Shabbat Parashas Vayeishev - 5783

Shabbat Parashas Vayeishev - 5783

Rabbi Hal Miller

"Now his brothers went to pasture their father's flock in Shechem. And Israel said

to Yosef, "Your brothers are pasturing in Shechem". [Beresihit 37:12-13]

After the Dinah incident, why would the brothers return to Shechem? What does

pasturing mean?

The word 'et' does not translate into English. It gets used to point to a direct object.

Here, the Hebrew is va'yeilchu echav l'r'ot et tzon avihem b'shechem, The 'et' points

to the sheep of their father as being the object of the verb pasture. But as Rashi

points out, the 'et' has a dot above each letter, negating the word from the meaning

of the sentence. If so, then the brothers were not pasturing the sheep, rather were

pasturing themselves, presumably either upon the sheep or upon Shechem. Most

commentators agree with how Onkelos reads it, "His brothers went to pasture. Their

father's flock was in Shechem."

So, if the brothers are not taking Yaakov's sheep out to graze, what are they doing?

Bereishit Rabbah [84:13] says that they went to feed themselves. According to Gur

Aryeh, this means they overindulged in eating and drinking, which led to their sin in

how they treated Yosef.

Radak expands on the thought in Bereishit Rabbah. The brothers could have eaten

anywhere. Why did they choose Shechem? After having destroyed the population,

they were not afraid there, but Yaakov had taken them to task for what they had done

because of the impact it would have on his family in the eyes of the neighboring

populations. The brothers went there to show independence from Yaakov, that they

could do whatever they liked without the restraints their father stood for.

Ro'eh is a shepherd. In the verb form it means to shepherd, to tend or to graze. The

brothers were tending to their own needs and desires. The Torah mentions that

Yaakov's flock was in Shechem to let us know the excuse they gave when they went

there, not the actual reason they went.

But all of this seems to contradict the plain meaning of the verses. Abarbanel and many

others would tell us that an explanation that contradicts the plain meaning could not be

correct. Certainly the plain meaning makes sense here, since we know the brothers were

shepherds for their father's sheep. We also know that the brothers were upright and

righteous, if not perfect, so the explanation of overindulgence seems a stretch. It seems

odd that commentators felt a need to substitute a new meaning for pasture.

The second reference to Shechem is easy to explain, that Yaakov was giving Yosef an

understanding of where he had to travel to in order to find everyone. But the first

reference is less clear. Why did the brothers take the sheep to Shechem in the first place?

Given the 'et' situation, perhaps we can read the verse that they took their own sheep to

Shechem, that they did not take Yaakov's because those sheep were already there. This

would fit with the second reference from Yaakov.

If so, one question remains. Did the brothers have their own sheep, or was it all Yaakov's?

The Torah does not specifically tell us that they were bringing their own, but we can see

in 46:6 that "They took their livestock and their wealth that they had amassed in the land

of Canaan and they came to Egypt, Yaakov and all his offspring with him." The fact that it

does not say, 'he' took but "they took", and 'his wealth', rather "their wealth" indicates that

the brothers also amassed property, justifying a reading within the plain meaning of our

verses.