PARASHAT VAYESHEV

By Rav David Silverberg

Parashat Vayeshev tells the famous story of the mekhirat Yosef, the mistreatment Yosef suffered at the hands of his brothers which resulted in his sale as a slave to Egypt.  The brothers initially plotted to kill Yosef, until Reuven intervened and persuaded them to instead cast him into a pit.  Reuven had intended to later come and rescue Yosef, but by the time he came to the pit Yosef had been sold into slavery.

            The Midrash (Vayikra Rabba 34:9) makes the following, puzzling comment regarding Reuven’s efforts on his younger brother’s behalf:

The Torah teaches you…that when a person performs a mitzva, he should perform it with all his heart, for had Reuven known that the Almighty would write about him, “Reuven heard and saved him from their hands,” he would have carried him and brought him to his father.

Seemingly, the Midrash indicates that Reuven would have performed this mitzva – rescuing his brother – with greater fervor and vigor had he known that it would be recorded in the Torah.  Indeed, the Rashba, in one of his responsa (vol. 1, 581), cites this Midrash as a source for publicizing the names of those who perform mitzvot.  This Midrash implies that giving public recognition to mitzvot is a legitimate means of encouraging people to involve themselves in important causes, and the Rashba therefore rules that it is proper to give such recognition.  Indeed, the Shulchan Arukh (Y.D. 249:13) explicitly sanctions the practice of engraving the donors’ names on articles donated to synagogues and the like.

            The Midrash’s halakhic implications aside, Rav Eliyahu Meir Bloch, in his Shiurei Da’at, suggests a simple explanation for this passage.  Namely, Chazal here urge us to approach even the seemingly minor mitzvot we perform with seriousness and vigor, for their significance often far exceeds that which we might expect.  Reuven performed a significant act, but at the time, he likely viewed it as a simple, basic gesture owed to his brother.  He had he been aware of the long-term, historical repercussions of his efforts to save Yosef, he would have approached it with even greater intensity.  (See Torah Sheleima on this verse who explains the Midrash along similar lines.)

            This reading of the Midrash perhaps becomes even more striking in light of the other examples it presents.  First, it speaks of Aharon going to greet his brother, Moshe, upon the latter’s return to Egypt: “Had Aharon known that the Almighty would write about him (Shemot 4:14), ‘Behold, he is going to greet you,’ he would have gone out to greet him with drums and dances.”  The Midrash then makes a similar comment regarding Boaz, who served food to Rut when she first came to collect gleanings in his fields (Rut 2:14).  In these instances, the person in question – Aharon or Boaz – performed a simple act of kindness and consideration.  Aharon came to greet his brother who returned after an extended exile, and Boaz showed compassion to a penniless foreigner.  Little did they know that these simple acts of sensitivity ultimately helped form the basis of two of the most significant historical developments in the story of Am Yisrael.  The Midrash viewed these situations as examples of mitzvot whose significance extended far beyond anything that the individual could have foreseen at the time.  It thus admonishes, “When a person performs a mitzva, he should perform with all his heart.”  One can never know the full implications of even the “minor” actions he performs, and we must therefore approach all mitzvot – both “big” and “small” – with fervor and conviction.

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Commenting on the story of mekhirat Yosef – Yosef’s sale into slavery – the Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 84) writes that when Yosef approached his brothers as they tended to their sheep, he came “be-kilus,” which literally means, “with praises.”

The Yefei To’ar commentary (cited in Torah Sheleima 139) suggests two diametrically opposite interpretations of the Midrash’s description of Yosef’s arrival.  First, the Yefei To’ar writes that Yosef approached his brothers with a proud, arrogant demeanor, as he normally conducted himself around his brothers.  The term “kilus” would thus refer to a kind of self-adulation with which Yosef carried himself.  But the Yefei To’ar then suggests that to the contrary, the Midrash might refer specifically to Yosef’s amiability and pleasant demeanor: “He came with praise…that he praised his brothers and verbally extended them as a blessing…”  According to this approach, Yosef came to his brothers with kind words of greeting and even praise, perhaps something to the effect of, “How nice it is to see you.”

This second reading perhaps underscores the tragic miscommunication and misunderstanding that may have fueled the brothers’ animosity toward Yosef.  When the brothers saw Yosef approaching, they cynically remarked, “Here, the man of dreams is coming” (37:19).  The Torah emphasizes that they made this comment upon seeing Yosef “from afar” (mei-rachok).  Distance between two parties can result in mistaken perceptions and baseless suspicions about one another, and this might be precisely what happened as Yosef approached.  From a distance, the brothers saw “the man of dreams,” an arrogant, egotistical adolescent who dreamt of asserting his authority over them.  By the time Yosef approached and began speaking to them “be-kilus,” with friendship and respect, it was too late – they had already decided upon their hostile course of action.

Earlier, the Torah writes that Yosef’s brothers were unable “to speak with him peacefully” (37:4).  This might mean that had they succeeded in somehow sitting with Yosef in a civil manner and befriending him, the tragedy of mekhirat Yosef might have been averted.  If they had drawn closer to him, rather than pulling further and further away from him, they may have perhaps better understood his intentions and the reasons behind his perceived arrogance.  Instead, they kept their distance and retained – and even nurtured – their negative perception, until they eventually reached the decision to eliminate their brother.

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            Rav Menachem Kasher, in his Torah Sheleima to Parashat Vayeshev (chapter 37, note 142), cites a description from the Sefer Ha-yashar of the events that followed the casting of Yosef into a pit in the fields outside Shekhem.  According to this account, Yosef cried to his brothers from the pit, pleading with them to rescue him:

Yosef called from inside the pit to his brothers, saying to them: “What did I do to you?  How have I wronged you?  Why do you not fear God with regard to me?  I am, after all, your bone and flesh, and your father Yaakov is my father.  Why do you do this to me today?  How will lift your face in the presence of our father Yaakov… Yehuda, Reuven, Shimon and Levi – my brothers!  Raise me from the depths into which you placed me!  Look this day upon my face and the face of my father Yaakov.  And if I have wronged you, aren’t you the sons of Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov, who would have compassion when they saw an orphan, would feed bread if [they saw] a hungry person, give water if [they saw] a thirsty person, and clothe if [they saw] a naked person?  How do you not have compassion for your brother – for I am your bone and flesh!  And if I have wronged you, then shouldn’t you act for my father’s sake?”

The Sefer Ha-yashar proceeds to record the brother’s response to Yosef’s impassioned cries:

All his brothers heard his cries and weeping inside the pit.  His brothers went and distanced themselves from the pit so that they would not hear Yosef’s cries and weeping in the pit.  They went and sat from afar, at a bow’s distance, and they sat there to eat bread.

The brothers responded to Yosef’s pleas by moving away so that they could not hear him.  His cries no doubt aroused their conscience; they assuredly knew that all he said was true, that regardless of his crimes toward them, nothing could justify this act of cruelty, which marked such a drastic departure from the legacy of their father, grandfather and great-grandfather, the legacy of kindness and compassion.  The pangs of conscience were too much to bear, and so they moved away.

            This account should perhaps draw our attention to the general human tendency to close one’s ears to words of criticism.  All too often, we, like Yosef’s brothers, choose to “move away” from, to avoid listening to, unsettling truths about our conduct and decisions.  We ignore or resent those who offer criticism, and prefer the company of those who support everything we do.  Yosef’s cries from the pit offered his brothers an opportunity to reverse their decision, to save their brother from the pit and themselves from the eternal stain of this dreadful crime.  It seems, however, that they were unable or unwilling to hear the voice of conscience, and chose to silence that voice and listen instead to the voice of, “Behold, the man of dreams is coming; let us now kill him…”  This story thus teaches the importance of listening to conscience rather than moving away from it, and remaining open to criticism rather than stubbornly rejecting it.

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            The Torah tells in Parashat Vayeshev that after Yosef’s brothers cast him into the pit, “they sat to eat bread” (37:25), whereupon they saw merchants in the distance and decided to sell Yosef as a slave.

            The Midrash (Midrash Tehilim, 10; Ester Rabba, 7) draws a somewhat startling association between Yosef’s brothers and no less a villain than Haman: “The Almighty said to the tribes: You sold your brother amidst eating and drinking... Behold, your descendants will be ‘sold’ in Shushan amidst eating and drinking, as it says (Ester 3:15), ‘and the king and Haman sat to drink…’”

            This Midrash passage may rank among the most strident, scathing condemnations of mekhirat Yosef found in the writings of Chazal.  Any attentive reader or listener immediately discerns the bitter discordance in the aforementioned verse in Megilat Ester: “The king and Haman sat to drink – and the city of Shushan was dumbfounded.”  In the royal chamber sat King Achashveirosh with Haman, feasting and drinking as though they had not a care in the world.  Outside the palace, thousands upon thousands of condemned citizens sat in sackcloth and ashes, having suddenly been informed that they would die in eleven months.  The Megila here succinctly portrays two diametrically opposite scenes: the food and intoxication of Achashveirosh and Haman, and the anguish that gripped the “dumbfounded” city of Shushan.  Luxury, indulgence and festivity – contrasted with grief, shock and horror.

            Jarring as it may seem, Chazal identified within Haman and Achashveirosh’s celebration after sentencing an entire population to death a certain point of comparison with the meal eaten by Yosef’s brothers after casting him into the pit.  Here, too, we find people sitting to a meal shortly after an act of cruelty.  In this Midrash, it seems, Chazal found the brothers guilty of not only tormenting their brother, but doing so with a clear conscience.  The Sages here censure the brothers for so easily resuming normal activity, and sitting down to a meal, after committing what essentially amounted to fratricide.

            Clearly, the brothers’ decision to eliminate Yosef – whom they likely considered a personal threat to them and their family – cannot be accurately compared to Haman’s edict to execute thousands of Jews due to childish pride and arrogance.  Nevertheless, Chazal deemed the brothers’ indifference to Yosef’s fate as worthy of comparison to Haman’s celebration.  Even if there was perhaps a possibility of mitigating the crime itself in light of their resentment and the threat Yosef may have posed, Chazal in this Midrash condemn the brothers’ casual attitude toward this affair.  In this sense, their conduct, sadly enough, rendered them worthy of comparison to one of the great villains of the Jewish people.

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            The beginning of Parashat Vayeshev tells of the feelings of envy and resentment that Yosef’s brothers harbored toward him.  Among the surprising elements of this narrative is the silence and passivity of their father, Yaakov, with regard to these brewing tensions.  True, after Yosef relates his dreams of leadership to his brothers, Yaakov censures him – “What is this dream that you dreamt?  Is it possible that I, your mother and your brothers will come to bow to you on the ground?” (37:10).  Immediately thereafter, however, the Torah appears to emphasize Yaakov’s non-involvement in this affair: “His brothers envied him, and his father kept the matter in mind” (37:11).  As the brothers’ ill-will continued to brew and boil inside them, Yaakov merely “kept the matter in mind.”

            Yaakov’s inaction in this context brings to mind his similarly surprising responses to earlier family crises.  Upon hearing of Dina’s abduction by Shekhem, Yaakov “was silent” (“ve-hecherish”) until his brothers returned from the fields (34:5).  And the Torah concludes its brief account of Reuven’s sin with Bilha by noting, “Va-yishma Yisrael” (“Israel heard” – 35:22), emphasizing that Yaakov merely “heard” of the incident, without responding.

            At first glance, we might interpret these instances of inaction as a developing pattern of passivity and ineffective family leadership on Yaakov’s part.  Our initial impression is perhaps to note the decline in Yaakov’s authority over his household, as evidenced by the absence of any effective response to the internal crises that surface in his family.

            However, the Rosh Yeshiva, HaRav Aharon Lichtenstein shelit”a (as summarized by a student at www.vbm-torah.org/archive/sichot/bereishit/09-60vayesh.htm), suggested that to the contrary, Yaakov’s passive responses in these incidents signify his greatness, rather than frailty, and in fact convey an important practical lesson:

Precisely that deafening silence which we find in these parshiyot is the great message which Yaakov is conveying to us… Yaakov knows that sometimes it is necessary to keep quiet and restrain oneself – because any reaction will cause division and even more serious danger.

Not every difficult circumstance warrants a response; sometimes, an undesirable situation is to be preferred over far less desirable alternatives.  As Yaakov himself tells Shimon and Levi after their bloody assault on Shekhem (34:30), although their response may have succeeded in avenging the family’s honor, it had the severe consequence of arousing the ire and hostility of the surrounding peoples.  In the case of Reuven, Rav Lichtenstein noted, Yaakov perhaps feared that condemning Reuven’s crime would cause him to leave the family altogether.  We might add that the Midrash Sekhel Tov (cited in Torah Sheleima, chapter 35, note 96) indeed applauds Yaakov’s silence in the face of Reuven’s offense: “He heard what Reuven did, [but] he restrained his anger and did not curse him or his offspring, as Noach did [in response to his son’s crime], teaching that ‘there is an advantage to the wise person over the fool’ (in contrast to Kohelet 6:8).”  The Midrash thus views Yaakov’s silence in this instance as a sign of strength and wisdom, rather than of weakness.

            In the case of Yosef and his brothers, too, Yaakov likely felt that intervening would only intensify the tension among the brothers.  He stood back not out of helpless resignation, but due to the reasonable suspicion that as grave as the situation was, it behooved him to ensure not to make things worse.

            This insight bears relevance in several different areas.  Firstly, it instructs that not every dilemma has an immediate solution, and in such situations patience and inaction are far preferable to reckless patchwork that could possibly worsen the problem.  This message is particularly relevant to the individual responsible for the situation.  As Rav Lichtenstein commented, Yaakov bore a degree of accountability for the hostilities among his sons, which arose from the preferential treatment he afforded to Yosef.  Often, a person who realizes his accountability will take rash, frantic and uncalculated measures to try and rectify the situation and thereby earn a degree of absolution.  Yaakov teaches that even in such situations, careful consideration must be given to the possibility that these attempts will make matters worse.

            Finally, Yaakov’s silence instructs that unhelpful words are sometimes not only unhelpful, but harmful.  As Rav Lichteinstein remarked:

Very often it is difficult for a person to control himself and keep silent… But sometimes an unnecessary word is simply harmful.  Therefore, sometimes it is important, despite the pain involved, to know how to strangle the shout before it escapes, to understand that silence will contribute more…

Indeed, silence and inaction are often signs of profound wisdom, rather than helplessness and frailty.

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            The Midrash (Bereishit Rabba 84) makes the following comment concerning Yehuda’s suggestion to his brothers that they sell Yosef as a slave: “They said: Let us follow the way of the world: Wasn’t Canaan, who sinned, cursed with slavery?  This one, too – let us go sell him to the Ishamelites!  And his brothers listened.”  According to the Midrash, when the brothers considered their options in dealing with Yosef, they looked to the precedent of Canaan, Noach’s grandson, whom Noach had cursed with slavery in response to the crimes he committed against his him.

            The obvious question arises to why the brothers deemed selling Yosef into slavery “the way of the world” simply because servitude was the punishment chosen for Canaan.  Why did they look specifically to the example of Noach’s curse to Canaan as the precedent for them to follow in handling Yosef?

            Rav Gavriel Margolies, in his Torat Gavriel, suggested that the point of comparison between Canaan and Yosef extends beyond the fact that both (at least in the brothers’ eyes) acted wrongly.  Canaan’s offense was that he peered at his intoxicated, unclothed grandfather and then called others to do the same.  He violated the privacy of another individual, and then sought to publicize what he saw.  The brothers, as portrayed by the Midrash, found Yosef guilty of a very similar offense.  As other Midrashic sources describe, Yosef kept careful watch of his brothers’ conduct and brought negative reports to their father.  He, like Canaan, peered into the private life of his kin and looked to make it public – at least in the sense of sharing it with somebody else.

            According to this understanding of the Midrash, the Sages here offer a powerful insight into the nature of lashon ha-ra, drawing a compelling analogy between gossip and the sin of Canaan.  Lashon ha-ra violates the victim’s fundamental right to privacy.  Exposing another person’s wrongdoing is very similar to the more literal kind of “exposure” with which Canaan sought to humiliate his grandfather.

            Moreover, this reading of the Midrash may narrow the gap, so-to-speak, between the Midrash’s comments and the plain meaning of the text.  Seforno (37:27) writes that the brothers decided to sell Yosef as a slave in retribution for his perceived attempts to assert his authority over them.  Yosef had dreamt of kingship and power, and now the brothers were determined to consign him to a life of servitude and shame.   According to the Torat Gavriel, the Midrash’s comment may be understood along similar lines.  Yosef – at least as the brothers perceived him – tried to obtain power and supremacy by defaming them, by exposing their shame; he pursued glory at the expense of their pride and reputation.  They therefore felt justified in their decision to subject him to lifelong slavery, where he would suffer the kind of shame and humiliation that he – as they saw it – had attempted to bring upon them.

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            Parashat Vayeshev tells of Yosef’s imprisonment in an Egyptian dungeon as a result of false charges brought by the wife of Potifar, for whom Yosef had faithfully worked.  The Torah describes how Yosef earned the admiration and trust of the prison warden, who assigned Yosef over the other inmates: “The officer of the prison submitted to Yosef’s authority all the prisoners in the prison, and everything that they did there – he would do” (40:22).

            The final clause of this verse – “everything that they did there – he would do” – seems difficult to understand, and has been interpreted differently by the commentators.

            Targum Onkelos translates this phrase to mean that everything the inmates did was performed “by his word,” meaning, under Yosef’s authority and supervision.  Yosef held a position of authority over his fellow inmates, and thus all that happened in the jail cell took place by his command.  This is the interpretation followed by Rashi and the Radak.  Saadia Gaon offers a slightly different explanation, claiming that Yosef guided and directed the inmates (“hu haya ha-madrikham”).  In his view, the Torah refers not to Yosef’s authority, but rather to his role as instructor helping his fellow prisoners with whatever they needed.

            Ibn Ezra suggests rereading the first segment of this clause – “everything that they did there” – to mean “everything that they needed to do there.”  The warden counted on Yosef to care for any needs that arose in the prison cell; he was entrusted with the prison’s maintenance and day-to-day operation.  Ibn Ezra draws proof to this interpretation from the next verse, which speaks of how the warden felt no need to supervise Yosef, as he fully trusted him with everything that transpired in the jail cell.

            Rav Shimshon Refael Hirsch suggests reading this verse to mean that “what previously a number of had to do, he did alone.”  In other words, the Torah here testifies to Yosef’s talents, alacrity and efficiency, as he succeeded in achieving independently what had previously required the combined efforts of several people to accomplish.

            We might also suggest a different interpretation, namely, that Yosef did not act any differently from the other inmates, despite his stature of prominence.  Even though “the officer of the prison submitted to Yosef’s authority all the prisoners in the prison,” Yosef nevertheless did “everything that they did there.”  He did not request, demand or expect special privileges on account of the authority invested in him; he did not abuse his “connections” with the prison warden to receive exemptions from the chores and labors assigned to the other inmates.  With characteristic humility, nobility and sensitivity, Yosef ensured not to invite the envy or resentment of the other prisoners, and instead subjected himself to the same conditions that they were forced to endure.