SIBLINGS: A LOVE-HATE RELATIONSHIP
(Based on the Me’am Lo’ez)
Last week we read in Parshat VaYeishev about Yosef winding up in Egypt and interpreting the dreams of the butler and baker. In Parshat Mikeitz, Yosef was called upon to interpret Pharaoh’s two dreams about seven lean cows devouring seven well-fed cows and seven thin bushels of grain devouring seven big bushels of grain. Yosef interpreted these dreams to mean that there would be seven years of surplus followed by seven years of famine. During the famine, Yaakov sent his sons (except for Binyamin) to Egypt to get food, for it is the only place that had food during the famine. Yosef recognized them, but did not reveal his identity.
One can ask: How could Yaakov not realize by some prophecy that Yosef was in Egypt? It says Yaakov SAW there was food in Egypt, and the only way he could have seen it was in a prophecy. Maybe he did know where Yosef was, but he didn’t want to tell his sons. He wanted his sons to learn from their sin on their own. One reason he sent ten of his sons was so they could have a minyan. The Torah refers to them as “Yosef’s brothers” to show that Yaakov was hoping they would pray to find Yosef. They had basically decided that they would treat him like a brother and do whatever and pay whatever they could to get him back. However, like all groups of brothers they all had different opinions. Each one was blaming another for what happened.
When the brothers arrived in Egypt, Yosef didn’t reveal who he was and treated them cruelly. He was on the verge of having pity and being nice but an angel whispered in his ear, “why should you treat THEM like brothers when they threw you, their brother, in a pit full of snakes!” Yosef also acted coldly towards them because he didn’t want his brothers to realize who he was. Yosef had a little pity on them and allowed them to go home with bags full of food with the promise that they would bring back Binyamin.
It is here that the brothers realized how horrible they were when they got rid of Yosef. First they thought that Yosef was the bad guy because he was accusing them of being spies and causing them trouble. Then Yosef (without making his identity known) allowed them to go and the brothers thought “this total stranger had pity on us when we cried for mercy, and we didn’t have mercy on our very own brother when he cried for mercy as we threw him into the pit!” The brothers began to feel very guilty about what they had done. From this we see that selling Yosef was the brothers’ only sin, for they thought of everything that happened as a punishment only for this.
As all siblings do when they decide they’re guilty of something, they begin to argue about whose fault it really is. Reuven cuts in (being the bossy oldest child) and says “I told you not to do it! But nooooooo– you didn’t listen to me! And now look what happened! Yosef is who-knows-where and our father has been mourning all these years!” They had this argument right in front of Yosef but didn’t realize that he could understand them because they were speaking in Hebrew, and did not believe that this stranger understood Hebrew as well.
Yosef took Shimon prisoner to ensure that the brothers would come back with Binyamin. It seemed to the brothers that Yosef assumed they would never abandon one of their brothers. This made them feel even worse because one time they DID abandon their brother. Yosef purposely took Shimon because he wanted to separate Shimon and Levy — they always caused trouble when they were together. As Shimon was being taken away he yelled “This is all YOUR fault — I said we should kill Yosef instead of selling him because slavery is worse than death but of course you didn’t listen to me and you did what Yehudah said to do!” (another classic brother thing to say). This is a pretty stupid response considering they may have received a similar punishment for killing their brother. This is what all siblings do — try to make themselves look less guilty and other siblings more guilty. And of course this never works.
Throughout the book of Bereishit we see many examples of relationships between siblings — some more loving than others. The relationship between the brothers doesn’t end at the end of Bereishit. As long as there were tribes in B’nei Yisrael there was always some dispute between them. The events with Yaakov’s children in a way hint to what happens in the future between the tribes — petty sibling-type arguments.