From: Netvort@aol.com
Sent: Friday, January 05, 2007 2:17
AM
To: JoshHoff@aol.com
Subject: Netvort : parshas Vayechi,
5767
Stay Tuned
By Rabbi Joshua (persistently known as The Hoffer) Hoffman
At
the end of this week's parsha, the Torah tells us that Yosef's brothers, after
Yaakov's death, said "Perhaps Yosef will nurse hatred against us and then he
will surely repay us all the evil that we did him" (Bereishis 50:15). They then
went to Yosef and asked him for his forgiveness. This request would seem to be
superfluous, since Yosef had already told them not to feel bad about what they
had done to him, and that God had brought about good results from what they
thought had been evil actions. Ostensibly, then, he had already granted them
forgiveness. Why, then, did they feel a need to approach him again? Rashi
explains that the brothers noticed a certain distancing on Yosef's part after
Yaakov's death, in that while Yaakov was still alive Yosef used to invite them
to his home for meals, and after Yaakov's death he no longer did so. Moreover,
the Midrash Rabbah notes that on the way back from Yaakov's funeral, Yosef
stopped by the pit into which his brothers had thrown him, and blessed God for
performing a miracle for him there. Although Yosef may have done this merely to
fulfill his obligation to make this blessing, the location of the pit was
actually not on the route of the trip back to Egypt, and the brothers may have
perceived the detour as a way of deliberately reminding them of what they had
done. Still, as Rabbi Raphael Boruch Sorotzkin points out in his HaBinah
VeHaBeracha, Yosef's actions in both instances could have easily been explained
away, without taking them as indications that he harbored any ill feelings
towards his brothers. He may have avoided inviting them for meals after Yaakov's
death because of the awkwardness of deciding who would sit at the head of the
table, which was a non-issue while Yaakov was still alive, and he may have made
the detour because he was simply anxious to thank God for His kindness. Why,
then, were the brothers so worried about Yosef's attitude toward them? Although
we have dealt with this question in the past (see Netvort to parshas Vayechi,
5764, available at Torahheights.com), I would like to present a different
approach from that which we have previously suggested.
Interestingly, both Rabbi Sorotzkin, a classic Lithuanian Talmudic scholar, and
the Chassidic Rebbe, R. Yisroel Alter of Gur, in his Beis Yisroel, point to the
same word in the verse we cited to explain the thinking of Yosef's brothers.
Yosef's brothers said, 'perhaps Yosef will nurse hatred toward us.' There are
two Hebrew words that can be used for 'perhaps' - 'pen,' and 'ulai.' The
difference between these two words is that 'pen' indicates a desire for the
contingency to be false, 'ulai 'indicates a desire fort he contingency to be
true. Although the Beis Yisroel brings this distinction between these two words
in the name of his father, it is more commonly attributed to the Vilna Gaon,
which is the source that is quoted by Rabbi Sorotzkin, based on a Talmudic
passage (Makkos 24a) in regard to Yaakov, which presents him as a paragon of
truth. When Yaakov voiced some hesitation over fooling his father into thinking
he was Eisav, he told his mother, "But see, my brother Eisav is a hairy man and
I am a smooth-skinned man. Perhaps my father will touch me and I shall be as a
mocker in his eyes" (Bereishis 27:11-12). The Talmud cites these verses as a
tribute to Yaakov's dedication to the truth. The Gaon explains that the word
used for perhaps here is ''ulai,' indicating that Yaakov actually wanted to be
found out by his father, because he felt uncomfortable in deceiving him. In the
same way, say Rabbi Alter and Rabbi Sorotzkin, Yosef's brothers were hoping that
Yosef still harbored ill feelings towards them because they felt that they had
not yet cleansed themselves of the wrong they had done him. As they saw it, they
had not yet completed their process of teshuvah, and, therefore, asked their
brother to forgive them.
There is, in fact, a dispute in the
Talmud (Yoma, 87b) whether a person needs to confess for sins which he
already confessed for in a previous year. The Rambam, in his Laws of Repentance
(2:8), brings the opinion that one should, indeed, mention such sins again in
subsequent years, even though he has maintained his status of repentance for
them. My teacher, Rav Aharon Soloveichik, zt"l, explained that doing so is part
of 'darchei teshuvah,' or paths of teshuvah, devices which keep a person in the
right direction so that he does not repeat the wrong he once did. Viewing the
petition of Yosef's brothers in this way, perhaps we can understand what they
did in the wider context of parshas Vayechi. Yaakov, before he died, gathered
all of his sons together, and gave each of them the blessing that was
appropriate to his function within the wider context of the nation. By bringing
them together for these blessings, he was stressing the need for unity among
them. Rabbi Moshe Shapiro, in Mima'amakim, explains that Yaakov was, in this
way, preparing his sons for the exile in Egypt, and for subsequent exiles as
well, and teaching them that the key to redemption is the unity of the Jewish
people. Perhaps, then, Yosef's brothers wanted to make sure that this element of
unity, which they had greatly weakened through their actions towards Yosef, had,
indeed, been restored so that the nation they were in the midst of forming would
endure the exile and ultimately merit redemption. By engaging in a continuous
process of soul-searching and cleansing themselves from any note of disharmony,
they were in effect strengthening the element that would be needed by the nation
in order to be redeemed.
Please address all
correspondence to the author (Rabbi Hoffman) with the following address -
JoshHoff @ AOL.com.
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