“All his sons and all his daughters arose to console him, but he refused to be consoled; he said: For I will descend mourning to the grave, to my son. His father wept for him” (Genesis 37:35). “All his sons and all his daughters arose” – how many daughters did he have? He had one, and if only he had buried her.
It is, rather, that a person does not refrain from calling his son-in-law his son and his daughter-in-law his daughter. Rabbi Yehuda says: The tribes married their sisters. That is what is written: “All his sons and all his daughters arose to console him.”67This view accords with the statement that each of Jacob’s sons was born with a twin daughter (see Bereshit Rabba 82:8). Each son then married one of the daughters of Jacob from a different mother, as according to the Noahide laws one is permitted to marry a half-sister from a different mother (Etz Yosef).
“But he refused to be consoled” – a certain noblewoman asked Rabbi Yosei, she said to him: It is written: “For Judah prevailed over his brothers” (I Chronicles 5:2), and it is written: “Judah was consoled, and he went up to his sheepshearers” (Genesis 38:12),68His two sons and his wife died, and he was able to be consoled. And from the fact that the verse states that Judah prevailed over his brothers, it is implied that he was the most elevated and that his conduct is worthy of emulation (Etz Yosef). and this one, the father of them all, “refused to be consoled”?
He said to her: One is consoled for the dead, but one is not consoled for the living. “His father wept for him” – this is Isaac. Rabbi Levi and Rabbi Simon said: When [Jacob] was with him he would weep, but when he would leave him, he would go, bathe, and anoint himself with oil.69Isaac was a prophet and knew the truth about Joseph. Why did he not reveal it to him?
He said: The Holy One blessed be He did not reveal it to him and I will reveal it to him? Rabbi Simon said: This was based on: Anyone for whom one mourns, one mourns with him.70If one’s close relative is in mourning, one mourns together with him (Moed Katan 20b).