The gemara (Meg 16) asks how could Yosef make the very same mistake his father had made in giving him the kesones pasim by giving Binyamin more than what he gave the other brothers:
אפשר דבר שנצטער בו אותו צדיק, יכשל בו, דאמר רבא בר מחסיא א״ר חמא בר גוריא אמר רב בשביל משקל שני סלעים מילת, שהוסיף יעקב ליוסף משאר אחיו, נתגלגל הדבר וירדו אבותינו למצרים, [עביד בה איהו מילתא בבנימן כי היכי דמקנו ביה אחוה.] א״ר בנימין בר יפת רמז רמז לו שעתיד בן לצאת ממנו, שיצא מלפני המלך, בחמשה לבושי מלכות, שנאמר (אסתר ח׳:ט׳). ומרדכי יצא בלבוש מלכות תכלת וגו׳
The gemara answers that the extra portions given to Binyamin allude to the royal garments of Mordechai.
Everyone asks: how does this answer the question? Is alluding to Mordechai's future position a heter to arouse jealousy?!
There is a hesber given by the GR"A. When speaking about the gifts to the brothers, the torah spells the word חֲלִפ֣וֹת malei, with a vav in the word. When it speaks about the gift to Binyanim, it is written chaseir, without the vav. The GR"A explains that it is written chaseir to indicate that the clothes given to Binyamin were of inferior quality to those that were given to the other brothers. Years ago I heard this GR"A said over by R' Pelcowitz z"l, and the way he put it is the brothers each got a Brooks Brothers suit. Binyamin may have gotten 5 suits, but they were Syms suits (I guess this makes sense only if you are old enough to remember shopping at Syms).
Ok, so there is a GR"A, but the question is still a good question.
I want to raise a different question on this same gemara. In last's week's parsha of Mikeitz we read a very similar pasuk to what we have this week: (43:34):
וַיִּשָּׂ֨א מַשְׂאֹ֜ת מֵאֵ֣ת פָּנָיו֮ אֲלֵהֶם֒ וַתֵּ֜רֶב מַשְׂאַ֧ת בִּנְיָמִ֛ן מִמַּשְׂאֹ֥ת כֻּלָּ֖ם חָמֵ֣שׁ יָד֑וֹת וַיִּשְׁתּ֥וּ וַֽיִּשְׁכְּר֖וּ עִמּֽוֹ Why did Chazal wait to ask their question until our parsha? Why didn't they jump in last week and ask on that pasuk אפשר דבר שנצטער בו אותו צדיק, יכשל בו,?
Furthermore, take a look at Seforno there who comments:
תרב משאת בנימין – לראות אם יקנאו בו.
Didn't the Seforno know the gemara? Why does he need to come up with his own explanation of what Yosef was trying to accomplish by giving Binyamin extra when Chazal already give a perfectly good explanation? (Of course one can say the gemara is derash and the Seforno is explaining peshuto shel mikra. If you like that answer, by all means stick with it as that is the answer I would give if I didn't have something else I want to say here : )
For all the bad rap the kinah gets -- הַקִּנְאָה וְהַתַּאֲוָה וְהַכָּבוֹד, מוֹצִיאִין אֶת הָאָדָם מִן הָעוֹלָם (Avos ch 4) -- there is also something to be said for jealousy. The gemara (Baba Basra 21) tells us קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה. If you see your neighbor driving a Lamborghini and you are so jealous that you run out and buy an even better sportscar just to show him up, that's not a good thing. But if you hear someone say a great shiur and you say to yourself, "I wish I had that person's yediyos," and it gets you to sit and learn an extra hour or two every day or every week, that's קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה. Kinah can be a motivator for ruchniyus, not just gashmiyus.
We've seen an example of this in previous parshiyos. וַתֵּרֶא רָחֵל כִּי לֹא יָלְדָה לְיַעֲקֹב וַתְּקַנֵּא רָחֵל בַּאֲחֹתָהּ (30:1) Rashi comments that Rachel was not jealous because Leah had children and she did not, but rather קנאה במעשיה. אמרה: אילולי שצדקת ממני לא זכתה לבנים. Maharal comments in Gur Aryeh: דחלילה בצדקת להיות מקנאת, שהקנאה מוציא את האדם מן העולם.
R' Baruch Mordechai Ezrachi uses this idea to explain the gemara in Megillah. If bestowing a bigger gift on Binyamin would have aroused the brothers to be jealous of his wardrobe, of the number of suits he had in his closet, then Yosef indeed should have known better. But that's not the sort of petty jealously we are talking about here. The suits given to Binyamin were a siman that Binyamin has in his spiritual DNA the trappings of malchus: רמז לו שעתיד בן לצאת ממנו, שיצא מלפני המלך בחמשה לבושי מלכות If Binyamin's great-great... grandson Mordechai would some day exhibit those traits of malchus, it means those same traits are already latent in Binyamin himself. If the brothers would be jealous because Binyamin had that midah, then קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה, let the brothers be aware of it and let them covet it and aspire to it themselves.
Worth noting in passing: The L. Rebbe explains ( תורת מנחם התוועדויות תשמ''ה - חלק ב p870 ) that the jealousy the brothers had for Yosef -- וַיְקַנְאוּ בוֹ אֶחָיו (37:11) -- was this type of קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה jealously, and that is exactly what Yaakov was trying to arouse in them by giving Yosef the kesones pasim.
We can now answer our other questions as well. Why didn't Chazal make this derasha in last week's parsha? Because in last week's parsha the brothers still thought they were dealing with an Egyptian viceroy. In that context, a wardrobe of suits is just a wardrobe of suits. They could not have possibly seen it as רמז רמז לו... Any kinah aroused from Binyamin getting such a gift would be the negative form of kinah, which there can be no excusing. Why then did Yosef tempt fate and give Binyamin a larger portion? Seforno gives us the answer: as a test to see whether the brothers had this base emotion within them.
All the questions are answered, but I can't leave well enough alone. I think there is a deeper understanding possible.
There is a teshuvah of the Minchas Yitzchak (4:75) which discusses the terms under which a teacher can be dismissed. Aside from purely halachic sources, he cites a section from the Chazon Ish's kuntres on Emunah u'Bitachon to address the ethical issues in the discussion. The C.I. writes that if outsiders were to come into a neighborhood and open a school to compete with the institutions that already exist in that community, the result would probably be that the existing schools a would wage a PR campaign against the new guys infringing on their turf. They would probably bad mouth the new school and question the newcomer's right to encroach on their turf. Had the halacha said that the newcomer was guilty of unfair encroachment, then the existing schools would not be guilty of sinah or lashon ha'ra or anything like that. To the contrary, their battle would be a milchemes Hashem, a holy fight to preserve the existing communal institutions. But the halacha is in fact קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה. There is no issur of encroachment here. Since the halacha says the new guys are within their rights, those who would wage a campaign to shut them down are not fighting for what's holy and right, but are violating the issur of sinas chinam, of lashon ha'ra, etc. The question of whether a negative reaction to the new school opening is justified or not is completely and solely dependent on the halachic question of whether the new school has a right to open. Meaning, you cannot have a scenario where they are allowed to open, קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה, but it is nonetheless considered the wrong thing to do which would justify protest against it.
While Rav Kook does not address this case in particular, his understanding of קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה could not be more different. He writes in Orot haTechiya 38:
החכמה שמתרבה מתוך קנאת סופרים, כיון שבאה מתוך קנאה סופה להרקב (משלי יד, ל), וכל רקבון יש בו סרחון, וזאת היא חכמת סופרים שתסרח בעקבתא דמשיחא ועל ידי סרחון זה תתבטל צורתה הקודמת, ויוחל להיות מאיר אור הנשמה של החכמה העליונה מכל קנאה, שהיא למעלה מחכמת סופרים, היא החכמה שתצא לאור על ידי שיר חדש ושם חדש אשר פי ד' יקבנו (ישעיה מב, י; סב, ב). "וִיהִי כַזַּיִת הוֹדוֹ וְרֵיחַ לוֹ כַּלְּבָנוֹן" (הושע יד, ז).
As R' Moshe Mordechai Epstein is quoted as putting it, קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה, so you gain chochma, but what about the taint of kinah? There is an instrumental good to using kinah in this way, but that doesn't mean you are immune from the ethical stain that comes with it. Rav Kook is making the same point. Ultimately, chochma earned through kinah is subject to רְקַב עֲצָמוֹת קִנְאָה. This is what the Mishna in Sotah means when it tells us that as we get closer to the ultimate geulah וחכמת סופרים תסרח. We will aspire to a higher level of chochma that does not need competition and jealousy as a means to being acquired.
To Rav Kook, to baalei mussar like R'MM Epstein, the ethical taint cannot be overcome by purely halachic arguments alone. תרבה חכמה may justify the קנאת סופרים, but it cannot whitewash it or erase its effects. The CI, I think, would beg to differ.
This sugya of kinas sofrim is a snif of the larger, far reaching question of whether halacha determines ethical norms or whether there exists an ethic independent of halacha, a question which many have addressed.
For my purposes, I think in light of Rav Kook's approach, the Seforno and the gemara's derasha go hand in hand. Was there a justification, a "heter," for Yosef to tempt fate and arouse the jealousy of the brothers by giving more to Binyamin? R' B.M. Ezrachi reads Chazal as telling us that this type of jealousy for malchus falls under the umbrella of קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה and therefore is permitted. Yet at the same time, for the brothers and for Yosef who had been stung in the past by jealously, especially given the Rebbe's interpretation that the giving of the kesones pasim, which led to this whole tragedy, was itself a permissible means of קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה, there was a challenge here, a test, as the Seforno writes. Would they in fact fall prey to jealousy of Binyamin, even if justified, even if for a good cause? Or were they beyond even that "noble" form of jealousy? The unification of the brothers, of Yehuda and Yosef, portends the day when we will all be unified, when instead of קנאת סופרים תרבה חכמה pushing us and motivating us, we will instead be inspired, as Rav Kook writes, by אור הנשמה של החכמה העליונה מכל קנאה, שהיא למעלה מחכמת סופרים, היא החכמה שתצא לאור על ידי שיר חדש ושם חדש אשר פי ד' יקבנו.
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