph’s dreams, Jacob’s favoritism - can wound and destroy. Silence that avoids accountability - Jacob’s failure to confront his own role - can be just as dangerous.

Judah’s greatness lies not in speaking at all costs, but in speaking when silence would be a moral failure. His words do not defend his honor; they surrender it. He does not expose Tamar; he exposes himself. In doing so, he halts an injustice and restores dignity where it was about to be erased.

So the Torah’s guidance is subtler than “keep it to yourself” or “always speak up.” We are called to learn the courage of discerning speech: to restrain ourselves when words serve only the self, and to find our voice when silence would allow harm to proceed unchecked. In a world overflowing with noise and too often emptied of responsibility, Judah reminds us that the most essential speech is the kind that tells the truth - specially when that truth forces us to face our own complicity