hiding in plain sight

The Ishbitzer writes that the revelation of Yosef is a model for how Hashem will reveal Himself to us in the future.  Just like with Yosef where all the facts remained the same but with those words, "Ani Yosef!" everything changed, so too, all the facts of our galus will remain the same, but when Hashem will reveal himself and say to us, "Ani Hashem!" everything will be different, our entire perspective will change.

I want to extend that parallel a drop further.  R' Chaim Kanievsky in Taama d'Kra writes that when reading through the past few parshiyos the only conclusion that can be drawn is that Yosef wanted to give the game away and be recognized.  He didn't want this charade!  He wanted desperately to reveal himself, and so he did the most an appalling job possible of trying to hide his identity.  Didn't the brothers wonder why only they and no one else was accused of spying and brought before the viceroy?  Didn't they find it strange when he showed such interest in their father and their younger brother?  That he was able to sit them in order of their birth at his table? That he set his sights specifically on Binyamin, Yosef's brother from the same mother?  They knew Yosef had been sold down into slavery down into Egypt.  All the signs were there that they were dealing with someone who had close, intimate knowledge of Yosef, if not Yosef himself.  It can only be, says RCK, that hashgachas Hashem decreed that they remain blind, otherwise how could they miss it?  Yosef chose for whatever reason to wait to come clean until he could no longer restrain himself in the hopes that his brothers would recognize him on their own, but in the end his hand was forced.

The same is true, kavyachol of Hashem.  Hashem wants to reveal himself to us!  He doesn't like this charade of galus any more than we do.  Even though we live in a world of he'elem and hester, He deliberately does a bad job of concealment.  Iran fires 400 missiles, and not a single one causes major damage.  Who ever heard of such a thing?  Last week one US Navy plane was downed by friendly fire and another almost suffered the same fate.  Our air force bli ayin ha'ra has flown hundreds of missions with no issues.  How can that be?  Anyone can make a list of hundreds of similar examples of nisim v'niflaos that happen every other day, yet we go through life with blinders on, ignoring the signs right in front of us.  Hashem is hoping we will get the obvious hints and recognize Him on our own, but even if we fail to, He cannot restrain Himself forever, and one day hopefully soon, He will be forced to reveal himself fully.

Yehudah's tefilah -- what took him so long?

The Midrash comments on the opening pasuk of our parsha, רַבָּנָן אָמְרֵי הֲגָשָׁה לִתְפִלָּה: וַיִּגַּשׁ אֵלִיָּהוּ הַנָּבִיא וַיֹּאמַר ה׳ אֱלֹקי וגו׳ (מלכים א י״ח:ל״ו).  This was not just a conversation between Yehudah and Yosef, but rather Yehudah was mispallel to Hashem that his brother Binyamin should be allowed to go free.  

Why, asks the Ostrovtza in Meir Einei Chachamim, did Yehuda wait until now to daven?  Why did he, or any of the other brothers, not daven to Hashem for help earlier, when Shimon was imprisoned by Yosef?  

My first thought when I saw this question is that of course Yehudah would daven now, as he put his own fate on the line in guaranteeing the return of Binyanim.  Were that true, it would be a very self-serving tefilah and not at all consistent with Yehuda's character or his words.  Yehudah offered to personally serve as a substitute for Binyamin.  He was willing to sacrifice himself for his brothers.  Surely his tefilah would come from that same spirit of self-sacrifice.

The Ostrovtza resolves the issue by taking us back to that episode of Shimon's imprisonment.  Why was it that only after three days in prison did the brothers finally admit  וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל⁠ אָחִיו אֲבָל אֲשֵׁמִים אֲנַחְנוּ עַל⁠ אָחִינוּ.  If, as Rashbam writes, this was מדה כנגד מדה, אנחנו השלכנוהו בבור והנה אנחנו נאסרים בבית השבי, shouldn't they have realized that on the first day when they were thrown  בבית השבי?  Secondly, when Yosef declared then אֲחִיכֶם אֶחָד יֵאָסֵר בְּבֵית מִשְׁמַרְכֶם וְאַתֶּם לְכוּ הָבִיאוּ שֶׁבֶר רַעֲבוֹן בָּתֵּיכֶם, the Torah tells us the brothers responded וַיַּעֲשׂוּ⁠ כֵן.  What exactly did they do?  They hadn't yet departed for home; they were still sitting in jail.  Lastly, what were Yosef's intentions in this whole charade?

Yosef was not out for revenge.  What he hoped to achieve was to cleanse his brothers of the horrible sin of his sale by bringing them to recognize and admit their error and do teshuvah.  We describe Hashem as זוכר כל הנשׁכּחות אתה  R' Shmelka m'Nikulsburg explains that if we forget about our sins, then Hashem will remember them and He will mete out punishment.  But if we are aware of our own wrongdoings and remember them ourselves, Hashem will forget about them because we will take care of doing teshuvah.  How does a person come to awareness of that which he does not remember of recognize as a sin?  The answer is that Hashem does us a favor -- the punishment always parallels the crime, midah k'neged midah.  Yosef acted in the same way, of leading his brothers down the path of midah k'neged midah to come to self-awareness.

First, Yosef accused them to being spies, מרגלים. Rashi comments on לא תלך רכיל that אני אומר על שם שכל משלחי מדיינים ומספרי לשון הרע הולכים בבתי רעיהם לרגל מה יראו רע או ישמעו רע לספר בשוק, נקראים הולכי רכיל, הולכי רגילה.  Since the brothers had accussed Yosef of spreading rechilus and tattling on them to Yaakov, he accused them of being מרגלים in the hope that they would get the message.

Three days of thinking it over were not enough, so Yosef made a deal that he would let them go provided one of them stayed behind.  The catch is that they, not he, would have to choose the one.  The Yerushalmi in Terumos (end of ch 8) writes that if the aku"m demand that one person of a group be turned over, we are not permitted to do so.  However, if it is clear that only one member of the group is culpable, he can be selected, e.g. Yonah being thrown overboard because he was the cause of the storm.  Yosef was forcing the brothers to make a choice -- you are being punished for doing wrong; figure out what you did and who the guilty party is among you (see Meshech Chochma who also refers to this Ylmi in the context of these pesukim but uses it a bit differently).  וַיַּעֲשׂוּ⁠ כֵן!  The brothers realized that it was the sale of Yosef that was the cause of their sorrows and the finger was pointed at Shimon, who they turned over.  This realization that they did something wrong prompted the brother's declaration  וַיֹּאמְרוּ אִישׁ אֶל⁠ אָחִיו אֲבָל אֲשֵׁמִים אֲנַחְנוּ עַל⁠ אָחִינוּ אֲשֶׁר רָאִינוּ צָרַת נַפְשׁוֹ בְּהִתְחַנְנוֹ אֵלֵינוּ וְלֹא שָׁמָעְנוּ עַל⁠ כֵּן בָּאָה אֵלֵינוּ הַצָּרָה הַזֹּאת

Yosef was not done.  אֲשֵׁמִים אֲנַחְנוּ means that "mistakes were made."  You bring a korban asham if you made a mistake and accidentally ate cheilev or violated a different issur kareis.  The brothers needed to do teshuvah for the intentional act of selling Yosef and not just pass it off as a mistake.  Therefore, Yosef planted his goblet, obviously an intentional act, to entrap Binyamin, midah k'neged midah just as the brothers had intentionally acted against him.

Yehudah says at the end of last week's parsha  הָאֱלֹקים מָצָא אֶת⁠ עֲוֺן עֲבָדֶיךָ.  A metziya means something lost which was now discovered. זוכר כל הנשׁכּחות אתה  Yehudah understood that until this point, they had not truly uncovered, discovered, realized and remembered all the wrong they had done. It was still b'geder הנשׁכּחות.  Now the full truth was revealed.    

Says the Ostrovtza: whatever tefilah Yehuda or the brothers had offered until this point would not have counted as tefilah.  It would be like toveil v'sheretz b'yado.  Prayers for relief can be accepted only after a person accepts responsibility for their own wrongs that led to the crisis at hand.  Therefore, it was only at this point, after the entire process of teshuvah was complete, that the Torah describes Yehudah as entering הֲגָשָׁה לִתְפִלָּה.

I only quoted the opinion in the Midrash that Yehudah was engaged in tefilah, but there is another view thay says he approached seeking to do battle, and another approach that says he approached in piyus, supplication.  Perhaps it was all three:   רַבִּי אֶלְעָזָר אָמַר פְּשַׁט לְהוֹן אִם לְמִלְחָמָה אֲנִי בָא, אִם לְפִיּוּס אֲנִי בָא, אִם לִתְפִלָּה  The Ostrovtza reads this like the stages of grief.  When something goes wrong, first there is the battle stage -- you want to fight G-d and argue that you are right and deserving and He is wrong.  Next comes the stage of piyus, negotiation -- you tell yourself that what you did was not so bad, that you've done plenty of good deeds to offset the wrong.  Finally there comes the stage of acceptance, where you understand the wrong that was done and come to regret it.  This is the stage of tefilah, where one can once again come close to Hashem in supplication and ask for forgiveness.

celebration or commemoration?

Why do we have a mitzvah of mishteh and seudah on Purim but not on Chanukah?  I think most people are familiar with the Levush's answer that on Purim, the threat to Jewish life was irrespective of religious commitment.  Even if someone had agreed to convert, Haman would not have spared them.  Since the threat was one of physical annihilation, the celebration is a physical one of eating and drinking.  On Chanukah, the Greeks did not want to kill us; they wanted to force us to abandon Judaism.  Had we given up Shabbos, milah, Torah, they would have left us alone.  Since the threat was to our spiritual lives, the celebration focusses on the spiritual alone, without the physical party.

The Taz does not like this answer.  גדול המחטיאו יותר מן ההורגו (Bamaidar Rabbah 21, quoted in Rashi).  Spiritual danger is far greater than physical danger.  Therefore, says the Taz, since on Chanukah we faced spiritual danger, we should make the bigger party then.  On Purim we faced the lesser threat of physical danger, and so therefore it should warrant a smaller celebration.  So why is it ונהפּוך הוא?  

Taz answers that instead of looking at the threat, we need to look at the salvation, the miracle.  Everybody was aware of what Haman planned to do and everybody celebrated his defeat and our lives being spared, so we in turn make a big party.  The miracle of the oil for menorah was different.  We got to do a mitzvah properly that we otherwise might have missed out on, and so we have a spiritual celebration, but that does not generate the same public excitement and merriment that having one's life spared does.

R' Shimshon Pincus (Tiferes Torash siman 19) explains the nekudas ha'machlokes here very nicely. According to the Taz, Chanukah and Purim are days of celebration, yamin tovim derabbanan.  The question is why the "shiur" of celebration is greater on one than the other, and so the Taz comes up with a sevara.  According to Levush, Chanukah and Purim are days of commemoration.  The days are inherently ymei chol, but there is a chovas ha'gavra to commemorate the nes.  גדול המחטיאו יותר מן ההורגו is not relevant because גדול המחטיאו יותר מן ההורג speaks to what the threat was, not what the nes was.  On Purim, the nes was physical salvation, so it gets commemorated with a physical party; on Chanukah, it was spiritual salvation, and so there is no physical celebration involved.  

the secular holiday spirit

Currently sitting in midtown looking out of the office window at the throngs of people who have come to NYC (mostly tourists, as most regular working folks take off this week and avoid the city) to celebrate yom eidam.  

Something to keep in mind this time of year: MB 224:3

 כתב הב"ח בשם ספר האשכול השמר לך לראות קנגיאות של כותים וה"ה מחולתם או שום דבר שמחתם ואם תשמע קול כותים שמחים האנח ותצער על חורבן 

dignity for the accused

It's always hard to learn parsha when you are caught up in Chanuka, but I don't want to skip a week of writing something.  

When Yaakov sends his sons back to Egypt with Binyamin, he declares (43:14)

 וְק-ל שַׁדַּי יִתֵּן לָכֶם רַחֲמִים לִפְנֵי הָאִישׁ וְשִׁלַּח לָכֶם אֶת⁠ אֲחִיכֶם אַחֵר וְאֶת⁠ בִּנְיָמִין

Abarbanel is medayek in the words לִפְנֵי הָאִישׁ, which seem unnecessary. According to one Midrashic interpretation, the word  אִישׁ actually refers to Hashem:

רַבִּי יַאשְׁיָה בֶּן לֵוִי פָּתַר קְרָא בַּגָּלֻיּוֹת: וְאֵל שַׁדַּי יִתֵּן לָכֶם רַחֲמִים (בראשית מ״ג:י״ד), וַיִּתֵּן אוֹתָם לְרַחֲמִים (תהלים ק״ו:מ״ו).

לִפְנֵי הָאִישׁ – הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: ה׳ אִישׁ מִלְחָמָה ה׳ שְׁמוֹ (שמות ט״ו:ג׳).

וְשִׁלַּח לָכֶם אֶת אֲחִיכֶם – אֵלּוּ עֲשֶׂרֶת הַשְּׁבָטִים.

אַחֵר וְאֶת בִּנְיָמִין – זֶה שֵׁבֶט יְהוּדָה וּבִנְיָמִין.

וַאֲנִי כַּאֲשֶׁר שָׁכֹלְתִּי – בְּחֻרְבַּן רִאשׁוֹן.

שָׁכָלְתִּי – בְּחֻרְבַּן שֵׁנִי. כַּאֲשֶׁר שָׁכֹלְתִּי, בְּחֻרְבָּן רִאשׁוֹן וּבַשֵּׁנִי, לֹא אֶשְׁכַּל עוֹד

This is not pshat, as it is hard to understand what it means that Hashem should give mercy before Hashem, unless you say that the different names refer to different midos.  The point the derash means to convey is that the reunification of the brothers portends a reunification of Klal Yisrael which leads ultimately to geulah.  

Abarbanel explains pshat is that אִישׁ is not just stam "man," but it means something like "gentleman;" it connotes chashivus.  Rashi writes in parshas Shlach (13:3)  כל אנשים שבמקרא לשון חשיבות.   Or you could be medayek from Rashi in our parsha on the pasuk הלא ידעתם כי נחש ינחש איש אשר כמני (44:15) where Rashi writes   הלא ידעתם כי איש חשוב כמוני יודע לנחש - notice that he adds the word חשוב.  Here too in our pasuk, what Yaakov was telling his children is that someone of Yosef's stature cannot but help but be moved by their plight:  כי איש הוא ויתפעל מצרתכם.  Surely someone who is an אִישׁ would not be lacking in empathy.

(Parenthetically, if I remember correctly, the Rav explained that this is what struck Moshe Rabeinu (Shmos 2:12)  וַיִּפֶן כֹּה וָכֹה וַיַּרְא כִּי אֵין אִישׁ.  Egypt was the bastion of enlightenment for its time - -a place of culture, refinement, advanced ideas.  When Moshe saw the beating of a Jew, it struck him that for all the superficial appearances, no one in that society was truly an אִישׁ.  They were barbarians at heart, as they lacked human empathy.  Of course, this was a commentary on German high culture before the war, not just pshat in the pasuk.)

R' Chaim Elazari learned by the Alter of Slabodka and always reads the parsha through the lens of Slabodka mussar and its emphasis on gadlus ha'adam.  He focusses on this same word/idea of אִישׁ/אנשׁים later in the parsha to learn a different lesson.  When Yosef orders his majordomo to run after the brothers and accuse them of stealing his goblet, you have the use of that word אִישׁ/אנשים  again: 

הֵם יָצְאוּ אֶת⁠ הָעִיר לֹא הִרְחִיקוּ וְיוֹסֵף אָמַר לַאֲשֶׁר עַל⁠ בֵּיתוֹ קוּם רְדֹף אַחֲרֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים וְהִשַּׂגְתָּם וְאָמַרְתָּ אֲלֵהֶם לָמָּה שִׁלַּמְתֶּם רָעָה תַּחַת טוֹבָה

R' Elazari writes that the pasuk is teaching us that even when it seems like a crime has been committed, don't be so hasty to throw around accusations and debase and degrade the accused.  רְדֹף אַחֲרֵי הָאֲנָשִׁים means treat the accused as אֲנָשִׁים; don't rob them of their dignity.  Don't chase after them through the streets screaming, "Stop thief!" so that everyone turns their heads to take a video of the scene as it unfolds.  Wait until וְהִשַּׂגְתָּם, until you catch up to them and stop them, and only then say, לָמָּה שִׁלַּמְתֶּם רָעָה תַּחַת טוֹבָה.  

One could argue that Yosef's concern stemmed from the fact that he knew that his brothers were not in fact thieves.  On the other hand, if he treated them differently than others, that would give away the game, wouldn't it?  

Tos shita on mehadrin min ha'mehadrin - a question that has me stumped

The gemara writes that there are three possible levels to fulfill the mitzvah of neiros Chanuka:

1) ner ish u'beiso - one candle lit every night for the entire household

2) mehadrin - every person in the household lights one candle each night 

3) mehadrin min ha'mehadrin - add one candle every night.  Tos' and the Rambam disagree whether this level builds on the level of mehadrin, i.e. every person in the house lights and adds an additional candle every night, or whether this level builds on ner ish u'beiso, i.e. one person in the household lights and adds an additional candle each night

Tosfos argues that the latter interpretation must be correct.  The whole point of adding the additional candle each night is to demonstrate which night of Chanuka it is.  If every person in the household lights, there is no way the viewer can figure that out.  If, for example, you see 4 candles burning in the window, does that mean it's the first night of Chanuka and there are 4 people in the house each lighting, or does that mean it is the second night of Chanuka and two people are lighting, or is it the fouth night of Chanuka and there is only one person lighting?  The only way the lighting can reflect the day is if we assume one and only one person in the household lights.

I'm not interested in how to answer this question and justify our minhag.  I'm interested in how minei u'bei Tosfos makes sense.  Even if mehadrin min ha'mehadrin means only one person per household lights, still, how can I know what night of Chanuka it is?  Remember, there are three possible levels of fulfilling the mitzvah.  If I see 4 candles burning in the window, how do I know that that home lit mehadrin min ha'mehadrin and it therefore is day 4 of Chanuka?  Maybe in that household they only keep the mehadrin level.  Mehadrin means every member of the house lights one candle.  4 candles might means four people at home, each lighting one candle like the mehadrin custom?  Tos' hasn't solved their own problem!

I've learned this sugya multiple times over the years and for whatever reason, this never occurred to me before.  It's a simple pshat question and I am stumped.  I keep thinking I must be missing something, but I've asked a few people and so far no one has come up with a real answer.  To say that Tos' assumed everyone lit mehadrin min ha'mehadrin seems like a big dochak.  The gemara gives three levels and Tos' comment has to be taken in that context. Anyone have a good idea?  

entering into safeik sakana to save someone else from vaday sakana

Yaakov was certainly aware of the animosity the brothers had for Yosef, so why did he send Yosef to check on them. throwing him into the lion's den, so to speak?  B'pashtus you could say that Yaakov underestimated the level of animosity and danger.  Sibling rivalry is not uncommon, but it seldom leads to what happened to Yosef.  The Hadar Zekeinim (from the Baalei HaTos') on the parsha quotes another interesting answer from Ibn Ezra:

וא״ת מה ראה יעקב לשלחו לאחיו הלא יודע ששונאים אותו. ואומר אבן עזרא לפי שהלכו במקום סכנה לרעות כי הרגו אנשי שכם. אמר יעקב שמא יענישו לך ספק הוא ושיהרגום אנשי שכם אם ימצאום ודאי הוא ומוטב ליקח הספק מן הודאי לך אמור להם שישובו פן יכום אנשי שכם מכת חרב.

Yaakov perceived the Shechem was a dangerous place for his family to be.  Recall that he did not support the attack on Shechem, fearing that there would be retribution.  When he heard the brothers had taken the sheep to graze near Shechem, he felt that better to send Yosef after them and expose him to some level of risk in order to remove the brothers from certain danger.  

It seems that a person can place himself in safeik sakana to save someone else from a vaday sakana.

This point is debated by others.  The Mishna in Makos (11b) writes that even a great general like Yoav who is needed by the nation is not allowed to leave the ir miklat lest the goal ha'dam attack him  ואפי' ישראל צריכים לו ואפי' שר צבא ישראל כיואב בן צרויה אינו יוצא משם לעולם. The general faces a safeik sakana, but the war is a vaday sakana.  According to the chiddush of Ibn Ezra, why should he not leave the ir miklat?

(Just to add: I don't think the argument advanced by Yehudah in next week's parsha, as explained by Rashi 43:8, to allow Binyanim to travel with the brothers to Egypt is relevant here.    בנימן ספק יתפש ספק לא יתפש, ואנו כולנו מתים ברעב אם לא נלך. מוטב שתניח את הספק ותתפש את הוודאי.  In that case Binyamin was not being put in a safeik sakana to save others, as if he did not go down to Egypt he would be in as much a vaday sakana of dying from hunger as the rest of the family.)