Shabbat Parashat Mikeitz - 5784

Shabbat Parashat Mikeitz - 5784

Rabbi Hal Miller

  Anyone among your servants with whom it is found shall die, and we also will become

  slaves to my lord. [Bereishit 44:9]

  He said, "Even now as you say, so it is, the one with whom it is found shall be a slave

  to me but you shall be exonerated." [Bereishit 44:10]

These two verses seem to conflict. In 9, the brothers are speaking, although which one

is not clear, as verse 7 says, "and they said to him". They tell Yosef that the guilty one is

to die, and the rest of the brothers will become slaves. But in 10, Yosef, in 'agreeing' with

them, says something quite different, that the guilty one is to become a slave and the rest

of the brothers will be released. Where is the agreement?

Rashi and others understand Yosef's words in 10 as meaning, what you said is a correct

statement of the law and what should be the outcome here, but I, Yosef, am going to go

outside of the law to be more lenient. Rather than kill the guilty one I will merely enslave

him, and rather than enslave the others I will let them go free.

Rashbam follows this, but with a bit more explanation. He notes that the law was intended

to deal with the usual case, saying "It is the custom of merchants to always attribute blame

to one another" but that here Yosef saw that the brothers were not doing this so he would

not hold them to that "shotgun approach". Then Rashbam adds an interesting comment,

"You are truly all partners in all that you do." It could be that Yosef is referring to various

actions from the past, including the sale to the Yishmaelim. This would be both a negative

and a positive trait of the sons of Yaakov, that for better or worse, now and in the future,

all the tribes are linked.

Sforno explains Yosef's leniency attributing it to a benevolent Pharaoh. Not only would the

punishment ordinarily be as the brothers mention in verse 9, but here the stolen goblet

belongs to the king so it would be all the more so an obligation that the brothers be

punished. Verse 10 is Yosef saying, see, even here, Pharaoh is going to be lenient.

Ramban places the decision on Yosef, not Pharaoh. Yosef heard the brothers state what

the punishment should be, agreed that they were correct, then in effect said, but you are

not the ones who get to decide, I am. Yosef then rendered judgment differently just to

show the brothers that it was his to decide, not theirs.

Rav Hirsch gives an interesting observation. Ten of the brothers had been in Egypt before,

facing Yosef. They left Egypt with grain sacks, in which Yosef had secreted their money.

The fact that they brought it back to Egypt on their second trip was proof that they were

in fact honest. However, this time, the eleventh brother, Binyamin, was along, and had

not previously proven his honesty. Yosef knew that the goblet was in Binyamin's sack

this time, so only the unproven Binyamin would be liable to punishment.

The agreement here is not over what will happen, rather over what would happen in the

ordinary course. The rest of verse 10 is Yosef saying, but here we will do differently.