Vayechi Answers

VaYechi 5718

Alef.

1.  Beraishit 50:15 ties together as a Hekesh the death of Yaakov and the fact that the brothers feared that Yosef would finally avenge himself upon them. The Midrashim are trying to explain what change happened immediately after the death of Yaakov that precipitated the brothers thinking that Yosef would now treat them harshly.

2.  Beraishit Rabba: Following Yaakov’s death, Yosef seated the brothers differently when they would eat together. While the Midrash supplies a rationale for Yosef’s doing this, i.e., Yosef wished to seat the brothers in the order that he thought they were entitled, they saw the rearrangement as an indication that Yosef would now treat them as they feared he would from the time he identified himself to his brothers. What Yosef did to them with respect to court etiquette.

      Mishnat R. Eliezer: Upon returning from his father’s burial, Yosef made a detour to revisit the pit into which his brothers had thrown him. According to the Midrash, he was appreciating the amazing intercession of HaShem that brought him from this pit to the second highest position in Egypt. The brothers when they saw Yosef doing this, thought that he was arousing his past resentment in preparation for attacking them in response to their having treated him so badly. How Yosef acted in relation to what had happened to him because of his brothers.

3.  The brothers’ misunderstanding of Yosef’s actions is due to their own sense of guilt over what they had done. Yosef has gone out of his way to try to reassure the brothers that he saw all that had happened as the Hand of God Guiding the fate of the Jewish people. Yet because the brothers were so consumed with guilt over what they had done, and also because they thought that if the situation was reversed, they certainly would have sought revenge against Yosef, therefore they just can’t bring themselves to interpret his actions in any way other than what they think they deserve.

4.  The verb “VaYiru” is understood by the two Midrashim as “And they understood/interpreted the implications” of actions coming on the heels of the death of Yaakov.

5.  The second Midrash criticizes Yosef for not making clearer his intentions. If he had articulated that by going to the pit he was acknowledging HaShem’s Hashgacha Pratit, then the brothers might have worried far less. It is the responsibility of a person to not only avoid doing the wrong thing, but not to give others the impression that he is doing the wrong thing. The fact that Yosef failed to inform his brothers about why he was revisiting the pit caused them not only consternation, but even to lie regarding Yaakov’s having demanded that Yosef swear not to harm them.

6.  Just as it was inconsiderate for Yaakov to have said to Rachel in her desperation that he was not God to Decide whether or not she would have children—he should have tried to comfort her rather than berated her, that same insensitivity was in turn expressed to the rest of Yaakov’s male offspring by Yosef, Rachel’s son, to the effect that God is Following some master plan and therefore all of us, Yosef included, are mere pawns with respect to how this works out. The brothers at that point were not interested in God’s Plans, but were frightened over what exactly Yosef proposed to do to make up for their almost killing him and then selling him over two decades previously. Yosef should have been sensitive to their worry.

7.  Iyov 15:2 “Should a wise man make answer with windy knowledge, (and fill his belly with the east wind?)”. In this context, the Midrash is suggesting that Yosef’s words to the brothers were foolish and inappropriate. At this point, the brothers needed to be comforted due to their guilt and fear of Yosef’s retribution. They didn’t need to hear a theology lesson.

8.  Since the brothers were obviously in emotional difficulty, why is Yosef accusing them of thinking badly of him? Isn’t this just adding salt to their wounds? The Midrash wishes to demonstrate that Yosef was interested in getting everything out in the open. He was going to be frank with the brothers and he wanted them to be frank with him. So if everyone could speak openly they had a chance to truly reconcile, which would not be possible if everyone continued to harbor unstated resentment towards one another. 

Beit.

1.  In the case of Yaakov and Rachel, one could say that conception of a child is truly not subject to a human being’s control. Consequently for Rachel to accuse Yaakov of not trying to exert influence with HaShem was unreasonable and Yaakov was justified in saying that he was not in any position to address her complaint. (Nevertheless, even if what he said was justified, it was still insensitive to blurt this out to a desperate Rachel.) However, as far as the relationship between Yosef and his brothers was concerned, this, their mutual resentments and suspicions, was something that they all could address and control. To attribute all the events to HaShem and for this reason to argue that neither Yosef nor the brothers should be blamed for their hostilities towards one another would appear to be inappropriate.

2.  In II Melachim 5. The king of Aram sends a request to the king of Israel that he see to it that the prophet Elisha cure the Aramite general Na’amon of his Tzora’at condition. When the king of Israel receives the request he is fearful because he recognizes that if he fails to affect a cure for Na’amon, the king of Aram may feel it appropriate to attack Israel. He cries out, “Am I in God’s Place to take and give life?” This would appear to be similar to what Yaakov tells Rachel when she asks that he intercede with God so that she would finally conceive a child. Both human conception as well as the cure for Tzora’at lie beyond human capacities and only reside with God Himself. (It is interesting to note that in both instances, the comparison to life and death is invoked, first by Rachel who says that if she remains childless, it is as if she is dead, and then by the King of Israel who compares the state of the Metzora with someone who is dead. The Talmud in Avoda Zora 5a states that there are people who while alive are considered at least metaphorically dead, and included in the list are those who are childless as well as those who suffer from Tzora’at.)

Gimel.

1.  The two usages of “VaYiru” appear to be different. In the case of BaMidbar 20 describing the death of Aharon, the people simply could not believe that Aharon who had defeated death in the plague of the snakes as well as the plague following the Korach rebellion, had met his own end. So they had to be shown in a supernatural manner that Aharon in fact had died. (Parallel visions are associated with what led to Sara’s death—she was prophetically shown what Avraham was intending to do to Yitzchak at the Akeida—as well as what led to the sin of the Golden Calf, the people being shown that Moshe had died atop Mt. Sinai and for this reason he was not coming down the mountain at the time that they expected him to rejoin them.)

In the case of Yosef’s brothers, it was not what they didn’t see that led to them to be shown a   vision, but rather what they thought they saw in Yosef’s ambiguous actions, that led to Yosef’s pleading with them not to suspect him of plotting against them.

2.  Apparently, RaShI does not feel that simply changing the seating order would have created a large enough buzz to make the brothers suspicious of Yosef. Therefore RaShI ups the ante by claiming that his brothers were never invited to any of the royal meals following Yaakov’s death, something that the brothers thought could not be explained away other than to realize that Yosef feels animus towards them and will let them feel his wrath now that Yaakov has passed away.