From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, December 26, 2008 1:34 AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Mikeitz, 5769
Twelve Gates to the City
By Rabbi Joshua (searchingly known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
When the brothers of Yosef go down to Egypt, on their father Yaakov's
orders, to purchase grain in face of the famine in Canaan, they are interviewed
by Yosef to determine what their needs are. Yosef accuses them of being spies,
and they respond that they are all the children of one father, that the
youngest of them is back home in Canaan with their father, and that another one
of them is not there. Yosef, after first incarcerating all ten brothers, then
releases all but one of them, and takes Shimon as a hostage, telling the
rest of them to bring back the youngest brother in order to prove the truth of
their claims, and to retrieve their brother Shimon. Ramban, in his commentary
to parshas Mikeitz, writes that there must have been some logic to Yosef's
accusation, in order for anyone to take it seriously. He explains that the
brothers had an aristocratic appearance and did not seem likely as candidates
to travel to Egypt merely to purchase grain. Moreover, they were the first ones
to come from Canaan for that ostensible purpose. However, there must have been
a deeper purpose in this accusation which led Yosef to treat his brothers in
this fashion, for which he needed to find some logical argument to implement.
What was that purpose?
According to the midrash, Yosef argued that the brothers must be spies
since each of them entered through a different gate of the city. They answered
that their father had told them not to enter through one gate, together,
because that would generate an 'ayin hara,' or evil eye, typified by jealousy
on the part of those seeing them, because of their distinguished appearance. I
believe that there is more involved in this warning of Yaakov than the fear of
the evil eye. On a deeper level, each of the brothers, the ten who went to
Egypt to buy grain, as well as Yosef, and Binyomin, had a particular mission to
fulfill within the developing nation of Bnei Yisroel. The Ari, in fact says
that there are twelve separate gates going up to heaven, one for the prayers of
each of the twelve tribes, because each of them has a different mission to
fulfill within the nation. Yaakov realized that there had been friction between
the brothers because of the prominent role that he had given Yosef, and he
wanted them to understand that each brother had a unique role to play, and as
they entered Egypt to purchase grain, they should also search themselves to
discover what role they would play within the nation.
Perhaps, then, this was the hidden message of Yosef to his brothers, as
well. When he told them that they were spies, he was actually telling them that
they should be spies. By entering through ten separate gates, they were
acknowledging that each had a different personality. Yosef was hinting to them
that, on a deeper level, they all needed to search for their role within the
Jewish nation, and, by doing so, they would understand that Yosef, too, had his
own unique role to play, and, therefore they had erred in trying to rid
themselves of him. This hint of Yosef, then, was part of a wider series of
hints that he gave to the brothers concerning the eventual descent of the
nation to Egypt, that culminated with his statement to them that it was
actually God who had sent him to Egypt, to care for the nation and pave the way
for their years of exile. The Zohar, in fact, tells us that the famine came to
Egypt so that Yosef would be able to arrange a system of economics there which
would lead to the enrichment of the country, so that, in the end, when the
Jewish nation would leave, they would be able to carry off the riches of Egypt
with them, to fulfill God's promise to Avrohom that after the exile the nation
would leave with great wealth. The Malbim, in turn, explains that when Yosef
ordered that the money that the brothers used to purchase their grain be
returned to their sacks, and, when they later tried to return the money, he
told them to keep it, he was hinting to them that all the money in Egypt
would eventually belong to the Jewish nation when it would leave that country
at the time of the redemption. Yosef, then, by accusing the brothers of being
spies, was taking another step in paving the way for the redemption, by trying
to bring them to an understanding of the composition of the Jewish nation, with
each tribe playing its part, working together to carry out God's mission for
them in the world.
Netvort archives are temporarily available at http://www.yucs.org/heights/torah/bysubject/
Please address all correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman)
with the following address - JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
To subscribe to Netvort, send a message with subject line subscribe,
to Netvort@aol.com. To
unsubscribe, send message with subject line unsubscribe, to the
same address.
**************
One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail, Gmail, and Yahoo
Mail. Try it now. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp&icid=aolcom40vanity&ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025)