Rabbi Binyamin Yuhanan Parshat Vayeshev 1

today we're learning parad vev and uh we are on page 199 of the artc Kash last week we learned about Yakov meeting asav and having uh difficulty with his daughter Dena and after suffering so much with uh Lavan and with uh esav and with Dena finally Yakov comes home finally Yakov meets with his father he no longer has a mother his mother Rifka passed away when uh he was still on the way and he doesn't have his beloved wife Rael anymore but he still has three wives 12 boys and one girl and at this point Yakov is 108 years old Yak is 168 years old and since we know Yak passed away when he was 180 that means Yak is still alive for 12 more years and even though last week's para we learned that yak died at the age 180 the Torah mentioned his death because he no longer plays a role in the uh The Narrative of the Torah um and that's the the way of the Torah once we don't need the person any any more for the events that are coming up the Torah just mentions and by the way sometime later this person um leaves the world ysf at this point is 17 years old and we start Yakov settled in the land of his father's dwelling in the land of Canan and seemingly things should be good now he's back with his father reunited all his children are born and are with Him ASA is out of the picture Lavan is out of the picture the trouble with Dina was resolved Dina is back with the family so it seems that uh the last years of yakov's life should be bright and clear unfortunately this is not to be and the second pasuk says these are the chronicles of Yakov this is what caused Yakov the next trouble and that is ysf at the age of 7 years he was a shepherd with his brothers he was 17 he was the youngest among the brothers because beamin who was 8 years younger beamin was only eight or nine years old didn't work with Brothers yet bamin was with his father and uh out of the 11 brothers that were shepherding uh ysep was the youngest and the Torah tells us at the end of verse uh two and ysph would bring evil reports about them to their father being the youngest he was the least useful and he was used as a messenger so his father would send him to the brothers with some provision and he would visit his brothers help them out spend some time and then go back to the father and tell him how his children are doing but unfortunately ysf took upon himself also the job of what's called a Mash mash means the overseer the one who looks at the situation and reports to the Rosa to the Head head of the academy and uh m is supposed to be attentive to all details and mistakes and he's supposed to rebuke people and if doesn't help he has to report to the roshi sha and here's where ysf made a mistake being that he was the youngest it was not his role to be the m to be the one to rebuke the brothers and he got into trouble because of it because when someone younger than you is rebuking you you don't take him seriously and if he continues at it then you find him annoying and that's what um happened with the brothers they felt like often happens that the younger child tries to get the older child into trouble with the parents because the younger child cannot compete with the older child child so he tries to make the older child look bad in the eyes of the parents so that's what the brothers thought Yos was trying to do and on top of it verse three comes and adds another piece to the puzzle now Isel yov loved ysf more than all his sons since he was a child of his old age meaning since he waited for ysep for so many years first he worked for S years to be able to get to marry ra Rael and to have children from her and then when he got married to her he had to wait for another six years until Rael became pregnant and Rael gave birth to ysep at the end of the second seven years so he had to wait for ysph for 14 years and he was the first son of his beloved wife and she wasn't alive anymore so he loved ysf naturally however it was U not a smart idea to show that love in front of the brothers we understand he waited for so long and he misses his wife and ysph reminds him over her and being that he's so young yakob feels that ysep needs help but it creates a a negative feeling among the brothers because they feel that the father doesn't like them for some reason and on top of that Tor says and he made him a fine Woolen tunic a coat of fine wool only for him not for the brothers so the commentator say that this was a special garment a precious garment that ASA stole from um Nimrod and he deposited it with his mother Rifka and uh that was the Garment that Rifka put on on yob when yakob went to get the blessing from his father and that's why his father didn't recognize him because yakob was wearing asa's robe and later this uh coat became yakov's possession and now yob is giving it to YF and this was a special code whoever possessed it first of all it was beautiful but also it has special powers that while you wear it you can control animals and we're on page 201 his brothers saw that it was he whom their father loved most of all his brothers so they hated him and they could not speak to him peacefully not only the father is showing a parent favoritism but the the subject of the favoritism is placing himself higher than the brothers and he is trying to destroy the brother's image in the Father's Eyes what was ysf saying exactly so ysep really was innocent ysep was really a an immature um youth he didn't realize the impct that his actions will have as our sages say who is a wise man the one that foresees the future the one who looks a few steps ahead what will his actions cause and ysep failed to recognize what's going to happen if he complains about the brothers to the father it could be that he held them in such a great esteem he thought there were such sikim that they will easily understand that he means good and that the only reason why he complains to the father is because he wants to make them even more perfect he thought they'll appreciate it he saw that they were doing certain questionable things and U the second mistake he made was that he didn't discuss it with them instead of approaching them and telling them my dear brothers I noticed that you do such and such can you please explain your behavior and they would explain to him that only on the outside it seems bad but really what happened was different and uh instead of doing that he went to his father yov and he complained from here we see how dangerous L is how dangerous it is to speak to someone about the person without speaking to the person first which means if someone hurts you don't go and complain about it to someone else first approach the person who hurt you and tell him my dear friend friend I got hurt from such and such event did you mean to do it did you know that I'm going to be hurt this way you are opening the door for the other person to apologize or to explain his actions he might say oh I'm so happy that you're telling me this I didn't realize I didn't want to hurt you I didn't expect that it's going to lead to that please forgive me or he might say oh that's what you thought I was doing no I was doing completely something different you misunderstood me you misunderstood my words and you misunderstood my actions so you got hurt because of your misunderstanding but I didn't mean it and I didn't do it so by approaching the person and explaining to him that you got hurt and asking him if that's what he meant to do you're giving him opportunity to reconcile to explain himself and potentially to ask for forgiveness but imagine if instead of that you go and you complain and the person really was innocent he didn't mean to hurt you and now he hears that you complained he's going to be hurt now you are hurting him instead of him hurting you and then he's going to be upset at you and if he's not a person of high moral caliber he might go and um fight with you or might go and complain against you so uh you're putting yourself at a risk by complaining instead of facing the person and speaking about it so that's what happened with ysf if he would have spoken with his brothers they would tell tell him what you saw is not what really happened you assumed the background and you assumed our intent but that wasn't so instead ysep went and innocently told his father and the brothers had a reason to believe that ysf had had evil intent in mind because they see loves ysep so they think ysep is thinking too highly of himself and they suspect that perhaps ysep is dreaming of becoming the leader of the family and unfortunately that is the case sometimes with the younger or weaker person it to offset his weakness or his uh young age he tries to show himself as bold courageous as strong and uh sometimes he steps on the older people's toes and therefore uh that's what they suspected ysf was doing while ysf wasn't so really yoseph suspected them and they suspected him but in reality he didn't mean anything bad he was trying to help them and they didn't do anything bad ysep suspected them for nothing so this is a classical case of miscommunication very often two people get into a fight because they misunderstand each other he thinks she did this and she thinks he did that he thinks she thinks like this about him and she thinks he thinks like that about her and and they're both mistaken and they're both suffering and they're both fighting for nothing for their mistaken view if only they would know how to approach each other and to communicate and to open up and to resolve their questions their suspicions they would live peacefully Ever After so we learn a lot from the interaction of Brothers with ysep and these are the first of the many lessons now verse 5 on page 2011 ysph dreamt a dream which he told his brothers this was his further mistake and they hated him even more what was such a dream that the made brothers so angry he said to them this is the dream which I dreamed we were binding sheep bundles of of wheat in the field and my sheath arose and your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheath sounds like a very hay statement anyone who would say that to us we would think that he has wild imagination and he is trying to hurt us he's making it up and he's trying to convince us that he's better than us in reality ysf actually saw this dream they thought he was uh making it up and even if he really see did see this dream they thought must be it's a sign that he's thinking about ruling over over them the the whole day because we have a a rule about dreams that whatever person thinks about during the day that's what he sees in his sleep because his mind is still active and uh the images that he saw or thoughts that he thought of during the day pop up in his mind while he's sleeping so if he's thinking about ruling over them at night must be that's what his mind is occupied with during the day so they hated him the his brother said would you then dominate us and they hated him because of his dream and because of his talk and as if this wasn't enough he dreamed another dream and again he didn't think of the consequence he shared the dream with his brothers we see that really he was innocent and immature and he wasn't thinking what his words were doing to the brothers he did it just because of his uh innocence and he said look I dreamed another dream the Sun the moon and 11 stars were bowing down to me not anymore it was the Sheep were bwing bowing down to other sheep someone was actually bowing to me now the brothers are thinking he is more self-centered and who are the stars 11 Stars the brothers who is the Sun and the Moon their father and their mother which mother yose's mother is not alive that means the brothers says the brothers said it's our mother mother Leia is going to bow down to ysep that was too much for them our father yob is going to bow down to ysep not only he's going against us he's even going against our mother and our father we must stop this behavior and he related to his father and to his brother his father Yakov being a smart man he scolded him and said to him what is this dream that you have dreamt will I and your mother come and your brothers and bow down to you to the ground so his father was smart and instead of pointing out that it means Leia he said it means your mother but your mother is not alive anymore and therefore the dream is not true and since part of the dream is not true the entire dream is not true and therefore he said to ysep ysep don't think about it and don't talk about it it's not true really he said it in order to calm his children down really he suspected that that may be true because he himself had to go through it he was the youngest child and the prophecy came that he will rule over the older child and he knows that his father Yak was the younger child and he was chosen as the leader of the family over Ishmael so he's already expecting it and he says that that's very likely that you ysf one of the youngest children will be the leader but in order not to make the brothers um upset he said don't worry it's not true so his brothers still were jealous of him but his father kept the matter in mind meaning he understood the message and he was waiting when will this dream come true now we'll go to page 203 Brothers went to pasture their father's flock in and is another name for yov said to ysep come I will send you to them go now look into their welfare and bring me back a word and uh first he went to their original location they were not there and the man saw him and guided him to where they are in a place called Doan and now we're on in in verse 18 they saw him from afar and when he had not yet approached them they conspired against him to kill him and they said verse 20 now let us come and kill him and throw him into one of the pits while he is dead and we will say to our father a wild beast devoured him and then we shall see what will become with his dreams ysph not ysep ruen yosef's oldest brother came to his help ysph was 17 ruen the oldest was 23 and ruen heard and he rescued him from their hand he said we will not strike him mortally now we go to page 205 shed no blood throw him instead into this pit alive but lay no hand on him intending to rescue him from their hand to return him to his father he pretended that he's really with them he just doesn't want to kill him with their own hands you can still kill him passively throw him into a pit from which he cannot climb out and leave and he'll die in there but at least you're not going to kill him but his intent was to come back when they're not watching and to bring him back to his father and so it was verse 24 they took him and cast him into the pit and the pit was empty no water was in it so he would soon die from thirst but then all of a sudden they saw a caravan coming in the desert verse 26 yudah said to his brothers what gain will we have if he dies Let Us sell him to the ishmaelites and uh he's going to be taken to a far away land sold into slavery and we're not going to hear from him again but at least we're not going to kill him his brothers agreed so ysep was sold to the isma lights for 20 pieces of silver and Yos was brought to Egypt in the midash it tells us a long story of what happened on the way the the the harsh um trip that ysph had to go through where they tortured him they beat him up and uh he he changed hands they sold him time and again until finally he was sold um to an Egyptian now verse 29 ruen returned to the pit and Joseph was not there so he tore his garments now page 207 verse 31 they took yosef's coat slaughtered a baby goat and dipped the coat in the blood and they brought the coat to the father and they said is it your son's coat or not he recognized it and he said yes it's my son's coat a Savage Beast devoured him ysph has surely been torn to bits Yakov tore his garments and placed sackcloth on his body and he mourned for his son for many days and he refused to be comforted now verse 36 the meanit whom to whom the isites sold ysf to had sold him to Egypt to potifar the minister of Paro who was in charge of butchers some say that means he was in charge of animals that were served for food but some point out that Egyptians didn't eat animals and therefore here the word butcher means that he was Chief executioner and that explains why later when he suspected yoseph of an affair with his wife he threw him into the the prison that he was in charge of the criminals would be placed there and those that uh deserve death penalty he would would U administer it now we go to page 209 we go to Yehuda Yehuda is 21 years old at this point and uh Yehuda gets married he get got married to daughter of shua man shua her his daughter we we don't know her name she gave birth to Three Sons the first one was a the second one was Onan and the third one was shal now verse six yudah took a wife for air his firstborn which means a few years passed already since they sold ysf Yuda got married he had a child the child grew up and the child got married as well so the Torah in a few sentences is telling us a span of many years her name was Tamar 's wife is Tamar and the midash says that Tamar is daughter of Shen the end