The moment when Joseph's brothers recognized him in the palace at Memphis was, according to the midrash, more violent than the Torah lets on. Some of the brothers, the sages said, wanted to kill him right there in the throne room.
An angel descended and dispersed them to the four corners of the hall. And then Judah — the brother who had already staked his life on Benjamin's safety — opened his mouth and screamed.
The scream was not ordinary. Midrash Rabbah on Vayigash records that the walls of every city in Egypt cracked. The beasts in the fields fell to the ground. Joseph and Pharaoh were both thrown from their thrones, their teeth knocked loose. The courtiers standing at attention in the throne room had their heads twisted backwards — their faces pointing at their own spines — and they stayed that way for the rest of their lives.
Job 4:10 provides the hook: The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion. The lion, the rabbis said, is Judah — the tribe whose emblem is the lion of Jacob's blessing, whose roar would one day echo through the kingship of David and beyond.
The lesson lives in the hyperbole. A righteous voice raised in defense of a brother can shake an empire. The walls of Egypt crack whenever a Jew refuses to leave a brother behind.