Vayechi 5775: For Your Own Good

By Rabbi Joshua (globally known as the Hoffer) Hoffman

After Yaakov’s death, Yosef’s brother’s, fearing that he will take revenge on them for having caused his sale to Egypt, send him a message that Yaakov before his death had issued a command for him to forgive them. Yosef comforted them, and told them that, although their intention had been for bad, God intended them for good, and used them to help sustain a vast people (Bereishis 50:15-17). The Midrash Shochar Tov to Tehillim (10:2) derives from these verses that Yosef did, indeed, forgive his brothers. However, Rabbeinu Bachya, in his commentary to the verses, writes that we never find explicitly that Yosef forgave his brothers, and they died with their sin still in their hands. The death of the ten martyrs, immortalized in the piyut recited on Yom Kippur and Tisha B’Av, came to atone for this unforgiven sin. Rabbi Avraham Lifschutz of Chicago, in his book of studies on Rabbeinu Bachya’s commentary, notes that, although these remarks are not the simple reading of the verse, it does find some support in Midrash Mishlei (1:13) and in kabbalah as well. Given this opinion, we need to understand why Yosef, who the rabbis refer to as a tzadik, a righteous man, based on a verse in Amos (2:6), did not forgive his brothers. After all, while the sinner is required to ask forgiveness, the offended party is instructed not to be cruel and withhold forgiveness (see Shulchan Aruch, Orach Chaim, 606:1; and Rama there). Why didn’t Yosef act accordingly?

The Chasam Sofer cites the Magen Avraham (606:4) who says, based on the Talmud in Yoma 86, that one may withhold forgiveness if he does so for the sinner's own good. Yosef, suggests the Chasam Sofer, withheld his forgiveness because he did not want his brothers to remain in Egypt longer than necessary and, therefore, did not want them to feel comfortable remaining there. Rav Mordechai Gifter, in his Pirkei Torah, although not addressing the question of Yosef’s failure to grant forgiveness, writes, somewhat that he did not invite his brothers to eat with him after Yaakov’s death, as mentioned by Rashi, because he felt that without Yaakov’s influence they would not be able to withstand the powerful attraction of the physical enticements of the royal palace. 

Perhaps we can suggest another reason behind Yosef’s failure to forgive his brothers, based on the teachings of Rav Kook in his work Oros.  Rav Kook writes, that the greater a person becomes, the more focused he is on the collective of the Jewish people, rather than himself. Yosef, then, was so focused on the collective fate of the nation, as reflected in his response to the brothers worries that he did not think of the wrong done to him personally at all. The brothers, however, had a different focus from their perspective, as expressed in the mention of possible retribution, and didn't request forgiveness in a manner that addressed the personal danger that they had placed Yosef in, to the extent of evoking an explicit, unequivocal statement of forgiveness. They thus died without achieving atonement, which would only come, according to Rabbeinu Bachya, in future generations.