ר"ע תיתד תונויצל ינויערה גוחה ,םולשו זוע
The gates of Torah interpretation have not been locked and never will be locked. Every generation has its interpreters, and the contribution each interpreter makes to the understanding of the Torah lies, among other things, in the new difficulties he finds in the texts. On the face of it, it is odd that questions which so much taxed and perturbed later commentators were not raised by their predecessors at all. But when we acknowledge that, just as each person is different from every other person, the generations are different from one another, we realise that it could not be otherwise.
Rashi, commenting on the verse "An evil beast has devoured him; Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces" (Genesis XXXVII, 33), asks a painful question: "And why did God not reveal the matter to him?" and answers: "Because they put a ban on anyone who revealed it, and made God a party to the ban with them." The question is clear: How could God let Jacob's sons mislead their father, who was a prophet, with such a terrible deception? As for the answer, we will understand it better if we refer to the Midrash on which Rashi bases himself: "They (the brothers) said: We will lay a mutual ban on ourselves that none of us should tell our father Jacob. Judah said to them: Reuven is not here, and the ban is not valid unless made in the presence of ten. What did they do? They made God a party to the ban on telling their father.. and God, even though it is written about Him 'He sheweth his word unto Jacob' (Psalms CXLVII, 19), did not reveal this matter because of the ban, therefore Jacob said "Joseph is without doubt rent in pieces." (Medrash Tanhuma, Miketz 4). Judah's idea of commuting slaying Joseph to selling him could not have been accepted without an assurance that the sale would never be made known to Jacob, and so all those who took part in the crime had to lay a ban and a curse on whoever revealed the secret to their father. And since, in Reuven's absence, they did not have a minyan, they co-opted God into the ban. In other words: God would have revealed the secret to his prophet, had the brothers not included heaven in the conspiracy.
Out of all the textual interpreters who succeeded Rashi - starting from his grandson Rashbam, through R. Avraham ibn Ezra, R. Yosef Behor Shor, Radak, Ramban, Hizkuni, R. Yosef ibn Caspi, Ralbag, and ending with R. Yehuda Abarbanel - not one repeated the question, (apparently because, on the level of the plain meaning of the text, it is obvious that if the brothers feared their father's prophetic power, they would not have dared do anything behind his back), and naturally they did not repeat the answer (because of its far-fetched exegetical nature). On the other hand, they began asking a new question, on the same point, but not regarding the silence of heaven, but rather regarding the silence of Joseph. The first to formulate this question was R. Yosef Behor Shor (a pupil of Rabbeinu Tam): "Why did [Joseph] not send word to his father saying: 'I am here in Egypt'? He surely knew his father was distressed on his account!", and his answer: "It would appear that, when they sold him, they made him swear that he would never return to his father's house, and would never reveal himself to his father, or let his father know he was alive and that he had been sold [...], and he did so, as he was better off doing so than dying at their hands." (comment on Genesis XXXVII, 26). The lack of an explanation for the silence of the beloved and loving son is supplied by the surmise ("It would appear") about the enforced oath - which is no more than a way of adopting the Midrashic idea of the ban in a plainer style of interpretation. It is now clear that, had the matter depended on Joseph's will, he would have rushed to send a sign of life to his grieving father, but he was prevented from doing so by his strict adherence to his oath.
R. Yehuda Hehasid (in his notes on Genesis XXXVII, 28; XLIV, 21) repeats his predecessor's question almost word for word, and also adopts his answer, but inserts an additional answer of his own before it: "A possible answer is that, had he done so [informed his father], his brothers would have fled east and west out of shame." According to this view, what prevented Joseph from contacting his father was not the duty to keep the (supposed) oath, but sincere concern for his brothers' welfare and the preservation of his father's household. For it is quite clear that had some message, however brief and neutral, reached Jacob, telling him that Joseph had not been torn in pieces but was sold into slavery in Egypt, it would quickly have become apparent that his brothers had a hand in the matter. They would then have been unable to face their father, and Jacob's joy over the survival of the son of his old age would have been cancelled out by infinite sorrow over the crime his ten sons had perpetrated against him.
Radak, who lived in southern France, and did not know the commentaries of his two predecessors, the first of whom lived in northern France and the second in Germany, does not discuss this question at all. On the other hand, Ramban, who lived in Spain and did not know them either, raises the question independently, and with great moral fervour: "It is a matter for amazement: After Joseph was in Egypt a long time and a high official in the household of one of Egypt's notables, how is it that he did not send a single letter to his father to enlighten and comfort him? For Egypt is six days journey from Hebron, and even if it had been a year's journey, it would have been proper for him to inform him out of respect for his father, for relieving his father's soul was a precious thing, and should have been undertaken even at high cost [of expenses of the journey]," (note on Genesis XLIV, 9).
His answer: "But he did everything at its due time to fulfil the dreams, for he knew they really would be fulfilled ... but he saw that his brothers, his father, and all his descendants bowing down to him was something that could not happen in their country [Canaan] , and he was hoping that it would come about in Egypt when he saw how successful he was there..." In other words, the dreamer, who from the beginning believed with perfect faith that his dreams would be fulfilled, and that his appointment as viceroy to Pharaoh created the conditions for their fulfilment, baulked at intervening in the course of affairs and taking a fateful step that was liable to prevent them coming true in full. The duty to shorten his father's sorrow was set aside by a greater duty - to see to it that God's will, as revealed to him in his dreams, would be done in full.
Hizkuni, Ibn Caspi, and Ralbag, who did not have Ramban's commentary on the Torah, did not deal with his question, while R. Isaac Abarbanel, who made great use of it, rejects Ramban's answer with a logical argument: there was no justification for causing his father and brothers such terrible suffering just so that the dreams would be fulfilled literally, when it was quite sufficient that "he got the better of them (his brothers) convincingly, the proof being that his father never did bow down to him. Furthermore, since Joseph was the ruler of the country, they would have bowed to him even if they had recognised him..." Instead, he explains Joseph's silence as part of his concealment of his identity, which was essential in order to carry out the dual plan: first, to punish his brothers measure for measure for what they did to him; secondly, to bring them to Egypt, for only there could he look after and maintain them properly, after he was persuaded that they had utterly changed: "Therefore he put them to the test by telling them 'You are spies', until he saw that they were thoroughly repentant, as when they said 'but we are guilty'," and by means of the demand to bring Benjamin, and the hiding of the goblet in his sack, he enabled them to repent of all their sins.
Abarbanel thus unwittingly returns to the interpretation of R. Yehuda Hehasid. Joseph's hurt and hurtful silence was forced upon him, for he could not reveal the truth about his sale as long as the brothers had not been allowed to prove to him, to Jacob, to their families, and, more than anything, to themselves, that they had completely changed, and that, given the opportunity of leaving Benjamin in Egypt, they preferred to stay there as slaves, just so that the youngest of the brothers might return to his father, who loved him as he did Joseph. Joseph indeed did well to understand that he had a double duty to his brothers: "for he sent me before you to save life" (Genesis XLV, 5), meaning that he had not only to provide them with food during the years of famine, but also to make true peace between himself and them, and heal the breach in his father's house.
Professor Uriel Simon teaches in the Bible department at Bar-Ilan University.
The haphtarah (reading from the prophets) which goes with the portion of Vayigash is a prophecy of the future: the unification of Judah and Joseph and the political and spiritual rehabilitation of the united people after it had split into two separate nations. This prophecy was never fulfilled. We therefore need to study and discuss the significance of prophecies of the future, of what appears in the words of the prophets as foretelling what will happen. Ezekiel said these things after the ten tribes and Judah had gone into exile... Hosea and Amos too, who prophesied the destruction of the Kingdom of Israel, went on to prophesy that Israel would return. This didn't happen. And in this instance, it is also impossible to accept the Midrashic view of prophecies that have not been fulfilled to this day - that they are prophecies concerning the end of days, and are destined to be fulfilled. The ten tribes, including those of the sons of Joseph, were wiped off the face of the earth, apparently not through being physically exterminated but through spiritual extermination; they completely assimilated into the peoples among whom they were exiled, and there is no trace of them in historical reality. In the Talmudic period, R. Akiva , who knew the prophecies about the return of the ten tribes as well as we do, said: "The ten tribes are not destined to return." He knew they were lost. His faith in the true and righteous prophets was not undermined by this, because we understand that their words do not tell us what will happen, but present the purpose and the point of what will happen, and what should happen, which we ought to look forward to and strive towards, even if no guarantee is given that it will come about... it says in the Tosaphot: "A prophet only prophesies about what ought to happen, if there is no sin." The false prophets down the generations have preached belief in the certainty of an unconditional redemption; in redemption even if man does not redeem himself from sin.
(From the late Professor Yeshyahu Leibovitz's "Remarks on the Weekly Readings", pages 35-36)
The fast of the tenth is the tenth of Tevet (the tenth month) , when the King of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem, as it says; 'Again in the ninth year, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, the word of the Lord came unto me saying, Son of man, write thee the name of the day, even of this same day: the King of Babylon set himself against Jerusalem this same day.' (Ezekiel XXIV). And I say the fast of the tenth is the fifth of Tevet, but in Judea they fast on account of the event, and in the Diaspora they fast on account of the report, as it says: 'And it came to pass in the twelfth year of our captivity, in the tenth month, in the fifth day of the month, that one that had escaped out of Jerusalem came unto me saying, The city is smitten.' (ibid. XXXIII), and they heard, and made the day of the report as the day of the burning, and I prefer what I say to what he says. (Sifri Vaethanan para. 31)
Translated by David Gillis
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