Parshas Vayechi - Brothers, an Overview
מיכאל ריטש
Ephraim and Menashe - greatness through golus
מח(ה-ו) ועתה שני־בניך הנולדים לך בארץ מצרים עד־באי אליך מצרימה לי־הם אפרים ומנשה כראובן ושמעון יהיו־לי. ומולדתך אשר־הולדת אחריהם לך יהיו על שם אחיהם יקראו בנחלתם.
48(5-6): “Now, the two sons born to you in the land of Egypt, before I came to you in Egypt - they are mine: Ephraim and Maneshe will be like Reuven and Shimon to me. But any children you have after them will be considered part of their brothers’ families for inheritance.”
“Before I came to you”: with this, Yaakov Avinu explains the difference between Ephraim and Menashe, and all children of Yosef that might follow. Only Ephraim and Menashe were born in exile, when Yosef was far from his father and his family.
In this Ephraim and Menashe are similar to the other shvatim, the sons of Yaakov:
לה(כג-כו) בני לאה כו‘ בני רחל יוסף ובנימן. כו‘ אלה בני יעקב אשר ילד־לו בפדן ארם.
35(23-26): “The sons of Leah... The sons of Rachel were Yosef and Binyamin... These are the children of Yaakov who were born to him in Padan Aram.”
Now, Binyamin was neither conceived nor born in Padan Aram. The Ibn Ezra says that the Torah wasn’t exactly precise when it suggests that all of them were born there; it means almost all of them. But that’s not a type of approach we usually use. Another possible answer: the Torah tends to describe extreme cases. We’ve discussed this a number of times. And Padan Aram means: not in Eretz Yisroel, not with Yitzchak Yaakov’s father, the center of holiness in that generation. The Torah actually stresses this several times (31(19), 35(27)), that Yaakov Avinu came back to Eretz Yisroel, to his father.
Binyamin was born right on the border, between Eretz Yisroel and golus. Even for him, “born in Padan Aram” can have a precise meaning.
[See also what I wrote in Sefer D’varim about the verses D’varim 4(45-6), “in the land of Sichon king of the Emori who dwelt in Chesbon, whom Moshe and Israel smote as they were leaving Mitzvrayim.” - Almost forty years later, they were still leaving Mitzrayim as long as they were in the midbar.]
[I heard something somewhat similar to this idea in the name of my Rosh Yeshiva Harav Yaakov Weinberg zt”l.]
I’ve written in Sefer D’varim about the potential value of golus, that sometimes a person or a nation can grow in exile in a way that is impossible in their proper place.
Normally a person should not put himself in such a position on purpose; he should draw as close to kedusha as he can. Neither Yaakov nor Yosef went into exile voluntarily. Nevertheless, עצת ה‘ היא תקום, Hashem’s plans are what count. He arranged the situations so that the Avos and the Sh’vatim could grow to their full greatness.
Brothers and Sons in Sefer Breishis
After the sin of First Man, most sins in Sefer B’reishis are either between brothers or between father and son. [The sin of First Man itself must surely include all others as well.]
Brothers - jealousy and quarrel
There are many of these, with a progression of seriousness, and of the size of the punishment
All the jealous brothers worried that their sibling(s) would be the firstborn and the most important, and that they would be beneath them. They were not willing to see their brother elevated or to be subjugated to them. Because of that, they slipped and fell themselves.
The punishment for this sin is being cast out, not willing or able to be together with them in the same family.
[Another similar example is Lot; Avram calls him a brother as well.]
Sons and fathers - disrespect
The punishment of these was not expulsion. As there was still peace between the siblings, the erring son didn’t have to leave. But that son lost his position among the other brothers. Greatness among the brothers means to be close to the father, to be his servant, and to be worthy to fill his place eventually. Since these had sinned against their father, they lost the chance to be his main servant; the other brothers will move up. These sons will become lesser brothers from that point on, “serving the servants”.
[In the case of Yehudah it says ישתחוו לך בני אביך, surprisingly similar to what the blessing of Yaakov said as regards Esav. It does seem that there was a difference between the brothers of Yehudah and the brothers of Yaakov and of Ham. Ham wasn’t first among the brother even originally, see Rashi and the Ramban; it must be he was lowered still further.]
The firstborn and his rejection
I have brought a number of cases where the actual firstborn was pushed away before a younger brother - exactly the opposite to the halacha that the Torah still prescribes for inheritance in Parshas Ki Seitzei. It happens pretty much every time in Sefer B’reishis. I found a Maharal that explains this, גבורות ה' פרק כ"ט. He says that the physical is the vessel and raw material (כלי וחומר), and the spiritual is the צורה, the form, that gives the vessel its purpose. In thought, in planning, for sure the purpose comes first - but the physical elements of the vessel must be introduced first. It will then be ready for when it is “filled” with its purpose.
We find this in the Creation, and building the Mishkan, and other well-known places.
Therefore, the firstborn comes first, as he represents control over the physical, and gets a double portion of it. And if he understands his purpose properly and uses his share to help his brother(s) fulfill their purposes, how wonderful. But if he forgets his purpose ח"ו, and thinks that the physical is the main thing, then he must be lowered and his greatness removed. [See the actual words of the מהר"ל; this is what I understood from them.]
Maybe I’ll just add a brief idea on this: We know that the child is the offspring of the father and mother, and an extension of them. In some sense, the nature of the father is in the child. When the firstborn is born, the father is younger, with more strength and more attachment to the physical, and that affects the firstborn. Later children (בני זקונים) come from an older, weaker father, where the physical has lessened somewhat. For them, it is natural that the spiritual would be more predominant. [I have written elsewhere at length about the transmission of the father’s nature to the son, see the verse in D’varim וילדו לו בנים and the Chazal on it, and Mishnah Kiddushin 3(12).]