Spiritual and
Ethical Issues in the B'reishit Stories BEIT YAAKOV IN EGYPT [4] by Dr. Meir Tamari In this Midrash there is an important lesson ranging far beyond a mere understanding of the story of Yosef's release that extends to our moral living in all walks of life. "When the time approaches for a person to die, we always mistakenly understand that the death comes because of some disease or illness. In reality however, it is because it is at the end of the period that G-d has allotted to that person, that they contract the disease or the illness that kills them. So too, it was because the 2 years after the release of the Sar HaMashkim that were determined by Hashem to be the end of Yosef's captivity, had elapsed, that Par'o dreamed his dream. The period determined by G-d was the cause of Yosef's release and the dream only the means or implement thereto" (Lev Eliyahu). "A person surveys his wealth or achievements and ascribes them all to his own wisdom, luck or his hard work. He does not understand that the real cause of any material or other success is G-d's plan and that their work is only the materialistic form of that plan. We learn the same lesson from Yosef's reconciliation with his brothers, when he shows them that he bears them no ill-will, as their action was not the real cause of his sale. "Now, do not worry nor let it be disturbing in your eyes that you sold me here, for it was to preserve life that G-d sent me ahead of you" (B'reishit 45:5) (Bet Halevi). There are innumerable mitzvot that seem to bear the same message: Ribit, Bikurim, Shmita, Yovel, Omer and the offering of the 2 loaves on Shavuot, that all demonstrate that even though the crops and harvests are the legitimate fruits of our legal possessions and work, nevertheless, there is a real source and owner that has to be acknowledged by the way we treat those fruits and results. We must not make the common error of equating the idea of a Divine Plan with the teaching of determinism that would make all human efforts meaningless and irrelevant, including their moral or immoral acts. Just as in the story of Yosef, so too in our lives and histories there are two parallel stories - human actions and the Divine Plan - even though we may be aware only of the one being played out in the human acts before us. Alongside and guiding these acts at one and the same time there is both G-d' s judgment and His Plan for us and for the world. We plough, sow, harvest and prepare our wealth in normal and human ways, but the results are ultimately His Plan and His Justice; any other scenario would either make everything open miracles or fatalism. In his Moreh Nevuchim (Part 2:48), Rambam uses Yosef's words in the verse we quoted, as an example of how G-d is the First Cause of acts accomplished by humans. "Although the brothers had Free Will, G-d Himself used their judgment to accord with His Plan" (Abarbanel). Hashem had told Avraham in the Brit Bein Habetarim that prior to inheriting the Land of Israel they would have to endure slavery in a foreign land; that prophecy did not stipulate the country. The descent to Egypt therefore was the result of the action of the brothers even though it served the Divine Purpose. So that Yosef's correct understanding of his sale and subsequent history as G-d's Plan to save Beit Yaakov, nevertheless, does not imply that the brothers were guiltless. They sold him without any idea or knowledge of the Divine Plan and therefore had to be punished for their wrongdoing, even though because of Hashem's plan their action had a beneficial result. "If one was cooking on Shabbat and then a sick person ate thereof, the cook is not thereby freed from the wrong deed of cooking on Shabbat. This is because it was not his intention in the cooking to prepare food for the sick person. So too, since the brothers intended to harm Yosef, they were not absolved even though only good came of it" (Yalkut Yehuda). If the brothers would have done t'shuva then they would have been forgiven. "However, we learn that they did not from the verse (B'reishit 42:20-21). When Yosef took Shimon and made the presence of Binyamin a condition for his release and their future purchase of grain, they did not repent over selling him. Rather they only said that it was because they did not have pity on him and did not consider his suffering that this trouble came upon them. To the end they maintained that their judgment that he was a rodef and therefore liable to the death penalty, was a correct one" (Soforno). In view of the lack of t'shuva, the sin remained, only to be claimed from the Jewish People many centuries later, in the death of the Ten Martyrs and perhaps many other tragedies. In the Musaf of Yom Kippur we read that the Roman Emperor ruled that from the Torah itself one who steals another and enslaves him is liable to the death penalty (D'varim 24:7). Since the brothers were no longer alive, justice demanded that the leading Torah Sages should be so punished in their stead. "The cause of Yosef's brothers' sin was needless hatred, brought about by their inability to subject themselves to the will or guidance of others. For that needless hatred that persists among us, Bayit Sheni was destroyed, the 10 Sages killed and we have suffered the tribulations of all these generations since then" (Yalkut Yehuda). [The Parshat Va'eira Homepage]
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