The Sale of Joseph, Justifiable?
Adapted from Rabbi Braun’s sermon in 5772
How do we view the conduct of the Brothers, The ten sons of Jacob? On the one hand, they are the namesakes of the tribes of Israel. On the other hand, the plotted to kill their brother, threw him in a pit, sat and ate while he begged for mercy, sold him into slavery, and brutally tricked their father?
Do we try and justify their actions? If not, should it bother us that the tribes’ namesakes could do something so terrible and heinous?
It is fascinating that many of the classical commentators, including Rashi, Eben Ezra, and Rashbam do not address the issue at all.
Many others do and they basically divide into two.
There is a group who begins with the assumption that the brothers are righteous and could not do something so despicable and perform intellectual gymnastics to try and justify the brothers’ actions.
There is a second group who disagrees, either by poking holes in the justifying theory or by explicitly labeling the brothers sinners.
The justification group also breaks down into two.
A minority opinion tries to argue that the brothers are simply trying to put the dreams to the test (Alshich and Ridvaz). If the dreams are true then God will save Joseph and if the dreams are not true then Joseph will die.
There is a reason that this is a minority approach. Firstly, who says that you can try and kill someone in order to test God?! Secondly, in the event that the dreams are not true, and God will not protect Joseph, then the brothers have killed Joseph for having made up dreams. That hardly seems fair. The majority of commentators in this group try to present a halachick justification for the murder.
Rabbi Chaim Paltiel, 12th century Germany, argues (based on a Midrash) that Joseph had been telling Jacob that the brothers were engaging in illicit relationships and eating meat straight off of a live animal, both punishable under Noachide law by death. Thus the brothers argued that they were justified in killing Joseph in accordance with the law of Rodeph, the pursuing killer who you are allowed to kill first.
The Beit Joseph, the Rav’s great grandfather, quotes a Midrash that the brothers thought to sic dogs upon Joseph in accordance with the Talmud in Pesachim that argues that a person who speaks lashon hara deserves to have dogs set upon them.
The Kli Yakar, Rabbi Ephraim Lunschitz, argues that one who spreads gossip is equivalent to murder. Thus he was deserving of death.
There are a number of issues with these approaches.
- They all assume that the brothers were familiar with Talmudic law and Midrashic statements. That is obviously far from clear and extremely difficult to swallow.
- Even if I were to accept that they brothers knew all of these things, these attempted justification still do not work.
Rodeph, the allowance to kill a pursuant killer does not apply to someone trying to have you executed in court. It only allows you to kill an actual pursuer, coming to kill you.
b. You are obviously not allowed to sick dogs upon a person speaking lashon hara. The Gemara says that this is what should happen, but it - does not imply that we should do it.
Similarly when the Gemara says that lashon hara is equivalent to murder it does not actually mean that we can and should kill the speaker of Lashon hara, otherwise every shul would lose half their congregants during the repetition of the Amida in Mussaf! - Even if these arguments were valid, we still have problems:
if the argument are valid, why didn’t they actually kill him!
b. and even if they are valid, it still does not explain all of the details of the story. Once they did not kill him, how could they sell Joseph? How could they cruelly deceive their father instead of being proud of their halachik decision? - They clearly come to the text with a preconceived notion of the event. Rabbi Chaim Paltiel is explicit in his question – After we know that the brothers are such tzaddikim etc. These commentators take their assumption and read the text to fit their assumptions as opposed to letting the text speak for itself and forming our impressions from what is actually in the text. This is not the brothers’ finest moment. That screams out from the text and from Jacob’s harsh words in his “end of life” blessings.
That brings us to the other group, those who do not attempt to justify the brothers’ actions. That certainly seems to be the clear reading of the text and maybe the classic commentators lack of comment is simply their decision to let the text speak for itself.
The Talmud in Sanhedrin 6b seems tells us not to praise Judah for saving Joseph, ostensibly because he does not go far enough in trying to save him.
The Abarbanel explicitly takes the brothers to task for how they dealt with Joseph. He labels the brothers acts as cruel and sees them as a great sin. His only question is why we don’t find an explicit punishment in the Torah for this heinous crime. And then you read something unbelievable- “they sinned and were judged for it and it is possible to say that the punishment was the cruel exile in Egypt.” The Rabbis in the Midrash of the 10 martyrs believe that the 10 great Rabbis who were martyred by the romans were executed as a punishment for the 10 brothers who sold Joseph. There is a great theological difficulty in that Midrash, but it is clear that they did not look favorably upon the brothers conduct.
That to me, seems like the more likely position, but it leaves me with a difficult question? What do I do with the fact that these are the namesakes of our tribes? How could it be?
That is probably another sermon entirely but I will share two thoughts with you, each I believe has great relevance for us today.
First, the brothers greatness in not in the perfect record of righteousness; it is in their ability to change and repent. They face the same exact situation later with Benjamin and do not repeat their mistakes. I believe that the same is true for Joseph and Yehuda, but that is really for a different time.
Secondly, the brothers, despite being different than everyone around them and living in exile, maintain their Jewish identity and connection to the Jewish people.
In both of those respects they should be our role models and have a real message for us today. Our ability to improve spiritually and maintain our Jewish identify and peoplehood are certainly messages for the 21st century Jew.
