From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 2:44 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Mikeitz, 5767





                                                Breaking Bread

                  By Rabbi Joshua (culinarily known as The Hoffer) Hoffman



   Yosef incarcerates Shimon and tells the brothers that he will not release him until they bring their youngest brother down to Egypt. Yehudah convinces Yaakov to permit them to take Binyomin with them, and, together, the brothers all go back down to meet with Yosef. When they get there, Yosef has them taken to his home, and invites them to a meal with him there. At the meal, he makes the seating arrangements in accordance with the age of each brother, to their astonishment, without asking them for that information. While they are still musing over that feat, Yosef proceeds to give each of them their portions, and he gives Binyomin five times as much as each of the other brothers receives. The Talmud asks, how could Yosef make the same mistake that his father did, favoring one brother over the others? After all, didn't that mistake result in Yosef being sold into slavery and the entire family had to come to Egypt? The Talmud answers that Yosef was hinting to them that Mordechai, who would descend from Binyomin, would, in the future, be honored by King Achashveirosh, whose life he had saved, by having himself clothed in five royal garments. We have noted, in the past, the explanation of Rav Dovid Feinstein, that Yosef was telling them, in a veiled way, that just as the situation of Shushan had initially appeared bleak but ultimately led to the elevation of Mordechai and, along with him, the Jewish people, so, too, his own sale to Egypt, which they precipitated, eventually led to his elevation, and this would, ultimately, lead to the exodus of the Jewish people from Egypt, and their formation as the nation of God after receiving the Torah at Mt. Sinai. We still need to understand, however, why Yosef chose to make this allusion within the context of a meal. After all, the meal itself, as described by the Torah, was a bit awkward, since the brothers could not sit together with Yosef and the Egyptians. Why, then, did Yosef place them in such an awkward position in order to deliver his veiled message?


  In parshas Vayeishev, the Torah tells us that after the brothers threw Yosef into a pit, they sat down to eat a meal. Groups of merchants, both from Yishmael and from Midian, then passed by, and, in the end, Yoef was sold and taken down to Egypt. Who actually sold Yosef to the merchants? Rashi says that the brothers sold him. However, his grandson, the Rashbam, says that the brothers were involved in their meal, and, in the meantime, the passing merchants discovered Yosef and sold him. According to Rashi’s explanation, Yosef would not have known that the brothers sat down to a meal before selling him. However, according the the Rashbam Yosef may have seen his brothers partaking of their repast while he was taken out of the pit and sold as a slave. Following this scenario, we can understand why Yosef arranged a meal for his brothers when they brought Binyomin to Egypt. The meal itself was part of the message that Yosef was alluding to. A midrash in the Pesikta, brought by Rabbi Menachem Kasher in his Torah Shleimah, says that the meal the brothers had when Yosef was sold benefited the entire world, because, through it, it came about that Yosef would provide the world with food during the years of famine it would experience. Thus, the entire process that Yosef and his brothers, which they were currently going through, may have been initiated with a bad intent, but what seemed to be bad, ultimately, turned out to be good. This is, in fact, the same message that Yosef was conveying when he gave Binyomin a portion five times as large as he gave the other brothers, as we brought from Rav Dovid Fenstein. The entire process, from the meal that the brothers sat down to to Yosef’s enslavement in Egypt, and beyond, was guided by divine providence, and led, ultimately, to the creation of the Jewish people.


  Based on our explanation of Yosef’s arranging a meal for the brothers, we can add a further dimension to the message of the five-fold portion given to Binyamin. In parshas Vayeishev, the Torah tells us that Yosef was sold for twenty pieces of silver. These twenty pieces of silver, however, were also equal to five shekalim. . In fact, Rashi in parshas Bamidbar (3:47) writes that the reason the first-born were redeemed for five shekalim is because Yosef was sold for that amount of money. His source is the Yerushalmi in Shekalim (2:3), which says that since the brothers sold Yosef, the first-born of Rochel for twenty pieces of silver, every man must redeem his first-born son for twenty pieces of silver. Rabbi Meir Simcha of Dvinsk, in his commentary Meshech Chochmah to parshas Shemos, explains that the entire process of Yosef’s sale down to the slaying of the first–born of their Egyptians and the saving of the first-born of the Jews on the night of the exodus from Egypt, was one long process of divine providence, and this is what the redemption of the first-born for twenty pieces of silver comes to remind us. The work Kinyan HaTorah BeHalacha writes that the reason the mitzvoh of pidyon haben, redemption of the first-born, is done in the middle of a meal is to allude to the sale of Yosef, of which the redemption comes to remind us. Perhaps, then, the five-fold portion that Yosef gave to Binyomin was an allusion to the five shekolim for which he was sold, and, thus, a reinforcement of the message that the process they precipitated when they sat down to eat a meal, although seemingly bad, was in fact guided throughout by divine providence, and meant for the good. This was, in fact, the explicit message that Yosef delivered to his brothers after he revealed his true identity to his brothers, when he told them, “ I am Yosef your brother whom you sold to Egypt. And now, do not be distressed, and do not reproach yourself for having me here, for it was as a supporter of life that God sent me ahead of you” (Bereishis 45: 4-5).



  Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.

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