Parshas Vayigash - Yosef and his brothers, part 3
מיכאל ריטש
What If? Cause and effect, Rachel and Leah
We left Yosef and his brothers at a cliffhanger last week, with the Viceroy demanding that they abandon Binyamin as a slave! Before returning to the story, I want to interrupt with an illustrative example, from the story of Rachel and Leah.
ב"ב קכג• ראויה היתה בכורה לצאת מרחל, דכתיב אלה תולדות יעקב יוסף, אלא שקדמתה לאה ברחמים, ומתוך צניעות שהיתה בה ברחל החזירה הקב"ה לה. מאי קדמתה לאה ברחמים? כו‘ שהיתה שומעת על פרשת דרכים בני אדם שהיו אומרים, שני בנים יש לה לרבקה, שתי בנות יש לו ללבן, גדולה לגדול וקטנה לקטן, והיתה יושבת על פרשת דרכים ומשאלת, גדול מה מעשיו? איש רע הוא מלסטם בריות. קטן מה מעשיו? איש תם יושב אוהלים, והיתה בוכה עד שנשרו ריסי עיניה. ומאי צניעות היתה בה ברחל? כו‘ מסר לה סימנין. כי קא מעיילי לה ללאה, סברה השתא מיכספא אחתאי, מסרתינהו ניהלה כו‘ עכ“ל.
Bava Basra 123a: “The firstborn really should have come from Rachel, as it is said (B’reishis 37) ‘These are the generations of Yaakov: Yosef!’ - except that Leah preempted her with prayer for mercy. And because of the tznius that Rachel showed, Hashem gave it back to her. How did Leah preempt her with prayer? She would listen to people talking, ‘Rivkah has two sons, Lavan has two daughters - the older will marry the older and the younger the younger.’ And she would sit and ask them, ‘What does the older son do?’ ‘He is wicked, and robs people.’ ‘And the younger?’ ‘He is a perfect man, who studies in tents.’ - She cried and cried until her eyelashes fell out. And what was the tznius of Rachel?... She handed over the simanim to her sister. When her sister was being brought in, she thought, ‘My sister will be so humiliated,’ and gave them to her.’ ”
Our assumptions can be very different from the truth. We get cause and effect totally mixed up, and in guessing what actions will work.
Rachel handed over the simanim to Leah. She let her sister marry Yaakov first, incredible chesed with no thought for herself. And we think: Look what it cost her. Because of that Leah got the firstborn, got the Malchus and Levi and Kehuna. Because of that Rachel lost her complete connection to her husband, and he was buried with Leah and not with her. All that she gave up to do her chesed! Of course, it must be better to do kindness, but we think there is a serious cost as well. - That’s what we think.
But listen to the truth, as it is given in the gemara. “Leah preempted her with prayer.” Rachel didn’t give the firstborn to Leah, Leah earned it. If Rachel hadn’t given the simanim to Leah, Leah would have had the firstborn rights anyhow. One can maybe use one’s imagination: maybe Rachel would be infertile, and Yaakov would have to marry Leah after all. However it would have worked, the gemara is telling us that that would have been the end result.
“Because of the tznius that Rachel showed, Hashem gave it back to her.” Without that, Rachel would have had nothing at all. Her chesed didn’t cause her a loss, it was the cause of her salvation.
What If: Yehudah and his brothers
Just as we can try and disentangle cause and effect in the story of Rachel and Leah, we could do the same in the story of Yosef’s brothers. But as I pointed out in the first installment: if we want to understand the story in the regular way we approach our lives - in the world of bechirah rather than the world of complete foreknowledge - we have to treat the events as they happened, with people making free choices. The people involved had bechirah, and could have made the wrong choices - and we can try to see what would have happened.
In the simple reading of the Torah, the brothers must have felt that they were helpless against the enormous power of the Viceroy of Egypt (כי כמוך כפרעה - Rashi: “in our eyes you are as powerful as Par’oh”). They have no choice but to return to their home without Binyamin. No one would have been able to complain against them, not really: what could they possibly have done?
What would have happened if they had passively accepted the terrible disaster that had befallen them (perhaps ח"ו with just the smallest נחמה deep down that the last child of Rachel would no longer be competing for their father’s affection)? Very sad, of course, about the pain that they would bring their father, but accepting that they have no choice but to do just that...
Let us use our imaginations, to continue the story. We don’t have to accept the Viceroy’s presentation of the situation! After all, we know some things about what’s happening that the brothers don’t.
Yaakov himself would have had to come down to Mitzrayim. (Yosef could perhaps have sent him word before the brothers arrived back, to spare him further pain.) Yaakov was very old, but for Yosef and Binyamin he would force himself and come. He would find his son Yosef with Binyamin, in the same incredibly joyous reunion that actually took place.
But he would learn from Yosef what the brothers had done.
And Yehudah and the other brothers would have been cast out of the family. Yaakov would never accept their excuses now: why they had felt they were right to sell Yosef, to abandon Binyamin. The excommunication of Yehudah on himself would have been fulfilled completely. Israel would have been built from the descendents of Rachel alone.
The story would have had a very happy ending: how the good brothers finally triumphed over the wicked ones. And that is how we would learn it today.
That didn’t happen because of Yehudah’s heroic action. Hashem has arranged the story in an amazing way: Yehudah thinks he is sacrificing himself to save Binyamin. But Binyamin is actually in no danger at all; it is himself that Yehudah is saving.
Actually, the very beginning of the story had a possible alternate ending as well. Reuven saved Yosef from the hands of his brothers; they threw him into a pit in the desert instead of killing him outright. Then they sat down to eat.
I’m guessing that they didn’t enjoy their meal: the food stuck in their throats. And as they sat quietly chewing, each lost in his own thoughts, Hashem in his kindness gave them another chance:
לז(כה) וישאו עיניהם ויראו והנה ארחת ישמעאלים באה מגלעד
B’reishis 37(25) “They lifted up their eyes, and behold! They saw a troop of Yishmaelites coming from Gil’ad...”
“Behold” - hashgacha from shomayim. Hashem caused them to see the troop at just the right time. And one of them put his thoughts into words: Maybe we should sell him to Mitzrayim, instead of leaving him to die.
Obviously, this wasn’t the very best decision for Yehudah to make. But it sure was a big improvement over leaving his brother to die. And make no mistake, there was a risk involved too; dead men tell no tales, but a slave in Mitzrayim might possibly be free someday or be able to send a message. The brothers chose to do it anyway and not cause his death.
What would have happened if the brothers had ignored their chance, and left Yosef in the pit?
The brothers don’t know, but we do: Yosef isn’t going to die. Hashem has already arranged that. Reuven is waiting to take him back to his father. And the brothers are going to be revealed as murderers.
But only we the readers know about it. The brothers think they are saving Yosef, taking a chance for his sake. Nothing doing: they are saving themselves.
Hashem gives us tests, and the bad looks like good to us, and the good action looks risky and costly. The truth is that nothing works except doing the right thing.
Bechirah and p’shat
As I’ve already explained, there is a side to understanding the Torah involving people’s bechirah. According to that side, totally different endings are possible. Esav Harasha could have chosen to be good, and he would have become a major part of the nation of Israel. The sh’vatim could have chosen wrongly and ח"ו would have gone lost. And if they had, we would be speaking today about Esav and Yehudah together - the big rashaim from our forefathers.
This was the question I asked originally: how was it possible for Yosef to do what he did to his righteous brothers? Answer: because they had done a great wrong to their brother, and here - in the middle of the story - they didn’t yet merit anything else. Their final status was not yet established.
There are prohibitions in the Torah against vengeance and bearing a grudge. They are terrible character traits. But that is for members of our nation, עושה מעשה עמך - who behave like members of our nation. If the brothers had chosen evil, we wouldn’t have had any questions at all about what Yosef did to them, just as we aren’t much troubled about Esav.
מא(נא) ויקרא יוסף את־שם הבכור מנשה כי־נשני אלהים את־כל־עמלי ואת כל־בית אבי.
41(51) “Yosef called his firstborn Menashe, as ‘G-d has made me forget all my suffering, and the house of my father.’ ”
In the middle of the story, he did not have happy thoughts of his family.
מב(ז) וירא יוסף את־אחיו ויכרם ויתנכר אליהם וידבר אתם קשות כו‘ (ט) ויזכר יוסף את החלמות כו‘
42(7-9) “Yosef saw his brothers and recognized them, and behaved as a stranger to them, and spoke to them harshly... And Yosef remembered the dreams...”
A number of mefarshim explain that Yosef did what he did to fulfill the dreams. But that won’t explain his making himself a stranger; he did that first, before he ever remembered the dreams.
It seems to me that this is the simple understanding of the story. But it is a little more subtle than that. For even though Yosef had been deeply hurt by his brothers, and wasn’t sure he belonged in the same family with them any more - he still loved them.
מב(כא) ויאמרו איש אל־אחיו אבל אשמים אנחנו על־אחינו כו‘ (כד) ויסב מעליהם ויבך וישב אלהם וידבר אלהם ויקח מאתם את־שמעון כו‘
מג(ל) ויבא החדרה ויבך שמה. (לא) וירחץ פניו ויצא ויתאפק כו‘.
מד(יח) ויגש אליו יהודה כו‘ (לג) ועתה ישב־נא עבדך תחת הנער עבד לאדני והנער יעל עם־אחיו. (לד) כי־איך אעלה אל־אבי והנער איננו אתי כו‘ מה(א) ולא־יכל יוסף להתאפק כו‘
42(21-24) “One said to another, ‘In truth, we are guilty about our brother’... Yosef turned from them and wept. Then he returned and spoke to them, and took Shimon away...”
43(30-31) “He went into his room and wept there. Then he washed his face, went out and got control of himself...”
44(18)-45(1) “Yehudah drew near to him... ‘And now, let your servant remain in place of the youth, a slave to my master, and let the youth go back up to his father. How can I go up to my father without the youth with me...’ Yosef could no longer control himself...”
Hashem engineered events with wonderful precision, to leave the brothers a chance to choose. (It could be that Yosef was arranging this as well.) Even if they had hurt him and he was responding, it was still hard for him to harm them. He had to keep controlling himself, holding back the love for them that was still there. And every time that the brothers drew closer to doing teshuvah, and to a recognition of their sin, it became harder for Yosef to carry on with his plan, and each time his feelings rose further in his heart. In the end he decided to accept them with love, to let them come back to the place in the family that they had almost forfeited.