Torah Portion: "Miketz"

Summary of this week's news:

* Pharaoh's dreams.* Jacob's family runs out of food and send the brothers to Egypt to get grain;* Joseph recognizes them, accuses them of being spies etc, and stipulates that next time they have to bring their youngest brother (Binyamin), and Shimon is taken as hostage.* Minus Shimon they return with food to Jacob, and discover their money in the sack;* The food runs out; they come again, with Benyamin;* The fraught meal made for them by Joseph; the goblet is planted and 'found';* Binyamin is to be a slave.Next week: Yehuda steps up....

Had Pharoah's dreams ocurred nowadays, it would perhaps have led to the creation of a company based on Dr. Joseph Pharaoh's Diet: "Eat As Much (Cow) Protein as You Wish Without Getting Phat".

Joseph’s Bizarre Behavior as acts of exemplary righteousness and teshuva

Why did he persecute his brothers in this strange way? Was he a megalomaniac? A sadist?

NEITHER!

As we'll see below, Yosef was an exceedingly righteous person who saved the Children of Israel. And he pointed out the way for all in how to do real teshuva ('return' = 'repentance'), as did Yehuda.

And specifically, the reason for his seemingly cruel antics was - the purpose of the whole escapade regarding Benjamin - was to prevent his father from discovering the brothers' crime before they had a chance to do teshuva by protecting Benjamin. And this itself was Joseph's teshuva for having carried 'bad tales' pf his brothers to his father!

Yosef would have been considered great if he had just overcame what for most people would be valid righteous indignation for the terrible injustice done to him by the brothers. But in fact he showed he was more than just a tzadik for overcoming any desire for retribution - he even went to the extent of giving his brothers the opportunity to do teshuva for what they did to him.

More EXPLANATION

Winnowing/casting out: The brothers had thought that Joseph was the black sheep of the family (because of his telling bad tales to their father, and his alleged desire to set himself up as king over them and having them bow to him etc) and felt he should be cast out of the family, as their great-uncle Yishmael had been in the time of their great grandfather Avraham, and as their uncle Esav had been cast out in the next generation. However now the tables would be turned against THEM - if Joseph had contacted his father Yakov and told him about the brothers having sold him as a slave, likely the result would have been the complete banishment by Yakov of the brothers who had been involved, if not their execution, for the crime of kidnapping, intent to kill, and selling as a slave.

And he could have redeemed himself in the eyes of his father who had scolded him about the dreams, by showing how he had indeed become king and the brothers indeed had bowed to him (as they had scornfully and jealously claimed he had wanted, whereas they felt it was not divine prophecy but unjustified arrogance on his part)

The term 'bney yisrael' (children of Israel): The Jewish People were eventually known as the Bnei Yisrael, not 'Bney Avraham', since Yishmael was not included, nor as 'Bney Yitschak' since Esav was not included. However they could not be called Bney Yisroel if some of Yisroel's children were cast out and became a different nation, as would have to be the case if Jacob cast out Joseph's older brothers.

Joseph's special righteousness: Joseph was intensely righteous and desperately wanted to prevent this casting-out of his brothers, so he gave them the chance to do techuva. He hoped they indeed would rise to the occasion and then they could all be accepted by their father, and the entire category of "the children of Israel" could become the nation promised to Avraham.

True repentance (teshuva, from the word 'return' 'shivah') is when one is in the same situation and acts differently than the first time. Joseph crafted the scenario with the brothers to test whether they were willing to protect Benjamin even at the cost of their own lives, which would constitute true repentance for their actions towards Joseph.

(What they would or would not do as teshuva for what they did to their father was not Joseph's business, it was the business of them and their father. Yosef could not achieve that, see also discusion for next weeks portion.)

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Joseph as the hero who put an end to the catastropic cosmic rivaly of Genesis: Instead of letting the brothers be cast out and he and Benjamin becoming the fathers of the Jewish People, and eventuakkly the kings, Joseph's self-negation gave them the opportunity to prove themselves, to do complete tshuva.

In this way Joseph brings to a conclusion the "casting out" theme in Genesis, and the brother-hatred/rivalry (which started with the very first brothers Cain/Abel), and he suceeds in making the 3rd generation after the Patriarch Avraham the first one where all siblings make it to the finish line, so that the Jewish People have their beginning, and can be known as 'Bney Yisroel'

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Yosef's failing, and his repentance for it:

When we come to read the Joseph saga the 2nd time, ie after already knowing its end, knowing how great Joseph was, it is disturbing to read in the beginning of the sotry, the Torah's statement in its introduction about him to the effect that Yosef brought to his father Yaakov "dibah ra'a" about his brothers = tales about their misdeeds - albeit true information, but which cast them in a very bad light.

And it is clear in retrospect that this is what led his brothers to hate him and then to be jealous about the coat he received, and led to their sale of him as a slave.

[Ironically, the Torah is manifesting God's Mida Kneged Midah [MkM (divinely-instituted karma) - God placed in the account a criticism of Joseph which though it is true information casts Joseph in a bad light to US the reader, and this is MkM for casting his brothers in a bad light!]!

WHY YOSEF IS SPECIFICALLY A "TZADIK", BUT ALSO A "BA'AL T'SHUVAH"

But however unpleasant it is to read the Torah's criticism of Joseph, this detail is such an important piece of information, because it is amazing that Joseph was able to do true teshuva - by being in the same situation and acting differently: at this point in his lifemany years later he knew of a true terrible sin the brothers had committed - not only against him himself, selling him as a slave, but also the horrible sin of fooling Yaakov their father and causing him terrible grief for many years - but Joseph did NOT tell his father this! This is real teshuva for the 'bad tales'!

Yosef also performed another type of true tshuva: he was arrogant in the telling of his dreams, and this helped cause his brothers to have the wrong interpretation of his intent. And now he redeemed that too.

Yosef's willing abdication of Kingship: Had Yosef brought about the brothers' banishment, he would have been effectively transformed into the 'oldest', and the true inheritor (as happened with Yitschok vs Yishmael and Yakov vs Esav), and Joseph's descendants would be the kings of Israel. But he gave all that up.

In fact, the brothers had accused him of thinking he would be their king and they would have to bow to him. It was a false interpretation as I pointed out in last week's post, but ironically not only did it come true that they bowed to him as king (because negative interpretations of dreams affect the future in a negative way), but what is astonishing is that he could really have become the Jewish king as they claimed he wanted, but in fact he gave it up and allowed it to go to Yehudah... and he gave all that up in order make place for the brothers in the family!

In this way he proved himself to be a true tzadik, and also a perfect ba'al teshuva at the same time!

(See later discussions about his status of almost-king being part of the reason for the root of mashiach ben yosef; and see earlier discussion about Lavan etc in this regard.)

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The beautiful 'irony': By giving the brothers the opportunity to redeem themselves, it turned out that Yehuda emerged as a true Baal Teshuva, and he earns the kingship that Yosef was giving up - the kingship that Yehudah among others had falsely accused him of trying to usurp.

As a tsadik and a baa'al tshuva, Yosef is an authentic role model for everyone, which is one of the reasons the story is important enough to be told in such detail over so many pages in the Torah.

Conclusion:

May we all merit to see inside our hearts to know our true motivations (not as the brothers) , and face the great challenge of judging others favorably (not as Joseph initially, and not as the brothers), thereby truly bringing forward the redemption of history.

And when inevitably we sometimes fail, because we are human, may we be blessed to find the courage to take correct action to do our best to fix what we broke, as the brothers did, and as did Joseph, the tzadik.

A human is perfect, or can be: not by never failing, which is impossible, but rather what makes a human PERFECT and HOLY is.... striving, and fixing themselves, changing for the better, and making sure to take responsibility for actions taken, as Joseph the tadik did.

If we cause damage, we should have the moral courage to not run, not to hide, not (just) to pray for forgiveness, not to punish ourselves, but to labor to undertake the efforts needed to fix the damage, or to replace the broken item - and how much moreso if we hurt the career or life or relationships or feelings of another human being, how careful we should be not just to feel badly, not just to apologize, but to actually help fix what we broke, and even to help someone who hurt us to fix what they broke in us! - and by doing so we can move closer to self-perfection and holiness.

Why Joseph did not contact his father for so many years, and why he needed Benjamin near him.

To read this 1/2 page mini-article: click on this 'title', or on the "arrowhead" -->

Or read it in the document version to the side

Joseph tells his brothers that they must bring their younger brother to him and only then will they all be free and live. Why did he insist on this?

Answer: it's all about the Benjamin

1) Yosef feared for Binyamin’s safety if he remained at home: The brothers reveal [42:13] that Binyamin has a special relationship with their father (Yakov). Yosef’s actions were meant to guarantee that the brothers could not harm Binyamin by making it clear that they couldn't get food if they didn’t have Binyamin with them.

2) True repentance (teshuva) is when one is in the same situation and acts differently than the first time. After making sure Benjamin was safe with him, Joseph crafted the scenario with the brothers in Egypt to test whether they had repented for their act of selling him, ie whether they were willing to protect Benjamin even at the cost of their own lives: Joseph's self-negation gave them the opportunity to prove themselves, to do complete tshuva.

Why Did Joseph Not Reveal Himself to his family earlier?

There was no way he could know that Jacob was not involved in his banishment, until he heard the brothers discussing their father's grief at Yosef's disappearance.
After he heard this, he still couldn't reveal himself: he heard that they didn’t yet realize what an injustice they had done - they only were sorry they had not had mercy on him, not that they thought they were wrong altogther.

So he did not want to reveal their crime to Yakov before they had a chance to do teshuva.( If he’d contact his father Yakov and tell him what had transpired, likely the result would have been the complete banishment of the brothers who had been involved.

Miketz from new website

Did Yakov eventually know about the sale of Yosef?

including: How Joseph saved the Jewish People

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The central importance of the ambiguity:

How Joseph saved the Jewish People

The brothers had thought that Joseph should be cast out as Yishmael had in the first generation, Esav in the second (and now Yosef in the third). But in fact it was THEM who were to be cast out for their deed!

And it was this irony that Joseph labored to prevent by making sure that Jacob would never have clarity about what had happened, ie in order that Jacob not cast out the brothers for their terrible deed. In this way Joseph brings the "casting out" theme in Genesis to a conclusion, making the 3rd generaiton the first one where all siblings make it to the finish line, so that the Jewish People have their beginning, and can be known as 'Bney Yisroel' without the ambiguity that would result if they were known as Bney Avraham or Bney Yitschak (ie the could not be called Bney Yisroel if some of Yisroel's chuldren were cast out and became a different nation).

The Torah is very unclear about what Jacob knew, and ambiguity about such a central aspect of the story is itself a story. To understand the issue, let's start with:

Placing ourselves in the heads of the Brothers

What could it mean to the brothers that the viceroy was asking them to bring their youngest brother – what logic was there in this request?

Answer: The Torah tells us (42:21-22) that after hearing this request, Joseph’s brothers say amongst themselves: “This is all happening to us because we didn’t listen to our brother when he pleaded with us”. Given that they realized that this was all happening as a punishment for selling Joseph, obviously they understood that it was God, and not the viceroy, who was punishing them. So, clearly: God was directing the actions of the viceroy, and therefore the reasons the viceroy had for doing what he did were not even relevant to the brothers.

This was reflected later in Joseph’s telling them basically the same was true regarding them themselves: after Joseph revealed his identity and the brothrs feared his retribution, he calmed them by absolving them of their heinous deed, by telling them that God was directing their actions, and therefore the reasons they had for doing what they had done were not even relevant.

2) The brothers considered the whole scenario to be staged by God as punishment for their treatment of Yosef. However, when they realized that it was Yosef who was staging it, they could lose confidence that the whole thing was God’s actions! So when Joseph saw that they understood that the divine level was operative in the events Yosef reassuring them that he too sees the whole as the enactment of divine decrees, the hand of God acting via their hands.

[Putting ourselves in the heads of the brothers: When they realized that this was Yosef, they must have realized that whatever they had said amongst each other nearby him was understood by him, and so Yosef would know about their conversation and conclusion that they considered it all as a punishment for having sold him, and so they realized that his words were related to what they had just said.]

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Wouldn't Binyamin tell Yakov?!

'If You Knew What I Knew that you knew about what I know….'

Putting ourselves in the head of Binyamin

Imagine Binyamin's shock when he hears his brothers talking amongst themselves:

So this was the solution to the mystery of his beloved brothers disappearance!
And not only had they abducted and sold Joseph, but they had deceived Yakov all these years, causing him such deep long-lasting grief!
And he also must have realized that his brother might still be alive as a slave somewhere in Egypt! (So he must have resolved to look for Yosef.)
He must also have been determined to tell Yakov what had happened.

The mission of searching for Joseph proved uneccesary, but - assuming that in fact he didn't tell Yakov - why didn't he?

First step:

Putting ourselves in the mind of Yakov:

Jacob knew how the viceroy had treated the brothers, but when if at all did he realize that the viceroy who had done this was Joseph? It's interesting that the brothers don't say this to Jacob explicitly, they do NOT say "the guy who played with us was Joseph", only that "Joseph is alive and is powerful in Egypt'. For all Yakov would know, Joseph had saved them from the evil viceroy. So this is the beginning of the ambiguity.

Putting ourselves in the minds of the brothers:

The brothers say that they are being punished for not having had compassion when their brother was begging them for mercy when being cast into the pit. But surely they did not think that the veceroy knew of this and was doing it fo that reason! And they did not yet knw it was Yosef. So what could they mean? The answer obviously is that God is punishing them for this. But what then did they think was the viceroy;s motive?

If there is a natural calamity or osme random accident, one can say it is God's action. But here a highly intellient person - the brilliant viceroy of Egypt who had saved civilization - was acting in a way that obviously seemed very reasonable to him. What was the reason for that in the viceroy's mind? Shouldn't they try to figure it out and deal with that misunderstanding?

The fact that they effectively say that it is from God means that they felt it was not important or relevant or helpful for them to try to understand the motives the viceroy of Egypt had for his actions, since understood that it was all in any case God's actions not really the viceroy's.

Why Yosef is specifically a"tzadik", but also a ba'al tshuva

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Joseph's subtle message, and the complex reasoning underlying it

The calming statement that it is all from God was meant also a message to Binyamin: effectively telling him: "DO NOT TELL OUR FATHER ABOUT THIS. It was all arranged by God. They are not to blame."

Joseph communicated to Benjamin and to the brothers his desire to keep Jacob unsure about what had happened, giving his brothers permission to not admit it to their father, and ordering his younger brother Benjamin to keep it a secret.

Joseph was able via the implication of his words to them to subtly explain the reasoning or justification for this non-dsiclosure: Just as the brothers felt it was not important for them to try to understand the motives the viceroy of Egypt had for his actions once they understood that it was all in any case God's actions not really the viceroy's, so too it should not be important for Yakov to try to understand how it came about that Yosef's coat of many colors was covered with blood and he ended up in Egypt etc.

And so Yosef's message to Binyamin is that he is not required to tell Yakov, and should not do so.

In a way one can see this as the divine reward to the brothers for their realization that it was from God, and was a punishment for (some aspect of) their actions toward Joseph, and also a s Joseph's acceptance of that understanding as sufficient grounds for their non-exclusion form the Jewish people.

Joseph as a tzadik AND ba'al teshuva

When we come to read the Joseph saga after already knowing its end, knowing how great Joseph was, it is disturbing to read the Torah's statement at the very beginning of its introduction about him to the effect that Yosef brought to his father Yaakov dibah ra'a about his brothers - true information about their misdeeds which cast them in a very bad light .

And it is clear in retrospect that this is what led his brothers to hate him and then to be jealous about the coat he received.

It is amazing that Joseph was able to do true teshuva - by being in the same situation and acting differently: he knew of a true terrible sin the brothers had committed - not only against him himself, selling him as a slave, but rather the horrible sin of fooling Yaakov their father and causing him terrible grief for many years - but did NOT tell him!

Yosef also performed another type of true tshuva: he was arrogant in the telling of his dreams, and this helped cause his brothers to have the wrong interpretation of his intent. And now he redeemed that too. He could have brought about the brothers' banishment and thus would have been effectively transformed into the 'oldest' (as happened with Yitschok vs Yishmael and Yakov vs Esav), the true inheritor of Yaakov, with his descendants being the kings of Israel. But he gave all that up.

The brothers had accused him of thinking he would be their king and they would have ot bow to him. It was a false interpretation, but ironically not only did it come true that they bowed to him as king but he could really have become the jewish king, and gave it up, for them!

(See later discussions about this event being part of the root of mashiach ben yosef and ben david, and see earlier discussion about Lavan etc in this regard.)

Yosef overcame what for most people would be valid righteous indignation and gave his brothers the opportunity to do teshuva for what they did to him. (What they would or would not do as teshuva for what they did to their father was the business of them and their father, Yosef could not achieve that). By overcoming any deisire for retribution, and by acting differently in the same circumstances by NOT TELLING HIS FATHER "BAD TRUE TALES" he proved himself to be a true tzadik, and a perfect ba'al teshuva at the same time, thereby also giving the opportunity for Yehuda to redeem himself and emerge as a true Baal Teshuva, and take the kighship that Yosef was offering him - the kingship that yehudah among others had falsely accused him of trying to usurp - truly a tsadik and a baa'al tshuva.

And a role model for everyone, which s one of the reasons the story is important enough to be told in such detail over so many pages in the chumash.

Why the "two years"?

The Importance of Forgetting, and of Timing

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Several Questions:

1) Pharaoh’s birthday was coming up and the birthdays of a King is a time for amnesties, and for judgement. Indeed one Minister was killed, the other freed. Why wasn't Joseph, prisoner in the same cell, freed (or killed) as well?

He had been very successful, he could have been given some other job, and helped the Egyptian economy. Surely God could have arranged this in a way that seemed very natural...

2) Of what benefit was it to either of the Ministers that Yosef correctly interpreted their dreams - why would Joseph expect that the freed Minister would bother to help him?

(Had Joseph's interpretation immediately been known to be correct, the minister to be freed would have great relief and be grateful, but of course they did know whether the predicted freeing would in fact occur until three days later when it actually happened, so the prediciton/interpretation was of no use.)

4) It may be that generally half of the prisoners were pardoned and half executed, so there is a 50-50 chance given two people to guess correctly - to claim that it was divine dream-interpretation as Joseph did seemed a bit exaggerated, why did he expect them to accept this?

Two related questions: the Rabbis give an answer, but we'll adapt it in a different way:

5) Why did God allow the Minister who was freed to forget Joseph's request to tell Pharaoh about him?

Explanation: The passage "And a man found him wandering in the field" tells us that it was important to God's plan for Joseph to find his brothers, leading to the sale, and sending the prophetic dreams to Joseph, to the Ministers and to Pharaoh was clearly part of the plan and involved implanted mental activity, so we cannot assume that the forgetting (a mental activity) was just natural - or if it was, that there was no way to overcome it.

6) Why was it important to God's plan that two years elapse before Pharaoh's dream?

Explanation: Even if the minister forgot, why would God wait so long before giving Pharaoh the dreams? Even if the divine plan for civilization was to have the famine at a certain specific time, two years after the ministers' dreams, surely Joseph could have been free during that interval.

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Answers:

At the time of the Minister's dream three days prior to the birthday, Pharaoh himself probably did not even yet know what he would decide in the matter of his imprisoned ministers, yet they had the dream then and Yosef correctly interpreted it. Had the freed Minister immediately told Pharaoh of this:

a) why would it be relevant to tell Pharaoh that someone had predicted it?

b) what arrogance it would have seemed to Pharaoh for Joseph, a prisoner-slave, to claim to have known what Pharaoh himself was going to decide in the matter of punishing or forgiving his ministers when Pharaoh himself probably did not even yet know what he would decide.would be insolent, and perhaps Joseph would have been executed for this impudence. It was after all not a new phenomenon for Joseph to be unaware of the arrogance that others attributed to his actions, even when his motives were pure.

Therefore to ensure that the minister not mention anything about the dream to Pharaoh, God intervened making the minister “forget”.

However, later on when Pharaoh later had his own dreams and sought an interpreter, it was exactly the appropriate time to be told about Joseph.

Even moreso: Pharaoh clearly believed that he had been sent this dream in order for it to convey a message, and it made sense that there would also be someone who was to interpret the dream for him and make them message clear; and so rather than seeming bring perceived as arrogant, Joseph was understood as being heaven-sent. Not merely that he knew how to interpret dreams, but more so, that he was able to know what Pharaoh himself was going to do, and probably know it even before Pharaoh himself did! What more appropriate person to interpret correctly Pharaoh’s own dreams!

Remembering vs forgetting

According to Tradition, when the Torah says “And God remembered” the meaning is not that God had formerly ‘forgot’ (!) but rather that God was now going to act on something that was intended to happen, usually something that God had promised would happen. This is indeed the active meaning of ‘to remember’: when someone asks “please remember to help me” they are not requesting that the other simply mentally retrieve the memory of promising to help - they mean that the person should actually act on the promise. And so when we are told that the minister “did not remember” perhaps the meaning is that he did not act on Joseph’s request, not that he actually forgot to do so.

There is an expression: “remember me to so-and-so” meaning send my regards to them, or speak of me to them. If such an idiom existed in the language spoken there then “the minister did not remember him” would in that context mean simply the fact that for whatever reason he didn’t mention Joseph to Pharaoh.

When the minister eventually does indeed act, he says to Pharaoh [41:9] “I remind you of my misdeeds, when I was in jail … ” “es chato’ai ani mazkir hayom” using the same term “zachor” as in the phrase [40:23] “the minister did not remember” “ve loh zachar”.

We need not therefore interpret “the minister did not remember him” as the minister forgetting Joseph, but rather it can be interpreted as meaning “he did not (want to) remind Pharaoh of that period” (when he had been jailed by Pharaoh)[1].

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FROM HERE ON: ELIMINATE DUPLICATION

Hebes in DeNile: Joseph was introduced to Pharaoh as “an Ivri (‘Hebrew’?) lad” Why We Are Called “Hebrews” The Jewish People were called the “Hebrews” from the word “Ivri”, meaning ‘from across the river’, which is used for Abraham, who was called “Abram the Ivri” [14:13].
∙€€€€€€€ The Torah implies the possibility that the brothers did not want Joseph to hear them speak amongst themselves about this matter: why would they be concerned? What interest would the viceroy have in their family feud?Answer: From their perspective, the viceroy was a fellow Ivri who had been a slave, and who reached his position of prominence because he was a great dream interpreter: if he would find out that they had sold their brother Joseph, an Ivri , as a slave to Egypt as a result of his dreams, they would certainly alienate him! Who’s an Ivri?If Abraham was an Ivri then in a tribal sociaty where the father is all-important, the descendants of Abraham’s firstborn son Yishmael would be Ivrim and certainly the descendants of Isaac's son Esav, the twin of Jacob, ie having the same father AND mother would be as well. Thus even if Ivrim means descendant sof Abraham, there were likely various tribes, many many people, known as Ivrim by the time Joseph was sold.However 'Ivri' most likely also included non-Abrahamic peoples.In telling Pharaoh about Joseph, the minister mentioned that Joseph was an “Ivri”. Presumably it was common knowledge that the prisoner who had been made viceroy was an Ivri, and therefore this was likely known via rumor to the brothers who had so much contact with him. (Perhaps they would even suspect this due to his complexion, which would have been different from that of the Egyptians and other nationalities there.) In any case, being an Ivri slave in Egypt was perhaps so common that even if the brothers knew that Joseph was an Ivri ex-slave it did not make them suspect that this was their brother r[60].Also: from the subtle seating arrangement mentioned in [43:32] they clearly saw confirmation that though they were being respectful of Joseph, he was an Ivri as they were.[The Protocols of the Elders of Ivri: Egyptian Anti-Ivri’ism: [We are told later that the Egyptians could not bear to eat bead with the ‘Ivrim’ [43:32] and Joseph was seated separately from the Egyptians!].So it would certainly seem that the fact of Joseph being an Ivri was not considered surprising, and thus that there were many peoples who were Ivrim, and that being an Ivri slave in Egypt was so common that even if they knew that the viceroy was an Ivri ex-slave it did not make them suspect that this was their brother[4].The Torah implies the possibility that the brothers did not want Joseph to hear them speak amongst themselves about this matter: why would they be concerned? What interest would the viceroy have in their family feud?Answer: From their perspective, the viceroy was a fellow Ivri who had been a slave, and who reached his position of prominence because he was a great dream interpreter: if he would find out that they had sold their brother Joseph, an Ivri , as a slave to Egypt as a result of his dreams, they would certainly alienate him!......................................The importance of forgettingThe minister described him as “a lad, a Hebrew, a slave”, and so this was presumably common knowledge in Egpyt. However Yosef perhaps also had revealed to the minister that his brothers had sold him, as part of his case to pharaoh indicating his innocence. if so, this was informaiton which would become common knoowledge, adn make it impossibel for Yosef to achive his goal of allowing te borthers to redeem themselves via self-sacrifice for Binaymin. So it wa simportant that enough time pass for the minister to not have this detail firmly in mind when presenting yosef to pharaoh.The fact of being an Ivri was too generic to identify Yosef (see explanaiton below) but the idea that his brothers sold him as a slave was dangerous information, and would damage Yosef's effort to give his brothers the opportunity to do teshuva, and so this had to be kept form common knowledge and so the minster who presumably knew this had to have itme to forget that detail or just not bother to tell it....

מה היה משמעות "אֶרֶץ הָעִבְרִים" למיצרים?

: Wiki "עברים"

Life's the pits.

Wow, what an inspiration!

The Torah uses the same two letter word 'br' ("bor") for the 'pit' Yosef was thrown into (וַיַּשְׁלִכוּ אֹתוֹ, הַבֹּרָה) and the 'grain/food' the brothers bought from Joseph in Egypt ( וַיֵּרְדוּ אֲחֵי-יוֹסֵף, עֲשָׂרָה, לִשְׁבֹּר בָּר).

[technically, it is perhaps 'that which was bought', which in this case is food]

The Torah stresses there was no water in the pit, implying that there was certainly nothing to eat - and then right after they threw him in we are told that the brothers sat to eat bread. So the irony of the parallel above is clear - they throw him into a foodless-pit ('bor') and sit to eat, and years later they are all starving and need to get food from him ("lishbor bor").

Maybe the parallel also hints at a connection: while worrying about eventual starvation in the pit he fantasized about a pit full of food, and this experience was so traumatic that it stayed in his mind and arose exactly when needed to advise Pharaoh after his dream about storing the food (probably in above-ground equivalents of pits, ie silos/granaries). So this is an added irony, that they throw him into a pit to show that his dreams will never materialize, and in the end it is the inspiration for the idea which will make him great and which they will depend on to stay alive.

Moral: life in the pits, starving, can serve as inspiration for a real-estate startup with an interesting business model which ended up owning all of Egypt.

side-point: 1/2 page

The brothers sold Yosef to their cousins, the Yishmaelites!

Weren't they embarrased, or afraid it would get back to Yaakov?

Wouldn't Yosef be able to offer a large sum of money as ransom if they brought him back home?

Answer:

1) It was after a family tradition that one of the siblings was cast out...

2) Yosef didn't know whether Yakov was part of the plot against him...

3) Too long had passed for them to know each other or care they were related. (See calculation below.)

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Calculation:

בן כמה היה יצחק, ישמעאל, במכירת יוסף

Avraham was born in 1948, so Yitschak was born in 2048. Yishmael was 13 years older, so he was born in 2035

Yosef was born when Yakov was 91, so Yosef was sold when Yaakov was 108, so the year was 2216 . Which was 181 years after Yishmael was born. So there were many generations of descendants. Like 1840 CE to the present.

Imagine two brothers who were estranged, the older was born in 1840 and was banished from home, went elsewhere, established a very large family which became a whole tribe. There is no chance that the descendants of the two brothers would recognize each other, or maybe even know or care that they were distant relatives, especially since they were not even of the same tribe or nation anymore.

[See http://tora.us.fm/tnk1/tora/brejit/tarikim.html for dates in chumash]

THEMES OF DREAMS

Several related mini-articles for readers interested in: 1. dream-interpretation; 2. what theology the Egyptians learned from Joseph.

Two Dreams or One Dream Twice Dreamt?

The dreams of course were not identical. Nevertheless the way in which they were the same, and in which they differed, offered clues to their interpretation: the essential elements are those which repeat: seven fat/seven lean/the lean swallowing the fat; while the elements which appear in one dream and not the other represent examples: cows from the Nile/wheat in a field.

In this way, having two dreams varying in the details therefore helped in their interpretation.

Incorrect Predictions are the Sign of a Great Prophet

Most ordinary dreams are passive in that they have no direct effect on the future. Even a dream which is prophetic in that it predicts the future, like the dreams of the ministers, can be passive in that it has no direct effect on the future, it simply foretells what it will be.

Jonah (of Jonah and the whale) prophesied destruction, but it didn’t occur. And the fact that his prophecy was not fulfilled (in the literal sense) indicates that he was the most successful prophet - his message of predicted catastrophe was itself the catalyst designed to prevent the actualization of that very ‘prediction’.

It’s interesting to see that the dreams of Joseph, of the ministers, and of Pharaoh had varying degrees of such passive prediction and catalystic prevention.

a. Joseph’s dreams (wheat & stars bowing) were predictive, but they were not fully passive, since the dreams had an effect, albeit in a more subtle sense: by being retold, they affected the brothers who then changed the course of events.

b. The dreams of the ministers seemed to be simple predictions but perhaps the condemned minister should have used his remaining time beneficially; even if the fact of the execution could not be changed, the minister could have communicated with his family and prepared for his imminent death. In any case however, even if for the dreamer, the minister, the dream was passive-predictive, the dream was nevertheless 'active' in the sense that it led to their mood being such that Joseph asked, and then the interpretation he gave had the eventual effect of bringing Yosef to the attention of Pharaoh.

c. Pharaoh’s dream even if correctly interpreted could have been taken as a passive prophecy of the future, for example that there would be a famine so dire that everyone would die. However as one can see from Joseph’s attitude, he understood it as a message meant to initiate steps to deal with the projected future famine, so that its consequences would NOT be dire. The fact of the famine could not be changed, that aspect of the dream was passive predictive, but Joseph taught them that the dream as a whole was active, ie on the basis of the dream, a human being acting with God's help could make preparations to alleviate the effects it predicted. [The skinny cows swallowing the fat cows was a correct prediction of the fact that the famine was so great, and it was a prediction of what would have been the lot of the people if no preparation had been made, but it was mainly meant as catalystic prevention.]

It was NOT possible for Yosef to do something to change the decree of famine, but it WAS possible for him to overcome its negative effect.

1) This is similar to the way that Mordechai and Esther were able to overcome the bad effect of the Haman-instigated King's decree (by obtaining from the King the right of self-defense) but NOT to cancel the King's decree itself (ie the decree stating that the Hamanites had the right to [try to] kill the Jews).

2) When Pharaoh recounts the dreams he tells Joseph that when the fat cows were swallowed by the thin ones “it was not noticeable that they were swallowed and the appearance of the thin ones was as bad as it was beforehand”[41:21] however the Torah does not tell us this when it recounts the dream itself [41:5-7] – it would therefore seem that this element was simply Pharaoh’s perception; it was related to Joseph in recounting the dream, but was not part of the dream itself, nor perhaps even part of Pharaoh’s perception at the time of dreaming.

Although dream interpretations set the reality of the dream, and here Pharaoh is providing some element of interpretation, nevertheless it was Joseph who was being asked to do the interpreting, and so the reality-setting power was up to him.

Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's perception (ie, the famine would be so bad no-one would know the years of plenty had occured), but did not include this in his interpretation of the dream iteself, ie this subjective element added by Pharaoh was something that was partly changeable: while Joseph was not able to prevent the seven lean years from arriving or swallowing the fat years, nor was he able now after Pharaoh’s interpretation to prevent the famine years from removing the actual plenty, he WAS able to prevent the reality from being determining by Pharaoh's perception - ie he was able to PREVENT the lack of food being so bad that there would be no way to tell that there had been years of plenty beforehand, ie by setting up stores of food there now WAS a way to see that there had been years of plenty.

In this sense Joseph’s suggestion of how to deal with the famine was part of the interpretation of the dream - interpreting it not as a prediction of catastrophe but rather as a message meant to help people avoid catastrophe, and so the dream-realization took this more positive path.

And, he was demonstrating that humans aided by God had the power to overcome "Fate" (within the bounds created by their own freely-willed actions and words).

...

Jewish Influence on the Religion of Egypt

Considering that Egypt was the major scientific, cultural and religious power of its time, and Joseph is conversing with its leader the Pharaoh, his dream interpretation constitutes an event of great significance - a religious teaching of the first order. Rather than seeing events as preordained, fated to occur, Joseph in his management of the catastrophe shows all of Egypt, and all of civilaization around them, how humanity can rise above fate in a proactive manner.

This is similar to the reason that God brought the plagues on Egypt at the conclusion of this whole saga of the Jewish people in Egypt - the Torah tells us that God says it is in order to show to all Egyptians the existence and power of God, so that they not worship idolatry. And here in our case we have a similar demonstration of the incorrectness of the idolatrous notion of "Fate" - ie the novel teaching that humans acting with God's guidance can overcome Fate and the powers of Nature.

Joseph’s religious influence: without apology to astrology

At the mundane level, Joseph impressed his contemporaries in being able to profitably manage the series of years of plenty and famine to overcome the effect of the multi-season drought and thus to circumvent the Fated end of civilization. However, what Joseph taught Pharaoh and astute observers was a metaphysical lesson in itself - that there is a Power beyond nature, ie above the level usually attributed to idolatrous deities, that it interacts with humans, and is concerned with their welfare.

The creation account revealed later on at Sinai, soon after exiting Egypt and its pagan influence, tells us that the sun moon and stars are not just created by God but tha they are simply a clock, to tell us when the seasons and holidays occur, they are NOT in themselves Powers. And similarly, the message of Joseph's second dream is that by attaching to the divine in us (Joseph explicitly credits God with the ‘pitaron’) we can overcome “Fate”, symbolized by the sun, moon and stars (which includes the planets). And so by the end of the 7 years of famine, perspicacious Egyptians were able to see that subservience to the stars is idolatry, determinism and denial of free will , whereas in contrast the spiritual view is that humans have free willed choice, moral responsibility, and can with divine assistance overcome alleged “Fate”.

A central conclusion: Human destiny is in human hands, when we are divinely-connected we operate beyond the causality level referred to in Astrology.

My Magic Cup overflows with.... questions.

And you can see the future in it, but it’s the same as the past

Joseph hints to the brothers that he used his special cup to divine their ages, implying that it has magical properties [44:5].

This is reminiscent of the story with his mother Rachel who stole her father’s magic item. Her father Lavan runs after Yakov and his family to retrieve it, and Yakov said “Let the one who stole it die” [and later Rachel died though she remained undiscovered at the time]. In direct parallel Joseph’s men run after Yakov’s sons to retrieve the allegedly stolen magical item, and the the brothers say about the magic cup of Rachel’s son Joseph: “Let the one who stole it die” and it turns out that the “thief” is Benjamin, the other son of Rachel[5].

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This Cup Overfloweth ….. with Questions

1. The brothers knew that on the previous occasion their coins were mysteriously reinserted in their bags, and this caused them great anxiety all the time they were home so why did they not check their bags before leaving to ensure that something like this didn’t happen again?

Answer: All the brothers had their money returned, so perhaps they assumed that if something similar would occur it would involve all of them, and so one checked for all, but since it was not Benjamin who checked they didn’t find anything suspicious and so they all assumed everything was ok, for everyone.

2. When Joseph’s servants arrived to search them for the ‘missing’ cup, they protested to the searchers that they could not possibly have taken the cup, after all, they said, “when we found money in our bags we returned it later, and anyways how could we have had the chutzpah to steal the viceroy’s cup while at dinner with him!?” So after the cup was found in Benjamin’s bag why did they not similarly try to proclaim their innocence?!

Answer: From their words when they are being asked to bring Benjamin we see that the brothers realize that they are being punished for what they did to Joseph – this is an amazing thing, for there was certainly no open connection to him in the story. But given that they did realize this, they saw no purpose in trying to avoid their fate, their punishment. This is similar to the famous High-Holyday liturgical compilation regarding the Roman execution of ten leading Rabbis (the “asarah harugei malchut” piyut on Yamim No’ra’im)[6]: they accept that they are being punished by God and don’t argue[7].

3. Did the brothers actually suspect Benjamin of having taken the cup?

The brothers accept that they are being punished for having sold Joseph and don’t even address the question of who actually took it, whether or not Benjamin is guilty, and if not, who placed it in his bag and why. [8]

The reason for the story of the finding of the money in the bags

The Torah tells us that one brother opened his bags on the way and found the money. It wasn't until they returned that the others discovered it in their own bag.

Why didn't the other brothers suspect him of theft? Maybe because he told them about it. But wasn't HE afraid they'd suspect him of theft?

The fact that he was sure they would trust him, and that they indeed did, tells us about their cohesiveness, which was perhapss something they had learned from their action regarding yosef.

However, if they found it in one bag, why would they not all then search their OWN bags to see whether theirs too had the money returned?

Perhaps they thought it was simply an error - however if so they would not have been frightened, an error like that would not have been noted by the Egyptians. The fact that they were frightened means they considered it ominous, e that the Egyptians would realize it. But if so, why didn;t they check their own bags? Maybe they DID have a bit of suspicion that osmehow that one borther had behave din a certian negative way, and didnot think to check themselves too.

This is a classic symptom of humanity, we see the faults of others but even if they are meant to mirror our own faults, we do not realize it is a mirror.

And, had they thought to search for it each on their own, they would have been spared this awful shock in the presence of their father.

Also: It seems from the story that the brothers did not tell their father of the 'money in the sack incident', and so when they discovered it in their own sacks they were with their father, who saw it. Perhas he was not told of the earlier discovery in the sack of one of them, but likely he heard them say "oh no it's in my sack too" which would have alerted him about the earlier incident. This would hint to him that they did not always tell him everything.

Content of this page as a file

Miketz from new website

book of the macabbes, soldiers wer killed in battle, bodies as to be buried were fund that wore idoatry under their cloak . Graves & Patai say was terafim!

(נד) ויהי בהפשיטם את בגדיהם, וימצאו על כל חלל מתחת למדו מפסילי גילולי יבנה אשר חרם הם בישראל, וידע כל העם על מה נפלו בחרב אויביהם.

https://www.daat.ac.il/daat/hasfarim/hashmonaim-b-2.htm#12

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והתרפים חוזרים ומופיעים כאשר ישראל נכנסו לארץ. בסוף ספר שופטים מופיע סיפורו של מיכה, שעשה לו אפוד ותרפים. ורמב"ן ממשיך להסביר את התרפים האלה, שהם כבר על רקע .

...

Corrections for FB post:

I wrote 'cup' re Lavan but I should write trafim.
Add re elaborate re running after them in a chase scene like lavan, clearly unnecessary and deliberately crafted to be the same
I wrote that Yosef knew B knew... but I need to insert that all was said in the presence of Joseph (with interpreter between them) so J heard the brothers...
Perhaps add some re the midrashim below.
Make the point that different commentators/sources have conflicting opinions, and so my path even if conflicting is not necessarily wrong just because it conflicts with some.

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It's interesting that the parallels to the megillah are in this as well - the seudah itsel, and even the quesiotn of why make two seudos in megillah and why make the seudah here.

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Question: Does it fit in the pshat to say that at the meal Yosef gave a hint to Binyamin of his identity, eg in order to allay his fears during the events which would follow, and specifically via the cup?

All the below is derected primarily at trying to figure out the above.

Without making a meal for them he could have just planted the money again and taken them all as slaves or just B etc, or just plant money or gold or whatever in B's sack - why bother making a dinner? It would seem that it was all as preparation for the whole idea of the goblet etc. So why the goblet?

Why make such an issue of it being for divination? Maybe because then it would be reasnable for someone to try to steal it.

And they on the one hand were honest and returned the money so it is senseless to think they would not steal money agian, but a magic item is something lse. And in any case Yosef dismissed theotion that he even thought they had stolen the money so it wasn;t that their returning it made an impression on him or that he would give them benefit of the doubt about anyhting else.?

...

The terafim could speak, so maybe it is appropriate for a cup which is used by the nouth of the magician, and then maybe when the cup speaks as he lifts it to his lips it osunds like he is making the prophecy (maybe in fact it was done this way to begin with, ie it was a subcconscious ventriloquoy)

Ibn Ezra? asks why Rachel didn;t throw them away as soon as they were safely away? The implication could be that she wanted to keep them but my inteprretation is that maybe rachel didnt want the trafim themselves to be a gps and alarm telling lavan they had escaped and also enabling tracking them, so she sat on them while niddah which cancelled their powers! And that's why the chumash stresses that lavan sdid not immediately find out tha thtye had run away, it took three or so days!

Baalei hatosfos say (I didn;t see this in the actual sourc,e only quoted somewhere)

"היא ישבה עליהם, כדי שלא יצעקו,"!!

Could this 'face' be a reference to the trafim!? וַיַּ֥רְא יַעֲקֹ֖ב אֶת־פְּנֵ֣י לָבָ֑ן וְהִנֵּ֥ה אֵינֶ֛נּוּ עִמּ֖וֹ כִּתְמ֥וֹל שִׁלְשֽׁוֹם׃

וַיֹּ֣אמֶר לָהֶ֗ן רֹאֶ֤ה אָנֹכִי֙ אֶת־פְּנֵ֣י אֲבִיכֶ֔ן כִּֽי־אֵינֶ֥נּוּ אֵלַ֖י כִּתְמֹ֣ל שִׁלְשֹׁ֑ם וֵֽאלֹהֵ֣י אָבִ֔י הָיָ֖ה עִמָּדִֽי׃

SO YAAKOV IS CONTRASTING HIS gOD WITH THE TRAFIM OF THEIR FATHER,,, AND THIS IS WHAT LED rACHEL TO TAKE THEM!

AND MAYBE THE DAUGHTERS FELT THAT THE TRAFIM BELONGED TO THEM SO THEY COULD TAKE IT: כִּ֣י כָל־הָעֹ֗שֶׁר אֲשֶׁ֨ר הִצִּ֤יל אֱלֹהִים֙ מֵֽאָבִ֔ינוּ לָ֥נוּ ה֖וּא וּלְבָנֵ֑ינוּ וְעַתָּ֗ה כֹּל֩ אֲשֶׁ֨ר אָמַ֧ר אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֵלֶ֖יךָ עֲשֵֽׂה

AND maybe tHIS USE OF 'GANAV' EXPLAINS THE USAGE in the next psukim?

וַיִּגְנֹ֣ב יַעֲקֹ֔ב אֶת־לֵ֥ב לָבָ֖ן הָאֲרַמִּ֑י עַל־בְּלִי֙ הִגִּ֣יד ל֔וֹ כִּ֥י בֹרֵ֖חַ הֽוּא׃

Lavan is visited by Hashem, so he sees the real God, and he sees he has the abolity to be in communication with the real God, so this is more than the trafim!

וַיָּבֹ֧א אֱלֹהִ֛ים אֶל־לָבָ֥ן הָאֲרַמִּ֖י בַּחֲלֹ֣ם הַלָּ֑יְלָה וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֗וֹ הִשָּׁ֧מֶר לְךָ֛ פֶּן־תְּדַבֵּ֥ר עִֽם־יַעֲקֹ֖ב מִטּ֥וֹב עַד־רָֽע׃ כה וַיַּשֵּׂ֥ג לָבָ֖ן אֶֽת־יַעֲקֹ֑ב וְיַעֲקֹ֗ב תָּקַ֤ע אֶֽת־אָהֳלוֹ֙ בָּהָ֔ר וְלָבָ֛ן תָּקַ֥ע אֶת־אֶחָ֖יו בְּהַ֥ר הַגִּלְעָֽד׃ כו וַיֹּ֤אמֶר לָבָן֙ לְיַעֲקֹ֔ב מֶ֣ה עָשִׂ֔יתָ וַתִּגְנֹ֖ב אֶת־לְבָבִ֑י וַתְּנַהֵג֙ אֶת־בְּנֹתַ֔י כִּשְׁבֻי֖וֹת חָֽרֶב׃ כז לָ֤מָּה נַחְבֵּ֙אתָ֙ לִבְרֹ֔חַ וַתִּגְנֹ֖ב אֹתִ֑י וְלֹא־הִגַּ֣דְתָּ לִּ֔י וָֽאֲשַׁלֵּחֲךָ֛ בְּשִׂמְחָ֥ה וּבְשִׁרִ֖ים בְּתֹ֥ף וּבְכִנּֽוֹר׃ כח וְלֹ֣א נְטַשְׁתַּ֔נִי לְנַשֵּׁ֥ק לְבָנַ֖י וְלִבְנֹתָ֑י עַתָּ֖ה הִסְכַּ֥לְתָּֽ עֲשֽׂוֹ׃ כט יֶשׁ־לְאֵ֣ל יָדִ֔י לַעֲשׂ֥וֹת עִמָּכֶ֖ם רָ֑ע וֵֽאלֹהֵ֨י אֲבִיכֶ֜ם אֶ֣מֶשׁ ׀ אָמַ֧ר אֵלַ֣י לֵאמֹ֗ר הִשָּׁ֧מֶר לְךָ֛ מִדַּבֵּ֥ר עִֽם־יַעֲקֹ֖ב מִטּ֥וֹב עַד־רָֽע׃ ל וְעַתָּה֙ הָלֹ֣ךְ הָלַ֔כְתָּ כִּֽי־נִכְסֹ֥ף נִכְסַ֖פְתָּה לְבֵ֣ית אָבִ֑יךָ לָ֥מָּה גָנַ֖בְתָּ אֶת־אֱלֹהָֽי׃

Maybe the cup was made from the trafim, as in the below:

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R Avraham Ibn Ezra writes that it had a face (or was in the shape of a human):https://xn--febl3a.co.il/929/31/%D7%90%D7%91%D7%9F%20%D7%A2%D7%96%D7%A8%D7%90

ולבן הלך לגזז את צאנו. שהיה ביד בניו רחוק שלשה ימים כאשר הוא כתוב על כן ויגד ללבן ביום השלישי התרפים. י''א שהוא כלי נחשת העשוי לדעת חלקי השעות ואחרים אמרו כי יש כח בחכמי המזלות לעשות צורה בשעות ידועות תדבר הצורה והעד שלהם כי התרפים דברו און. ופי' הפסוק איננו כן. והקרוב אלי שהתרפי' הם על צורת בני אדם והיא עשויה לקבל כח עליונים ולא אוכל לפרש. והעד שהתרפים כן. התרפים ששמה מיכל בת שאול במטה עד שחשבו שומרי הבית שהם דוד. והפסוק שאמר אין אפוד ותרפים. יש לו ב' פירושים האחד שאמר אין מלך ואין שר בישראל כי השם לא בחר מלך רק ממשפחת דוד על כן אמר בפסוק השני ובקשו את ה' אלהיהם ואין זבח ומצבה לע''ז. ואין אפוד שהיו עובדי הבעל עושים כדמות אפוד משה על כן אמר אפוד ולא אמר האפוד כמו הגישה האפוד. ואפוד ירד בידו. איננו אפוד שעשה משה ובמקומו אפרשנו בראיות גמורות אם גומר השם עלי. והפי' הב' שלא יעבדו השם ולא ע''ז. והנה התרפים קראם לבן אלהיו. ויש אומרים שרחל גנבתם לבטל עבודת כוכבי' מאביה ואילו היה כן למה הוליכה אותם עמה ולא טמנם בדרך. והקרוב שהיה לבן אביה יודע מזלות ופחדה שאביה יסתכל במזלות לדעת אי זה דרך ברחו

https://www.sefaria.org.il/sheets/109690.6?lang=he&with=all&lang2=he

רד"ק על בראשית ל״א:י״ט:ב׳

(ב) והתרפים הם כלי הנחשת שרואין בו שעות היום ויראו בו את העתידות ופעמים רבות יכזב, וכן אמר כי התרפים דברו און (זכריה י') ונקראו בלשון רבים לפי שהוא עשוי לוחות לוחות. והחכם ראב"ע כתב כי התרפים עשוים על צורת בן אדם והיא עשויה לקבל כח עליונים וגנבה אותם רחל כדי שלא יראה בהם אביה אנה הלכו; ויעקב לא ידע בזה הדבר כמו שאמר ולא ידע יעקב, כי אם היה יודע לא היה מניח אותה לקחת מבית אביה דבר שלא מדעתו כל שכן התרפים:

https://www.si.edu/es/object/divination-cup:nmafa_85-1-9

Nigeria: Yoruba sculptors carved several of the implements that diviner-priests (babalawo) used in the Ifa divination ritual to consult Orunmila, the god of wisdom. ...

Wood divination cup composed of an equestrian figure with a spear in its proper right hand, supporting a small bowl on its head.

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There are sources which say Yakov eventually knew of the trafim, and that they were given up to him, so all the brothers perhaps saw it:https://www.daat.ac.il/daat/kitveyet/sde_chem/kulana.htm

אנשי בית יעקב ודאי ליקטו אלהי נכר רבים בביזת שכם (בראשית ל"ד, כז-כט), ויתכן גם שהוציאו אתם פסילים שונים בעוזבם את פדן ארם. ברם ניתן לפרש שהביטוי "כל אלהי הנכר" בא במיוחד לרבות את התרפים שרחל לקחה מבית לבן. הדברים מפורשים בספר היובלות (ספר היובלים ל"א, א-ג) ובדברי יוספוס (קדמוניות היהודים, ספר כ"א, ב-ג), והובאו כמו כן במדרש שכל טוב (בראשית ל"ה, ב):

"ויתנו אל יעקב את כל אלהי הנכר אשר בידם - של עבדים שהסתירו מבית שכם, וגם התרפים שביד רחל".

ואם כך הוא הדבר, או אז הפסוקים מגלים-מסתירים מעמד קורע לב. מה עבר על אבינו יעקב באותו רגע שהגיע תורה של רחל, וניגשה אליו ומסרה לו את התרפים?

But I will go with the inteprretation that only Yosef and Binyamin knew, and this was a signalfrom Y to B.

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Why did Yosef make the meal for the brothers? Was it in preparation for the setup? For hint to Binyamin?

Chumash tells us that he impressed/astonished/perplexed them with his divination ability.

When the brothers are searched, Yosef's man (midrash: his son) told them that what was stolen was his divination cup. No mention of this cup is made in the chumash story of the meal itself, but it is stressed that they drank (alcohol) with him.

The brothers are frightened when yosef reveals himself, but surely Binyamin wasn;t , he wasn;t par tof th kidnapping, and he would be joyous not afraid. So maybe the chumash is referring only to the others, and if so, then other aspect sof the story also are referring to all but Binyamoin.

It makes sense tha tthe theif would be taken elsewher,e and the rest of the b rothers separately, sisnce they were to be released. If so, how does this affect interpretation of the story?

When the brothers are brought to Yosef, he says to them : "וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם יוֹסֵף, מָה-הַמַּעֲשֶׂה הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר עֲשִׂיתֶם; הֲלוֹא יְדַעְתֶּם, כִּי-נַחֵשׁ יְנַחֵשׁ אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר כָּמֹנִי." . But if they took his instrument of divination, wouldn;t that mean he couldn;t do it? Or is he saying they should have realized he could do it even without the cup?

Midrash or commentator says Rachel took the trafim in order to prevent Lavan from tracking them, knowing where they were. But it didn;t work. So Lavan was able to find them even without the trafim! (or was there a gps in it?) So is Yosef referring to that event, ie just a slavan tracked yakov even though he didnt have the trafim (or he tracked the trafim!) then so too he could find them despite not having the cup 9or by tracking it!)

Midrash says the brothers beat binyamin and calle dhim theif son of theif, in reference to Rachel stealing the trphim, so they knew that she had taken it? How did they know? And so Binyamn did suffer, so did Yosef take this into account?

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Yosef could have sent his men to their hotel in the morning as they were leaving, why the high drama of sending his men to chase them etc, unless it was meant to re enact the lavan scenario.

The info re the cup bring for nachesh is only given when the chase is made so maybe they didn't know before so it wasn't a signal to Binyamin?

....

Lavan was actually chasing after them to stop them from escaping but was able to pretend it was because his trafim were stolen. In fact rachel according to midrash took the trafim to preven thim from finding them. The cas eof yosef was different and similar: he was chasing after them only to find the cup, bsupposedly, but actually he planted the cup so tha the could bvring them aall back with him, as lavan had wanted to do.

[In the case of lavan, he expected to find the trafim and then have an excuse to bring them all back as thiefs etc. But it didnt work out as he had planned, but the price was the deaht or Rachel at the brith of Binyamin.]

Interesting to think what was gogin on in yakov's mind, if noone had taken the trafim, then why did lavan run after them and then return empty handed with niether the trafim nor hs children and grandchildren? This is a case of ambiguity, we dont know what yakov knew or was thinking.... or Yakov assume it as God acting and he didnt need t think of the 'natural ' reasons for what was happening?

....

after Yaakov didn;t know which to disbelieve (the brothers statement that yosef had been kiiled by an anima, or their statement that Yosef was alive which implies they had lied to him about the killing), he accepted Yosaf's idea of ambiguity and eglah arufah, and decided to concentrate instead on the fact that Yosef was alive, without asking how and why and whom etc.

This is a great message: in addition to not speaking loshon hara, and being 'dan lekaf zchut', and ... there is also the notion introduced here of accepting ambiguity - if Yaakov had insisted on knowing what had happened, who did what to whom, he accepted Yosef's notion of not insisting on knowing, and this saved klal yisrael, ie the notion of bnei yisrael as all 12.

..

yosef who says 'lelokim pitronim' uses elokim 4 times in a few sentences when telling his brothers he doesnt want revenge beauseit is God's work and what ot say to yaakov.

...

In the chumash there's no mention of the cup during the meal, it is only mentioned by the men who came to search them, Yosef tells him they should say this to the brothers

ה הֲלוֹא זֶה, אֲשֶׁר יִשְׁתֶּה אֲדֹנִי בּוֹ, וְהוּא, נַחֵשׁ יְנַחֵשׁ בּוֹ; הֲרֵעֹתֶם, אֲשֶׁר עֲשִׂיתֶם.

5 Is not this it in which my lord drinketh, and whereby he indeed divineth? ye have done evil in so doing.'

ו וַיַּשִּׂגֵם; וַיְדַבֵּר אֲלֵהֶם, אֶת-הַדְּבָרִים הָאֵלֶּה.

https://www.sefaria.org.il/Midrash_Aggadah%2C_Genesis.43.7.1?lang=he

בראשית, מ״ג:ל״ג

הבכור כבכורתו. נטל הגביע והיה מקיש עליו, ואומר יהודה שהוא מלך ישב בראש, ראובן שהוא בכור ישב שני, וכן כולם, אני אין לי אם, והנער אין לו אם, נשב ביחד, לפיכך ויתמהו האנשים עליו:

בראשית, מ״ג:ל״ד

וישא משאות וגו' חמש ידות. אחד נתן לו יוסף. ב' נתנה לו אסנת. ג' נתן לו מנשה. ד' נתן לו אפרים. ה' עם אחיו לקח חלק, הדא הוא דכתיב ותרב משאת בנימין ממשאות כולם, וזהו איש שעתיד לגאול את ישראל ולהתנאות בחמשה לבושין, שנאמר בלבוש מלכות תכלת וחור ועטרת זהב גדולה ותכריך בוץ וארגמן (אסתר ח טו) הרי חמשה:

וישתו וישכרו עמו. [עמו] שתו, חוץ ממנו לא שתו:

בראשית, מ״ד:ד׳

קום רדוף אחרי האנשים. בעוד אימת מלך עליהם, טרם שירחיקו:

בראשית, מ״ד:י״ב

ויחפש בגדול. שלא יאמרו יודע היה באיזה מקום הוא [מונח]:

וימצא הגביע. כיון שנמצא הגביע, אמרו לו אחיו גנב בר גנבתא, רחל אמך גנבה את התרפים ואתה גנבת את הגביע, והיו מכים אותו עד שנשבע בחיי אביו יעקב ובאבלותיה ונטילותיה דיוסף אחיו [ואחר] אין פשע לי, ובכל זאת לא ידעתי מי שמה בשקי, מיד האמינוהו שלא היה רגיל לישבע, כיון ששמע יוסף שקראו אותו גנב בר גנבתא, אמר להם יש כאן שעיר עזים, יש כאן אחים שמכרו אחיהם:

..

And then when they are rought back to yosef he confronts them and says:

יג וַיִּקְרְעוּ, שִׂמְלֹתָם; וַיַּעֲמֹס אִישׁ עַל-חֲמֹרוֹ, וַיָּשֻׁבוּ הָעִירָה.

13 And they rent their clothes, and laded every man his ass, and returned to the city.

יד וַיָּבֹא יְהוּדָה וְאֶחָיו בֵּיתָה יוֹסֵף, וְהוּא עוֹדֶנּוּ שָׁם; וַיִּפְּלוּ לְפָנָיו, אָרְצָה.

14 And Judah and his brethren came to Joseph's house, and he was yet there; and they fell before him on the ground.

טו וַיֹּאמֶר לָהֶם יוֹסֵף, מָה-הַמַּעֲשֶׂה הַזֶּה אֲשֶׁר עֲשִׂיתֶם; הֲלוֹא יְדַעְתֶּם, כִּי-נַחֵשׁ יְנַחֵשׁ אִישׁ אֲשֶׁר כָּמֹנִי.

END OF THIS WEEK's material

more re sin'as chinam

Sin'as Chinam as a warning sign.

The shvatim were sure they were acting lishmah, chazal present reasons for a sanhedrin to judge Yosef and apply the death penalty. But hashem tells us in the chumash something that no-one else could know, that the shvatim themselves were not consciously aware of (and that maybe was first revealed to humanity at the time the chumash was given) - that they were motivated by hatred and jealousy! They would have laughed at anyone accusing them of such a childish and base motivation. And they would have felt themselves sincere in that. But Hashem knows our inner heart and motivation. And Hashem tells us the Pinchas's motive was purely leshem shamayim.

Moral: When someone judges their fellow, especially if it involves enacting judgement with physical consequence on someone, I believe that we are allowed to 'judge' them by assuming that the motivation is negative; even if at the conscious level the "kana'i" is sure they are a tzadik doing it all leshem shamayim, my assumption is that we should not be supportive of it unless they are considered by all of klal Yisrael (not just by themselves) to be even greater than the Shvatim.

Yosef's dream was in order to create the events which led to the realization of the dream

Yosef’s proactive ‘prophecy’: Yosef is not just interpreting a dream - not just giving its meaning as a prediction of the future - but rather he adds on the reason Par’oh is getting this dream, that God is telling him about the famine in order to give him an opportunity to prevent its dire consequences! Like Rivka, and Yonah.

...

Joseph’s dreams: the brothers misinterpret the dreams. The actual interpretation of the second dream is that by attaching to the divine in us (Joseph explicitly credits God with the pitaron) we can overcome “Fate”, symbolized by the sun, moon and stars (which includes the planets). [subservience to the stars is idolatry, determinism, no free will, fate – spirituality is free willed choice, moral responsibility. Yosef was thought by the brothers to be arrogantly saying that the stars are subservient to him, which is even worse]

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Section: Who knew what, when

Only after BY received the chumash did they know…

1. Yoseph and the Exodus: It was not until they received the Torah in the desert that the Bney Yisrael knew the truth of what had happened in the story of Joseph. Being descended from the protagonists, it is only natural that the tribes of Reuven, Shimon, Levi etc, and the descendants of Yosef, all had different perceptions of what had transpired, and what had been the motives of those involved. Of course the Bible’s telling of the story makes clear many aspects which may well have been still disputed by the descendants of those involved, until they first read the chumash!

· that the brothers had hatred and jealousy in their hearts, something that probably they never admitted even to themselves, let alone transmitted as part of the story possessed by their descendants.

· that Joseph was innocent of the accusation leveled by his employer’s wife,

· that Joseph was crying when his brothers spoke,

· that he bore no grudge towards them,

And as we saw above:

· that Yoseph’s dreams were from on high rather than delusions of grandeur;

· that his brothers misinterpreted the dreams,

· From the Biblical account it seems pretty clear that even at the very end the brothers did not understand Joseph and the alleged command of their fathers to him (meant to grant them immunity after their father’s death)was most likely fabricated, in complete obliviousness to Joseph’s righteousness and lack of intent to punish them.

All of this might well have been a very significant revelation to the Bney Yisroel when receiving “the five books of Moses” in the desert, and perhaps somewhat unsettling.

This dramatic & perhaps traumatic revelation provided a final opportunity to close the circle: Yosef’s bones were carried by the Bney Yisrael out of Egypt at his express command, and those bones and the living descendants all present at Sinai and when the contents of the five books were transmitted, revealing the true story of Joseph.

[It would be interesting to analyze the events in the desert according to the tribes of the protagonists, to see whether there was some influence of this revelation, or if there were events which motivated God to reveal this then.]

………………………………

After Yosef reveals himself: the brothers' reactions: in this order:

1. Shock

2. Fear for their lives due to Joseph's likely desire for revenge;

3. Realization that the dream was true, they had just bowed to joseph!

4. Realization that Joseph had had a prophetic dream!

5. Further realizations, see below;

6. Fear that their father would find out.

7. Shame (they had also made a chilul hashem in front of all the Egyptians)

8. Realization that they were right & wrong: right that what was happening to them was retribution for having not spared Yosef; but wrong in thinking it was divine retribution! [In fact though they were wrong – Yosef was NOT doing it in retribution, and Yosef insists that it WAS divine, but that their sale of him was divine not the actions he had taken etc.]

They should have realized that Yosef could have chosen to NOT have them bow.

Perhaps this last realization would help them realize that their interpretation brought about its own actualization

…..

- WE don't know whether Yaakov knew.

- Maybe the BROTHERS didn’t know whether Yaakov knew.

……

illustration is based on the story of Joseph – one of the fundamental teachings of which is that our destiny is to transcend ‘Fate’.

Cover illustration theme: Joseph wearing the multicolor coat and dreaming of the stars sun moon – symbols of fate and seasons, weather and future crop yields - bowing to him; Joseph’s appearance before pharaoh, suggesting a method of circumventing ‘Fate'.

………

A central conclusion: Human destiny is beyond the causality level referred to in Astrology

- as indicated via the correct interpretation of Joseph’s dreams

GoogleDoc

Joseph's tears

Joseph cries [42:24] on hearing this interchange: Of course it is moving to learn that Reuven wished to save him, but perhaps he cries because he realizes that they still really felt that they had been justified in selling him, and that they felt they were not being punished for selling him but rather for not showing mercy.

Cheap Trick?

Joseph seats his brothers at table in the order of their age, and the brothers are astonished that he could do this [43:33].

Why are they astonished? Because the brothers were from four mothers and therefore not necessarily similar-looking, and also as a result some were the same age, as opposed to children of the same two parents, who are at least a year apart. And so for a stranger to know that they are really brothers, and to see who is older than whom, is remarkable.

Why does he bother to do this trick?

Joseph had asked the brothers to bring their youngest brother: from the perspective of the brothers how did he know they had complied? Perhaps they had brought a stand-in, paid to play the role. So he shows them that he knows exactly who is older than whom, and therefore that he knows very well that the one they brought is indeed the youngest.

Also, Joseph seemingly suspects them of being spies but they counter that they are all children of one man rather than a military group, and now Joseph indicates to them that he indeed knows that they are a family and not a group of spies.

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Joseph and his family: Why did they not look for each other over the years:

Get Lost, Joseph

Given the depth of their father’s grief, did the brothers search for Joseph during the years his father mourned for him? If yes, why didn’t they find him? If not, why not?

Perhaps they did search for him and couldn’t find him and so presumed him dead. But if so, why could they not find him?

When Joseph was sent by Yakov to go to his brothers, the Torah makes a point of telling us that he got lost and only found them (and so was then sold by them) because some unidentified “man” came and told him where they were [37:15]. Clearly the Torah is implying that this was divine intervention, indicating to us that it was God’s will that Joseph encounter his brothers that time. Similarly one can speculate that God made sure that the brothers would not find him when the tables were turned and it was they who were looking for him.

But more likely, they didn’t even try to find him, either rout of fear of the consequences of their father’s knowledge of what had happened, or perhaps for the follwing reason: While standing in front of Joseph, unaware that it is him, Reuven says to his brothers [42:22] “I told you at the time not to sin against the lad, and now his blood is being demanded of us”. This sounds as if they believed Joseph to be dead!

It isn’t clear why they would assume this, perhaps because slaves in Egypt did not have a long life-expectancy. In any case this could explain why they didn’t search for him even if they had wanted to return him to their father.

Yakov’s Subtle Reprimand, and Dream Fulfilment

According to the Talmud, dreams are fulfilled according to their interpretation.

A first glance at the interpretation which Joseph’s family gives to his dreams is that Joseph’s brothers and parents will bow to him/will be ruled by him [37:8-10]. Indeed later his brothers bow to him, but his father Yakov does not. Why not?

Yakov actually didn’t interpret the dreams the same way that his sons did. Instead he says to Joseph rhetorically “will your mother and I come to bow before you?!”. Since by then Rachel, Joseph’s mother, was dead already Yakov’s comment is meant to point up the absurdity of such an interpretation – he was in this way subtly negating the antagonistic interpretation offered by the brothers.

Much later, Joseph learns from the ministers’ eventual fate that indeed his interpretation of their dreams was correct; later yet, after the seven years of plenty ended and the famine began, he saw that his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream had been correct. As a result when Joseph’s brothers arrived he felt that that his original dreams were to unfold, but he believed they would have to unfold according to their interpretation - that they would bow before him - and so he accommodated this reality.

However Yakov due to his interpretation of the dreams was not meant to bow before his son Joseph, and Joseph ensured that indeed this would not happen.

In fact, the intended interpretation of the dream of the sun and moon and stars was that fate, and nature – which these represent – would bow before the power of Joseph, who would overcome that which “was written in the stars” and prevent the fated famine.

Deliberate Provocation?

When Binyamin was given extra portions prior to Yosef’s revealing his identity, the brothers overcame any inclination to jealousy, but this was perhaps only because they were caught up in a process which they realized was a divine punishment for their treatment of Yosef as a result of jealousy. But afterwards, Joseph again gives Binyamin preferential treatment, extra gifts [45:22]: why would he do this if it might provoke jealousy?

To ensure that the brothers understood and had internalized the lesson, and would never again be jealous of each other: like after Yom Kippur, when one feels purged of sin, high with spirituality, but then the next week it’s back to real life. So Yosef was testing them, with the same test, after they had already resumed ‘real life’, to see if the teshuva was real.

Why Did Joseph Not Reveal Himself to his family earlier?

As viceroy of Egypt certainly Joseph could have contacted his father and told him he was safe!

Answer: Joseph didn’t know whether or not his father had been in on the plot against him. It is only from his brother’s remarks about Yosef’s disappearance and the effect on Yakov that enlightens Yosef to the fact that Yakov was not in on the plot against him, and is in fact still mourning him. This information was not given to him on the brothers’ first trip and subsequent interrogation, when they merely said that “one (of our brothers) is gone”. And only then does Yosef reveal himself (this is not MY chidush)

Yosef perhaps felt that there was some likelihood that this father was not involved, but even so there were good reasons not to try to contact him:

Yosef didn’t know if his message would reach his father Yakov without being intercepted by the brothers.
Joseph didn’t want to reveal their crime to Yakov before they had a chance to do teshuva (repentance).

The brothers wanted to disenfranchise Joseph from the lineage of the family and its destiny by selling him as a slave to Egypt: the irony is that it was in Joseph’s power to turn the tables on them and have THEM disenfranchised. It would have been simple for the viceroy of Egypt to kill a few foreign supplicants for bread, or frame them and have them killed, but he could have accomplished a more subtle revenge simply by telling his father what had transpired: likely the result would have been the complete banishment of the brothers who had been involved (ie all except Benjamin), cutting them out of the line as Yishmael and Esav had been cut out. This would have had serious ramifications for the future of the Jewish people: there would perhaps have been only two tribes (Benjamin and Joseph) rather than twelve. [That this would be possible we can see from the fact that God later told Moses after the Golden Calf that He would kill all the Jewish People of the desert generation and make Moses’s line into the Jewish People, but desisted after Moses interceded on their behalf.]

However Joseph, for all his self-involvement and what seemed to his brothers to be arrogance, was intensely emotional and merciful, and also concerned himself only with the larger picture. As he tells them later in his typically merciful but arrogant-seeming statement, he saw God’s hands in all that they did (as though they were puppets).

Furthermore, he wanted to have the matter conclude in the best possible way for his brothers and for his father: Joseph didn’t want to cause his father the anguish of knowing what his sons had done, nor to cause the banishment of the guilty: instead he wanted to cover for his brothers and also give them the opportunity of doing teshuva.

Summary of the rest of the parsha: The brothers come to Egypt for food and are interrogated by Yosef. They return home and find their money was returned. A while passes and they come again to Egypt for food, this time with Binyamin. They are treated to a meal with Yosef, they leave, Yosef frames Binyamin with a stolen cup, they are all returned to face him, bewildered, expecting death or enslavement.

From file "Edited Genesis Commentary" on GDrive

Life’s Ambiguous Challenges: Why Bother Sending Joseph Prophetic Dreams?

The dreams of Pharaoh’s ministers later on in the story did not help them in any way, since there was no way for them to know whether the interpretation was accurate until the events themselves unfolded; we’re not told that they benefited from the knowledge. But the purpose of their dreams was not for their benefit but rather to prove to the surviving minister that Joseph was capable of interpreting dreams, so that he would mention this to Pharaoh at the appropriate time.

Of what benefit were Joseph’s dreams?

Perhaps these dreams were also not meant for his benefit but rather to test the reactions of those around him to his dreams. And perhaps to see whether Joseph was sufficiently sensitive to the feelings of others to relate the dreams in a way that would not seem arrogant.

Incorrect Predictions are the Sign of Great Prophecy.

Jonah (of Jonah and the whale) was the most successful prophet because his message of catastrophe served to prevent the actualization of that very ‘prediction’. The dreams of Joseph, the ministers and Pharaoh had varying degrees of passive prediction and catalystic prevention[61].

Yakov’s Subtle Reprimand and Dream Fulfilment

A first glance at the interpretation which Joseph’s family gives to his dreams is that Joseph’s brothers and parents will bow to him/will be ruled by him [37:8-10]. Indeed later his brothers bow to him, but his father Yakov does not. Why not?

Yakov actually didn’t interpret the dreams the same way that his sons did. Instead he says to Joseph rhetorically “will your mother and I come to bow before you?!”. Since by then Rachel, Joseph’s mother, was dead already Yakov’s comment is meant to point up the absurdity of such an interpretation – he was in this way subtly negating the antagonistic interpretation offered by the brothers.

Much later, Joseph learns from the ministers’ eventual fate that indeed his interpretation of their dreams was correct; later yet, after the seven years of plenty ended and the famine began, he saw that his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream had been correct. As a result when Joseph’s brothers arrived he felt that that his original dreams were to unfold, but he believed they would have to unfold according to their interpretation - that they would bow before him - and so he accommodated this reality.

However Yakov due to his interpretation of the dreams was not meant to bow before his son Joseph, and Joseph ensured that indeed this would not happen. [62]

Dr. Pharaoh’s Diet: Eat As Much (Cow) Protein as You Wish Without Getting Phat

When Pharaoh recounts the dreams he tells Joseph that when the fat cows were swallowed by the thin ones “it was not noticeable that they were swallowed”[41:21]: in terms of the interpretation, this would mean that the years of famine would be so bad that there would be no way to tell that there had been years of plenty.

However the Torah does not tell us that “it was not noticeable that the fat ones were swallowed and the appearance of the thin ones was as bad as it was beforehand” when it recounts the dream itself [41:5-7] – it would therefore seem that this element was simply Pharaoh’s perception, related to Joseph in recounting the dream, but was not part of the dream itself, nor perhaps even part of Pharaoh’s perception at the time of dreaming.

Although dream interpretations set the reality of the dream, and here Pharaoh is providing some element of interpretation, nevertheless it was Joseph who was being asked to do the interpreting, and so the reality-setting power was up to him.

As such, this element was something that was partly changeable: while Joseph was not able to prevent the seven lean years from arriving or swallowing the fat years, nor was he able now after Pharaoh’s interpretation to prevent the famine years from removing the actual plenty, he WAS able to prevent the lack of food to be so bad that there would be no way to tell that there had been years of plenty beforehand, for the years of famine to be as bad as if there had been no years of plenty. Joseph’s interpretation reflects this subtle difference (41:31 as compared to 41:21) – indeed the vast stores of wheat and other produce which he arranged during the years of plenty were tribute later on to the fact that the years of plenty had occurred, and the years of famine were not as bad as if the years of plenty had never been.

In this sense Joseph’s suggestion of how to deal with the famine was part of the interpretation of the dream; the dream was thus interpreted by Joseph not as a prediction of catastrophe but rather as a message meant to help people avoid catastrophe, and so the dream-realization took this path.

It Takes One to Know One

Joseph makes a great point all along of the fact that it is God who gives him the power to interpret – and this is very important to Pharaoh[63]. Pharaoh believed that he was getting a divine message, and when Joseph says that his interpretation is from God, he is assuring Pharaoh that the same power which sent the message in the dream – God - is helping Joseph interpret it, and even moreso, to ‘manage’ it; this gives Pharaoh confidence in the interpretation, and it is why Pharaoh explicitly says of Joseph “the spirit of God is in him” (it is obviously very important to Pharaoh that this is so).

Early on the brothers viewed Joseph as an upstart and a threat, an arrogant tyrant-in-the-making who would have them all bow to him. This says more about them at that point than it does about Joseph. But Pharaoh in contrast was able to see the greatness, integrity and selflessness in this foreign slave who seemingly arrogantly predicted what Pharaoh himself was going to do to his ministers, and tells Pharaoh to his face that God speak through him, and deigns to tell Pharaoh how to manage his country. And so Pharaoh, correctly attributing all this to the straight-talking honesty of a man to whom the correct path is so clear rather than to the arrogance of the power-hungry, is not fearful of giving Joseph so much of his own power.

Jewish Influence on the Religion of Egypt

Considering that Egypt was the major scientific, cultural and religious power of its time, and Joseph is conversing with its leader the Pharaoh, his dream interpretation constitutes an event of great significance - a religious teaching of the first order. Rather than seeing events as preordained, fated to occur, Joseph in his management of the catastrophe shows by example how humanity can rise above fate in a proactive manner.

Cheap Trick?

Joseph seats his brothers at table in the order of their age, and the brothers are astonished that he could do this [43:33].

Why are they astonished? Because the brothers were from four mothers and therefore not necessarily similar-looking, and also as a result some were the same age, as opposed to children of the same two parents, who are at least a year apart. And so for a stranger to know that they are really brothers, and to see who is older than whom, is remarkable.

Why does he bother to do this trick?

Joseph had asked the brothers to bring their youngest brother: from the perspective of the brothers how did he know they had complied? Perhaps they had brought a stand-in, paid to play the role. So he shows them that he knows exactly who is older than whom, and therefore that he knows very well that the one they brought is indeed the youngest.

Also, Joseph seemingly suspects them of being spies but they counter that they are all children of one man rather than a military group, and now Joseph indicates to them that he indeed knows that they are a family and not a group of spies.

Joseph’s Bizarre Behavior

Joseph tells his brothers that they must bring their younger brother to him and only then will they all be free and live. What could it mean to the brothers that the viceroy was asking them to bring their youngest brother – what logic was there in this request?

Answer: The Torah tells us (42:21-23) that after hearing this request, Joseph’s brothers say amongst themselves: “This is all happening to us because we didn’t listen to our brother when he pleaded with us”. Given that they realized that this was all happening as a punishment for selling Joseph, obviously they understood that it was God and not the viceroy who was punishing them. So, clearly:

God was directing the actions of the viceroy, and therefore the reasons he had for doing what he did were not even relevant.

This was reflected later in Joseph’s absolving the brothers of their heinous deed by telling them that:

God was directing their actions, and therefore the reasons they had for doing what they had done were not even relevant.

∙€€€€€€€ The brothers’ statement [42:21] that “This is all happening to us because we didn’t listen to our brother when he pleaded with us” reveals an interesting and poignant element of the story of the sale of Joseph which we were not told before; it becomes easy now to imagine the scene of Joseph being stripped of his coat, being cast into the pit and then sold, with Joseph pleading for mercy. But more importantly their words show that they were still convinced that they had been justified in selling him into slavery, just that perhaps despite the justness of their decision they should have had mercy!

∙€€€€€€€ Joseph cries [42:24] on hearing this interchange: Of course it is moving to learn that Reuven wished to save him, but perhaps ha cries because he realizes that they still really felt that they had been justified in selling him, and that they felt they were not being punished for selling him but rather for not showing mercy. Nevertheless, however sad it makes Joseph that they still have not come to the realization of their error, their statement helps him overcome any desire for revenge since it’s clear that they really felt they were doing the right thing when they sold him.

……….

DUPLICATION: SEE BELOW: WHICH IS BETTER?

Natural vs Miraculous: Divine Intervention in Joseph’s Life

Joseph tells the ministers in jail that God provides the dream interpretations, and he tells the same thing to Pharaoh. Joseph says to his brothers: “Don’t worry, it was not you who sold me to Egypt, it was God who sent me here to be a deliverance for you and the whole family to provide food during the famine”. Indeed at various junctures Joseph’s destiny is affected by divine intervention, but it all unfolds in a natural way. This is similar to the way that the events in the Megillah of Esther unfold; they are clearly miraculous when seen as a whole, but the individual events are very natural-seeming.

Indeed there are very very many parallels between the two stories:

∙€€€€€€€ a time of trouble [Vashti’s rebellion/famine];

∙€€€€€€€ a consultation by a king with his advisors [Achashverosh and Pharaoh consult their ministers;

∙€€€€€€€ a Jew who saves the king/kingdom (Mordechai saves A from the plotters/Joseph saves Egypt from famine)

∙€€€€€€€ a Jew becomes second-in-command (Esther/Joseph) and saves the day;

∙€€€€€€€ parading in special clothing as a sign of honor (Mordechai/Joseph)

∙€€€€€€€ the beginning of a period of exile (Egypt/Persia);

and many other parallels, even in the wording.

Natural vs Miraculous in Joseph’s Life

Joseph tells the ministers in jail that God provides the dream interpretations, and he tells the same thing to Pharaoh. Joseph says to his brothers: “Don’t worry, it was not you who sold me to Egypt, it was God who sent me here to be a deliverance for you and the whole family to provide food during the famine”. Indeed at various junctures Joseph’s destiny is affected by divine intervention, but it all unfolds in a natural way. This is similar to the way that the events in the Megillah of Esther unfold; they are clearly miraculous when seen as a whole, but the individual events are very natural-seeming.

…………

DUPLICATION: SEE BELOW: WHICH IS BETTER?

Examples of Subtle Divine Intervention in Joseph’s Life

∙€€€€€€€ Joseph’s dreams are clearly divine messages (but no one else knows this);

∙€€€€€€€ His having the dreams at that point served only to get him sold, which led to the fulfillment of the dream;

∙€€€€€€€ Joseph was looking for his brothers, couldn’t find them, and then “a man found him, wandering lost” and directed him to his brothers: if not for this anonymous ‘man’, the sale of Joseph would likely not have occurred.

∙€€€€€€€ After Joseph is thrown in the pit, Reuven leaves for a while, intending to return later and rescue Joseph when the brothers have left; however during his absence the brothers sell Joseph, something that should not have occurred.

∙€€€€€€€ The caravan of Yishma’elim arrived seemingly from nowhere and Joseph was sold to them before Reuven had a chance to return;

∙€€€€€€€ God gave Joseph a special charisma which enabled him to survive and thrive even as a slave;

∙€€€€€€€ The ministers in jail have prophetic dreams;

Even when people tried to harm Joseph, he rose above it.

The minister described him as “a lad, a Hebrew, a slave” as though to denigrate him. However this turned into Joseph’s favor, since Pharaoh did not fear to place him in a high position where he could eventually usurp the throne: given that everyone knew his lowly status and foreign origins non-one would ever accept him as actual Pharaoh, and so there was no danger in appointing him viceroy.

Examples of Subtle Divine Intervention in Joseph’s Life

∙€€€€€€€€ Joseph’s dreams are clearly divine messages (but no one else knows this);

∙€€€€€€€€ His having the dreams at that point served only to get him sold, which led to the fulfillment of the dream;

∙€€€€€€€€ Joseph was looking for his brothers, couldn’t find them, and then “a man found him, wandering lost” and directed him to his brothers: if not for this anonymous ‘man’, the sale of Joseph would likely not have occurred.

∙€€€€€€€€ After Joseph is thrown in the pit, Reuven leaves for a while, intending to return later and rescue Joseph when the brothers have left; however during his absence the brothers sell Joseph, something that should not have occurred.

∙€€€€€€€€ The caravan of Yishma’elim arrived seemingly from nowhere and Joseph was sold to them before Reuven had a chance to return;

∙€€€€€€€€ God gave Joseph a special charisma which enabled him to survive and thrive even as a slave;

∙€€€€€€€€ The ministers in jail have prophetic dreams;

Even when people tried to harm Joseph, he rose above it.

The minister described him as “a lad, a Hebrew, a slave” as though to denigrate him. However this turned into Joseph’s favor, since Pharaoh did not fear to place him in a high position where he could eventually usurp the throne: given that everyone knew his lowly status and foreign origins non-one would ever accept him as actual Pharaoh, and so there was no danger in appointing him viceroy.

………………………..

Chanelling Fate

If Joseph believed that it was fated for his brothers to bow to him, why did he labor to set up a situation where this would occur – why not just let events unfold as they were fated to?

Joseph later says that it was God who arranged for him to be sent to Egypt, and that this was done in order to provide food for the family; in any case,

PUTTING TOGETHER THE VARIOUS SECTIONS DEALING WITH THE TOPIC OF:

Joseph and his family: Why did they not look for each other over the years

(which version is better?)

A) Get Lost, Joseph (DUPLICATION: WHICH IS BETTER?)

Given the depth of their father’s grief, did the brothers search for Joseph during the years his father mourned for him? If yes, why didn’t they find him? If not, why not?

Perhaps they did search for him and couldn’t find him and so presumed him dead. But if so, why could they not find him?

When Joseph was sent by Yakov to go to his brothers, the Torah makes a point of telling us that he got lost and only found them (and so was then sold by them) because some unidentified “man” came and told him where they were [37:15]. Clearly the Torah is implying that this was divine intervention, indicating to us that it was God’s will that Joseph encounter his brothers that time. Similarly one can speculate that God made sure that the brothers would not find him when the tables were turned and it was they who were looking for him.

But more likely, they didn’t even try to find him, either rout of fear of the consequences of their father’s knowledge of what had happened, or perhaps for the follwing reason: While standing in front of Joseph, unaware that it is him, Reuven says to his brothers [42:22] “I told you at the time not to sin against the lad, and now his blood is being demanded of us”. This sounds as if they believed Joseph to be dead!

It isn’t clear why they would assume this, perhaps because slaves in Egypt did not have a long life-expectancy. In any case this could explain why they didn’t search for him even if they had wanted to return him to their father.

B) Why Did Joseph Not Reveal Himself to his family earlier?

As viceroy of Egypt certainly Joseph could have contacted his father and told him he was safe!

Answer: Joseph didn’t know whether or not his father had been in on the plot against him. It is only from his brother’s remarks about Yosef’s disappearance and the effect on Yakov that enlightens Yosef to the fact that Yakov was not in on the plot against him, and is in fact still mourning him. This information was not given to him on the brothers’ first trip and subsequent interrogation, when they merely said that “one (of our brothers) is gone”. And only then does Yosef reveal himself (this is not MY chidush)

Yosef perhaps felt that there was some likelihood that this father was not involved, but even so there were good reasons not to try to contact him:

Yosef didn’t know if his message would reach his father Yakov without being intercepted by the brothers.
Joseph didn’t want to reveal their crime to Yakov before they had a chance to do teshuva (repentance).

The brothers wanted to disenfranchise Joseph from the lineage of the family and its destiny by selling him as a slave to Egypt: the irony is that it was in Joseph’s power to turn the tables on them and have THEM disenfranchised. It would have been simple for the viceroy of Egypt to kill a few foreign supplicants for bread, or frame them and have them killed, but he could have accomplished a more subtle revenge simply by telling his father what had transpired: likely the result would have been the complete banishment of the brothers who had been involved (ie all except Benjamin), cutting them out of the line as Yishmael and Esav had been cut out. This would have had serious ramifications for the future of the Jewish people: there would perhaps have been only two tribes (Benjamin and Joseph) rather than twelve. [That this would be possible we can see from the fact that God later told Moses after the Golden Calf that He would kill all the Jewish People of the desert generation and make Moses’s line into the Jewish People, but desisted after Moses interceded on their behalf.]

However Joseph, for all his self-involvement and what seemed to his brothers to be arrogance, was intensely emotional and merciful, and also concerned himself only with the larger picture. As he tells them later in his typically merciful but arrogant-seeming statement, he saw God’s hands in all that they did (as though they were puppets).

Furthermore, he wanted to have the matter conclude in the best possible way for his brothers and for his father: Joseph didn’t want to cause his father the anguish of knowing what his sons had done, nor to cause the banishment of the guilty: instead he wanted to cover for his brothers and also give them the opportunity of doing teshuva.

Yakov’s Subtle Reprimand, and Dream Fulfilment

According to the Talmud, dreams are fulfilled according to their interpretation.

A first glance at the interpretation which Joseph’s family gives to his dreams is that Joseph’s brothers and parents will bow to him/will be ruled by him [37:8-10]. Indeed later his brothers bow to him, but his father Yakov does not. Why not?

Yakov actually didn’t interpret the dreams the same way that his sons did. Instead he says to Joseph rhetorically “will your mother and I come to bow before you?!”. Since by then Rachel, Joseph’s mother, was dead already Yakov’s comment is meant to point up the absurdity of such an interpretation – he was in this way subtly negating the antagonistic interpretation offered by the brothers.

Much later, Joseph learns from the ministers’ eventual fate that indeed his interpretation of their dreams was correct; later yet, after the seven years of plenty ended and the famine began, he saw that his interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream had been correct. As a result when Joseph’s brothers arrived he felt that that his original dreams were to unfold, but he believed they would have to unfold according to their interpretation - that they would bow before him - and so he accommodated this reality.

However Yakov due to his interpretation of the dreams was not meant to bow before his son Joseph, and Joseph ensured that indeed this would not happen.

In fact, the intended interpretation of the dream of the sun and moon and stars was that fate, and nature – which these represent – would bow before the power of Joseph, who would overcome that which “was written in the stars” and prevent the fated famine.

…………

Parallels between Megillat Esterh and the Yosef Story

There are very very many parallels between the two stories:

∙€€€€€€€€ a time of trouble [Vashti’s rebellion/famine];

∙€€€€€€€€ a consultation by a king with his advisors [Achashverosh/Pharaoh consult their ministers;

∙€€€€€€€€ a Jew who saves the king/kingdom (Mordechai saves Achashveros from the plotters/Joseph saves Egypt from famine)

∙€€€€€€€€ a Jew (Esther/Joseph) becomes second-in-command and saves the day;

∙€€€€€€€€ parading in special clothing as a sign of honor (Mordechai/Joseph)

∙€€€€€€€€ the beginning of a period of exile (Egypt/Persia);

and many other parallels, even in the wording.

.....

given the famine, he must have known that eventually his brothers would come to Egypt for food. By that time he was viceroy and he realized that his dreams were coming true; he took the dream very seriously as a prophetic one predicting events which could not be changed, only managed: and so perhaps he feared the realization of the prediction of the dream that his brothers would bow to him as slaves (as per the dream’s interpretation given by his brothers, and its connotation as revealed by their reaction, that his brothers should bow to him as ruler with them as servants).

Indeed after their father Yakov’s death they feared Joseph’s retribution and bowed to him and offered themselves as his slaves [ 50:18], clearly conscious of the fact that they were acting out the original dream, clearly taking it very seriously as fate. And so forseeing this, and wishing to deprive it of the potency of a fated event, Joseph did what he had advised Pharaoh to do with his dream; rather than trying to avoid the predicted fated element, or deny it reality, he thought of a way to ‘manage’ that element of the dream which to him seemed incontrovertible; with Pharaoh it was unavoidable that there would be famine but one could ‘manage’ events to provide for it, and in this case it was unavoidable that the brothers would bow and consider themselves his slaves but this could be ‘managed’ – he arranged for them to bow to him when they did not yet know him to be Joseph, and so they indeed bowed to him as viceroy of Egypt, to whom they were vassals. In this way he allowed the predicted elements to become realized, but in a relatively harmless way. And so later on when they bowed and offered themselves as slaves in a more fraught situation (after the death of their father Yakov), since that part of the dream had been fulfilled he felt able to reject this offer - it no longer represented an unavoidable element of the dream.

It Takes One to Know One

Joseph makes a great point all along of the fact that it is God who gives him the power to interpret – and this is very important to Pharaoh[3]. Pharaoh believed that he was getting a divine message, and when Joseph says that his interpretation is from God, he is assuring Pharaoh that the same power which sent the message in the dream, God, is helping Joseph interpret it, and even moreso, to ‘manage’ it; this gives Pharaoh confidence in the interpretation, and it is why Pharaoh explicitly says of Joseph “the spirit of God is in him” (it is obviously very important to Pharaoh that this is so).

Early on the brothers viewed Joseph as an upstart and a threat, an arrogant tyrant-in-the-making who would have them all bow to him. This says more about them at that point than it does about Joseph. But Pharaoh in contrast was able to see the greatness, integrity and selflessness in this foreign slave who seemingly arrogantly predicted what Pharaoh himself was going to do to his ministers, and tells Pharaoh to his face that God speak through him, and deigns to tell Pharaoh how to manage his country. And so Pharaoh, correctly attributing all this to the straight-talking honesty of a man to whom the correct path is so clear rather than to the arrogance of the power-hungry, is not fearful of giving Joseph so much of his own power.

…………………………………………………………………………………………….

Summary of the rest of the parsha: The brothers come to Egypt for food and are interrogated by Yosef.Yosef demands they return with their youngest brother (Binyamin) and Shimon is taken as hostage to guarantee that they indeed bring Binyamin next time. They return and find their money was returned. A while passes and they come again to Egypt for food, this time with Binyami. They are treated to a meal with Yosef, they leave, Yosef frames Binyamin with a stolen cup, they are all returned to face him, bewildered, expecting death or enslavement.

Was Joseph a Megalomaniac or Just a Sadist?

Joseph’s Bizarre Behavior : Why Did Joseph Persecute his Brothers?

Joseph tells his brothers that they must bring their younger brother to him and only then will they all be free and live. Why did he insist on this?

· The brothers reveal [42:13] that Binyamin has a special relationship with their father (Yakov). Perhaps Yosef feared for Binyamin’s safety as a result: Yosef’s actions were therefore guaranteeing that that the brothers could not harm Binyamin, since they knew they’d never be allowed to enter Egypt for food if they didn’t have Binyamin with them.

· True repentance (teshuva) is when one is in the same situation and acts differently than the first time. The purpose of the whole scenario Joseph created with the brothers in Egypt was to test whether they had repented for their act of selling him, and whether they were willing to protect Benjamin his brother even at the cost of their own lives: his actions gave them the opportunity to prove themselves, to do complete tshuva.

The Interpretation of the Brothers

What could it mean to the brothers that the viceroy was asking them to bring their youngest brother – what logic was there in this request?

Answer: The Torah tells us (42:21-22) that after hearing this request, Joseph’s brothers say amongst themselves: “This is all happening to us because we didn’t listen to our brother when he pleaded with us”. Given that they realized that this was all happening as a punishment for selling Joseph, obviously they understood that it was God, and not the viceroy, who was punishing them. So, clearly: God was directing the actions of the viceroy, and therefore the reasons the viceroy had for doing what he did were not even relevant to the brothers.

Parallel

From the words of Reuven one sees that the brothers realized that: God was directing the actions of the viceroy, and therefore the reasons he had for doing what he did were not even relevant. This was reflected later in Joseph’s absolving the brothers of their heinous deed by telling them basically the same was true regarding them themselves: God was directing their actions, and therefore the reasons they had for doing what they had done were not even relevant.

If You Knew What I Knew that you knew about what I know….

When the brothers realized that this was Yosef, they would realize that whatever they had said amongst each other nearby him was understood by him, and so Yosef would know about their conversation and conclusion that they considered tis all as a punishment for having sold him! And so they’d know that he’d heard and understood that they considered the whole scenario to be staged by God.

However, when they realized tha tit was Yosef who was staging it, they could lose confidence that the whole thing was God’s actions! So Yosef is reassuring them that he too sees the whole as the enactment of divine decrees.

Added information about the sale of Yosef

The brothers’ statement [42:21-22] that “This is all happening to us because we didn’t listen to our brother when he pleaded with us” reveals an interesting and poignant element of the story of the sale of Joseph which we were not told before; it becomes easy now to imagine the scene of Joseph being stripped of his coat, being cast into the pit and then sold, with Joseph pleading for mercy. But more importantly their words show that they were still convinced that they had been justified in selling him into slavery, just that perhaps despite the justness of their decision they should have had mercy!

Examples of Subtle Divine Intervention in Joseph’s Life

· Joseph’s dreams are clearly divine messages (but no one else knows this);

· His having the dreams at that point served only to get him sold, which led to the fulfillment of the dream;

· Joseph was looking for his brothers, couldn’t find them, and then “a man found him, wandering lost” and directed him to his brothers: if not for this anonymous ‘man’, the sale of Joseph would likely not have occurred.

· After Joseph is thrown in the pit, Reuven leaves for a while, intending to return later and rescue Joseph when the brothers have left; however during his absence the brothers sell Joseph, something that should not have occurred.

· The caravan of Yishma’elim arrived seemingly from nowhere and Joseph was sold to them before Reuven had a chance to return;

· God gave Joseph a special charisma which enabled him to survive and thrive even as a slave;

· The ministers in jail have prophetic dreams;

Even when people tried to harm Joseph, he rose above it.

The minister described him as “a lad, a Hebrew, a slave” as though to denigrate him. However this turned into Joseph’s favor, since Pharaoh did not fear to place him in a high position where he could eventually usurp the throne: given that everyone knew his lowly status and foreign origins non-one would ever accept him as actual Pharaoh, and so there was no danger in appointing him viceroy.

Natural vs Miraculous in Joseph’s Life

Joseph tells the ministers in jail that God provides the dream interpretations, and he tells the same thing to Pharaoh. Joseph says to his brothers: “Don’t worry, it was not you who sold me to Egypt, it was God who sent me here to be a deliverance for you and the whole family to provide food during the famine”. Indeed at various junctures Joseph’s destiny is affected by divine intervention, but it all unfolds in a natural way. This is similar to the way that the events in the Megillah of Esther unfold; they are clearly miraculous when seen as a whole, but the individual events are very natural-seeming.

[1] “he didn’t remember” could then be translated/interpreted as: “he deliberately forgot Joseph” or “he psychologically suppressed the memory in order not to have to remind Pharaoh of his misdeeds”.

[2] Interpretation via Reason, and via Inspiration: Joseph however does not mention this deductive method as the guide he employed in his interpretation. He attributes his ability to interpret the dreams to God. Also, he does not tell Pharoah that the reason for the two dreams was to point out what was essential and what was simply example. Instead, Joseph tells Pharaoh “the dream was repeated (twice) because it is an urgent message about events soon to unfold”. In other words he sees it all as one dream repeated, not two dreams. Since he does not claim to employ this analytic methods to derive the interpretation he considers the two as one dream. Also, because he understood so clearly what was the essential and what was merely a particular example, to him the dreams were exactly the same – were one dream - even though they differed in the details. Generally the fact that someone dreams two dreams so similar to each other in one night would likely be understood as a sign that it is no ordinary dream, and so one could imagine Joseph as giving this as the reason for why there were two dreams. Again, though, Joseph is so clear that this is a prophetic dream that he implies that he did not need for there to be two dreams to tell him this; thus to him the fact that there were two dreams, or one dream twice, meant something else, namely “that the events are soon to unfold”.

[3] Joseph is not really being arrogant in declaring this, it is true humility: as with Moses, humility is not a reflection of defective self-image but rather an honest awareness of the reality.

[4] It is claimed that in Abram’s time the word Ivri was used only to refer to him and his family who arrived in Cana’an with him, but perhaps the above indicates that there were many people in his time known by this term meaning ‘from across the river’, but later on the term became used only for descendants of Abraham, and then later only for descendants of Yakov.

............

[6] The hypocritical anti-Semitic emperor executes them supposedly in order to mete out justice to those who sold Joseph! This is apocryphal or at least a-chronistic, since the rabbis were not contemporaries.

[7] And there too the matter involves the selling of Joseph!

…………………………………………………………………………………

Yosef re dream: vegam nitzavah.

The word appears when he reveals his identity, sends out the others everyone was nitzavim alav

The word nitzav is common in chumash so it is not necessarily significant that it is is used in both these places, however in this case the two are closely related: one is about the dream and the other is about its realization so maybe in this case it can be a deliberate reference: וְהִנֵּה אֲנַחְנוּ מְאַלְּמִים אֲלֻמִּים, בְּתוֹךְ הַשָּׂדֶה, וְהִנֵּה קָמָה אֲלֻמָּתִי, וְגַם-נִצָּבָה

א וְלֹא-יָכֹל יוֹסֵף לְהִתְאַפֵּק, לְכֹל הַנִּצָּבִים עָלָיו, וַיִּקְרָא, הוֹצִיאוּ כָל-אִישׁ מֵעָלָי; וְלֹא-עָמַד אִישׁ אִתּוֹ, בְּהִתְוַדַּע יוֹסֵף אֶל-אֶחָיו

Also, the word seems extra in the case of the dream, what is its purpose, so this lends possibility that it is deliberate....

Search site: http://sparks.simania.co.il/bibleSearch.php?query=%D7%9E%D6%B4%D7%93%D6%BC%D7%95%D6%BC%D7%A8

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Torah doesn't say that God sent the dreams to Joseph nor to pharaoh, torah doesnt mention in the dream that God appeared. But from the story, told by God to MR, we can see that God is telling us it was indeed from God. so one assumes. It would seem that perhaps all dreams mentioned in the Torah are form God?

Avimelech, Lovon and others have dreams of God's appearance though they are not considered prophets! From a Torah story of some claiming that god appeared to them would we assume indeed God appeared to them? Or is it ony because the story itself tells us that God appeared to them?

.....

Interesting that the torah doesn;t say "and indeed it came to pass that there were 7 years of plenty" etc, it just assumes it was so, so this is also an indicaiotn that the drams and Yosef's interpretaiton of them were indeed from H'.

...

וַיִּקָּחֻהוּ--וַיַּשְׁלִכוּ אֹתוֹ, הַבֹּרָה; וְהַבּוֹר רֵק, אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם.

כה וַיֵּשְׁבוּ, לֶאֱכָל-לֶחֶם

וַיַּעַבְרוּ אֲנָשִׁים מִדְיָנִים סֹחֲרִים, וַיִּמְשְׁכוּ וַיַּעֲלוּ אֶת-יוֹסֵף מִן-הַבּוֹר, וַיִּמְכְּרוּ אֶת-יוֹסֵף

The two words juxtaposed in the passage above, 'pit' & 'sold' (הַבּוֹר, וַיִּמְכְּרוּ) lead to the the meaning of the word spelled the same way as pit,בּוֹר, ie לִשְׁבֹּר בָּר which is 'to buy that which is sold':

וַיִּצְבֹּר יוֹסֵף בָּר כְּחוֹל הַיָּ

וְהָרָעָב הָיָה, עַל כָּל-פְּנֵי הָאָרֶץ; וַיִּפְתַּח יוֹסֵף אֶת-כָּל-אֲשֶׁר בָּהֶם, וַיִּשְׁבֹּר לְמִצְרַיִם, וַיֶּחֱזַק הָרָעָב, בְּאֶרֶץ מִצְרָיִם.

And there is the play on words perhaps of vayitzor bor, or is that part of the reason for the word itself? וַיִּצְבֹּר יוֹסֵף בָּר

.56 And the famine was over all the face of the earth; and Joseph opened all the storehouses, and sold unto (וַיִּשְׁבֹּר) the Egyptians; and the famine was sore in the land of Egypt.

נז וְכָל-הָאָרֶץ בָּאוּ מִצְרַיְמָה, לִשְׁבֹּר אֶל-יוֹסֵף

same word: וַיֵּרְדוּ אֲחֵי-יוֹסֵף, עֲשָׂרָה, לִשְׁבֹּר בָּר ... וַיָּבֹאוּ בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל, לִשְׁבֹּר : s

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from File "Vayeshev Miketz..combined parshas..." on GDrive

MIKETZ

Yosef’s False Accusations of Espionage,

It’s understandable that Yosef would greet his brothers harshly. But Yosef got into trouble initially due to the tales he told about his brothers; what prompted him to now accuse them knowingly falsely of espionage?

In [42:7] Yosef recognizes his brothers, and obviously, as pointed out in the next passage, they did NOT recognize him. Yosef speaks harshly to them partially perhaps because he sees that they don’t even recognize him; perhaps also because he knew from his spies in the land that no-one had even attempted to trace his whereabouts, and so he knew that they came not to try to rescue him from slavery but for their own needs. Clearly they had never regretted their actions, at least not to the point of attempting to rectify them.

However, midrash tells us that they split up and entered from all gates of the city because they WERE seeking Yosef. So maybe he knew this and was deliberately setting things up in such a way that they would be forced to admit that they had entered from many gates and so had a chance to admit what had happened to their brother, and ask for help in tracing him.

After speaking to them harshly [42:9] tells us that “Yosef remembered his dreams: and he said “you are spies”. Why the false accusations?

At a few junctures it is clear the Yosef was overcome with emotion, and clearly was not acting from rage, and so his accusation and subsequent actions should be seen from the perspective not of revenge but rather of some deeper motives. Which deeper motives? We are told "Yosef remembered the dreams" rather than "Yosef remembered that they had tried to kill him", which indicates not only that Yosef’s actions of accusing them of espionage were determined not by his anger or desire for revenge, but also that his actions were connected somehow to his dreams.

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deleted from the other vort

Joseph’s interpretation reflects this subtle difference (41:31 as compared to 41:21) – indeed the vast stores of wheat and other produce which he arranged during the years of plenty were tribute later on to the fact that the years of plenty had occurred, and the years of famine were not as bad as if the years of plenty had never been.

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search terms: איך יוסף איכסן את הבר החיטה במצרים מה המובן של המילה "בר" יוסף במצרים בראשית מ"א מ"ט מפרשים