Shabbos Parashas Vayeishev - 5775

Shabbos Parashas Vayeishev - 5775 Rabbi Hal Miller His brothers saw that their father loved him most of all his brothers so they hated him, and they could not speak to him peaceably. [Bereishit 37:4] Why was the Jewish people exiled to Egypt? Whose fault was it, Yosef? Yaakov? The brothers? All of them? Our parsha gives some answers.

For example, the story of the many-colored coat occurs this week. Yaakov gave this

coat to Yosef, and not to his other sons. For want of a couple of bits of colored wool for a coat, the people was exiled? This coat appears again as a source of trouble in the hand of Potiphar's wife, when she makes accusations against Yosef. Such stories abound (for want of), but could this serious a result be attributed to one of them? We can certainly learn lessons about parenting here. In Bereishis Rabbah, Reish Lakish said in the name of R'Elazar ben Azariyah, "a man must not make a distinction among his children". But was this enough?

The brothers sell Yosef in this parsha. That's pretty serious, and certainly a good reason for Yosef to be angry with his siblings. Exile? Again it seems like overkill.

The sale appears to be an implementation of exile, not a cause of exile.

In verse 2, preceding ours, we read, "And Yosef would bring evil aspersions about them to their father." That gives the brothers a cause of action against Yosef, but not a reason to exile a people.

Verse 3, in explaining the coat says, "Now Yisrael loved Yosef more than all his sons since he was a child of his old age." That sounds like a matter of jealousy brewing.

Onkelos points out that this makes little sense, as Binyamin was in fact younger. Ramban explains that all eleven brothers (excluding Binyamin) were born in the

space of a total of seven years. They were all children of Yaakov's old age! A couple were barely months older than Yosef. On the surface this does not compute. What does it mean? Ramban answers us. It was typical in that day for a father to keep home

one of his youngest children to care for the elderly parents, sort of a butler. It was typical to dress the butler in finer clothing that those in the field would wear to work.

Malbim concludes that "this could not have alone been sufficient to turn the brothers toward murder. They were convinced by Yosef's haughtiness that he was in fact a truly evil person, and that his removal from the family was required to 'root out the evil'."

Our parsha begins with "these are the generations of Yaakov". Verse 3 makes a subtle change on us: instead of 'Yaakov', it uses the name 'Yisrael'. This is a clue: we are no longer dealing with the tribulations of a simple family. This is the beginning of a nation. Our verse here is the very first thing to occur in this transition, and it is a case of jealousy. The brothers "hated him and could not speak to him peaceably." An auspicious beginning to a nation. This is a sufficient cause for an exile by itself. Yosef had not yet been sold, Yehuda had not yet sinned with Tamar, most of the anger had not yet occurred.

But the die had already been cast.

The reason for the destruction of the Second Temple was Sinas Chinam, baseless hatred. People may have had petty complaints against each other--societies always face that. But when people cannot resolve their differences with shalom bayis, trouble is certainly going to follow. Peace!