12:94 Their father said, "Surely I find Joseph's scent."
The wonder is that the bringer of the shirt found nothing of that scent, but Jacob found it at the distance of eighty farsakhs. For that was the scent of passion, and the scent of passion blows only on the passionate. Moreover, it does not always blow. As long as a man has not been cooked by passion and been pounded by the trial of passion, the scent will not blow on him. Do you not see that at the beginning of the work and the outset of the story, when Joseph was taken away from him, the first stage was not reached when they threw him into the well. Jacob had no awareness of this and caught no scent. Finally, at Canaan, he reported about Joseph's scent: "Surely I find Joseph's scent."
It is said that in the House of Sorrows, Jacob wept a great deal every dawn. Sometimes he lamented miserably, sometimes he wailed at his abasement, sometimes he opened the journal of passion and began the chapter on passion. Sometimes he put his head on his knees, sometimes he placed his face in the dust, his two hands raised in supplication. Sometimes he recognized Joseph's scent from the dawn wind and said with the tongue of his state,
"The wind at dawn brings your scent, my dear-
I am the dawn wind's slave in the tracks of your scent."
Thus it is that on the day of relief the morning breeze brought the scent of Joseph to Jacob and brought him into proximity. This is the custom of the lovers: asking in the lands, conferring with ruined encampments, and sniffing news from the winds. In this meaning someone sang,
"I will let the winds guide me to your scent
when they blow from your direction
And ask them to carry my greetings to you.
Respond to me if they come one day."