"rav v'atzum" is not just about numbers

וַיֹּ֖אמֶר אֶל⁠־עַמּ֑וֹ הִנֵּ֗ה עַ֚ם בְּנֵ֣י יִשְׂרָאֵ֔ל רַ֥ב וְעָצ֖וּם מִמֶּֽנּוּ

 Netziv points out that at this point in time, what Pharoah was saying was categorically false

 אע״ג שהיו אז עדיין מעט אנשי חיל מישראל נגד מצרים, ולא היה לחוש לעת עתה שיתגברו על מצרים

but Pharoah was anticipating what would happen given the growth rate of the population.  Ohr haChaim offers a different answer:

 ואומרו רב ועצום פירוש כי באמצעות היותם עם אחד ומיוחד הגם שיהיו מעטים בערך שאר האומות יחשבו לרבים ועצומים מהם לצד שהם כל אחד נותן נפשו על אחיו, וזה ידוע ליודעי ערך מלחמה

Strength is not just a matter of numbers.  A large force that lacks cohesion can be overcome by a smaller force that is unified.  Bn"Y may have been small in number, but they had an unmatched cohesiveness as a people, and were therefore considered רַ֥ב וְעָצ֖וּם.   Every individual was willing to give even his life for the sake of his friend.  

True then, still true today.

With this Ohr haChaim as background, we can better appreciate what happens later in the parsha where we read how Moshe came across an Egyptian who was striking a fellow Jew:

וַיִּ֤פֶן כֹּה֙ וָכֹ֔ה וַיַּ֖רְא כִּ֣י אֵ֣ין אִ֑ישׁ וַיַּךְ֙ אֶת⁠־הַמִּצְרִ֔י וַֽיִּטְמְנֵ֖הוּ בַּחֽוֹל

The Binah laItim explains that Moshe saw that there were other Jews who were standing there who witnessed this horrible attack, and yet וַיַּ֖רְא כִּ֣י אֵ֣ין אִ֑ישׁ none of them were willing to stand up for the victim.  

Moshe was willing to give these onlookers the benefit of the doubt.  Bn"Y are by nature rachmanin.  For better or worse, we avoid getting involved in street brawls or violence.  This was undoubtedly all the more true considering that the onlookers in this case were slaves who were subjugated by the Egyptians, and so psychologically they would have been all the more hesitant to take a stand against them.  Since no one else did anything, Moshe took it upon himself to be the אִ֑ישׁ where no one else could.  As Chazal tell us, במקום שאין אנשים ראוי להיות איש

Next day Moshe came across two Jews fighting among themselves:

וַ֠יֹּ֠אמֶר מִ֣י שָֽׂמְךָ֞ לְאִ֨ישׁ שַׂ֤ר וְשֹׁפֵט֙ עָלֵ֔ינוּ הַלְהׇרְגֵ֙נִי֙ אַתָּ֣ה אֹמֵ֔ר כַּאֲשֶׁ֥ר הָרַ֖גְתָּ אֶת⁠־הַמִּצְרִ֑י וַיִּירָ֤א מֹשֶׁה֙ וַיֹּאמַ֔ר אָכֵ֖ן נוֹדַ֥ע הַדָּבָֽר 

Rashi comments:  נודע לי דבר שהייתי תמה עליו: מה חטאו ישראל מכל שבעים אומות להיות נרדים בעבודת פרך, אבל רואה אני שהם ראוים לכך.

Moshe now saw that it wasn't because of their nature as rachmanim that the Jewish onlookers avoid the conflict, v'ha'raayah, they are busy fighting with each other!  What happened to the  כל אחד נותן נפשו על אחיו that the Ohr haChaim described?  What happened to the ahavas yisrael?

אָכֵ֖ן נוֹדַ֥ע הַדָּבָֽר why Bn"Y were in the situation they were in.

Still, we can ask why seeing just these two people alone trading blows changed Moshe's perspective.  הָאִ֤ישׁ אֶחָד֙ יֶחֱטָ֔א וְעַ֥ל כׇּל־הָעֵדָ֖ה תִּקְצֹֽף?  Who says these two people are necessarily representative of the entire nation?

I have seen three answers to this question:

1) Midos ra'os are like a contagious virus.  The problem won't stay with just two people -- it will inevitable rub off on and spread to others (R' Gershon Edelstein). 

2) The fact that two people behave in such a way is indicative of the fact that the community has a whole has a lax attitude towards the issue (to some degree or other).  Let me give you an example.  When I was growing up, I don't think any kid wearing a yalmuka would ride a scooter on Shabbos, certainly not to shul.  It just wasn't done.  Recently my wife and I were walking on Shabbos and in front of one shul it looked like they needed a parking lot for the amount of scooters in front of the building.  Our attitude towards Shabbos has changed.  The kid riding the scooter didn't cause the change; he/she is just a siman. When we were kids we knew it wasn't done; now kids don't have that same innate sense that this is something off limits. I can say the same about our attitude towards kedushas beis ha'knesses -- does anyone think twice anymore about walking into minyan with a cup of coffee and cell phone out? -- or any number of things.  If there was a feeling that this was completely out of the norm of what our communal standards are, people would be far less likely to do it.  People no longer feel that way.  Moshe thought the same about the infighting that he witnessed.  If this was truly way beyond the pale of accepted behavior, it would never have happened.  The fact that it did showed that something in the bigger picture was off (R' Shteinman).

3) Once you get involved in breaking down the community between "those guys" who engage in the wrong behavior vs the rest of us, m'meila there is no longer a united klal, and Moshe understood that geulah can only come to the klal in the zechus of the klal. (R' Shteinman)

R' Shneur Kotler on Moshe Rabeinu's lashon ha'ra

In response to Moshe's argument  וְהֵן֙ לֹֽא⁠־יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לִ֔י וְלֹ֥א יִשְׁמְע֖וּ בְּקֹלִ֑י כִּ֣י יֹֽאמְר֔וּ לֹֽא⁠־נִרְאָ֥ה אֵלֶ֖יךָ ה׳ (4:1), Hashem commanded Moshe to perform certain signs when he came to speak to Bnei Yisrael, the first of which was turning his staff into a snake, the second was his handing turning white, and lastly, turning water into blood.  Interestingly, Hashem also had Moshe perform each of these signs (except the last one) on the spot, while he was speaking with him.  Ramban asks: לא הבינותי למה עשה האותות למשה, כי מאמין היה משה שהקב״ה מדבר עמו, והראוי שיאמר: והמטה אשר בידך תשלך ארצה לפניהם והיה לנחש, וכן באות השני, כאשר אמר בשלישי  Why did Moshe need to do the signs for himself?  Did he need a practice run?  

Here is Ramban's second answer:

ואולי אף על פי שהודיעו השם הגדול שבו נברא העולם ובו נהיה כל דבר (שמות ג׳:י״ד-ט״ו), רצה להראותו כי בו יעשו אותות ומופתים משנים התולדת, למען יתחזק הענין בלבו של משה, וידע באמת כי על ידו יעשו בעולם דברים מחודשים,

As great as Moshe was, even he needed chizuk.  No matter how great the person, he cannot escape being human, and as humans, we are more impressed with what we see than with abstract knowledge and belief.  Therefore, Moshe performed the signs himself to that his faith would be complete  (See R' Chaim Elazari in Mesilos Chaim).

Hashem then continued and told Moshe that if the people don't believe the first sign, don't worry, they will believe the second  וְהָיָה֙ אִם⁠־לֹ֣א יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לָ֔ךְ וְלֹ֣א יִשְׁמְע֔וּ לְקֹ֖ל הָאֹ֣ת הָרִאשׁ֑וֹן וְהֶֽאֱמִ֔ינוּ לְקֹ֖ל הָאֹ֥ת הָאַחֲרֽוֹן׃.  What made the second sign so special?  Rashi explains: 

משתאמר להם: בשבילכם לקיתי על שסיפרתי עליכם לשון הרע, יאמינו לך, שכבר למדו בכך שהמזדווגים להם לוקים בנגעים, כגון: פרעה ואבימלך בשביל שרה. .⁠

The second sign, the turning of Moshe's hand white, was a sign of tzaraas, which is the punishment for speaking lashon ha'ra.  Hashem told Moshe to tell the people that he spoke lashon ha'ra against them by questioning their belief, וְהֵן֙ לֹֽא⁠־יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לִ֔י, and was punished for doing so.  That the people would undoubtedly believe because they have a track record of people trying to harm them getting punished.

(Isn't it incredible that the people would believe that Moshe was punished by Hashem on the spot for speaking lashon ha'ra against them while at that very moment Pharaoh was seemingly was getting away with physically enslaving them while suffering no punishment?  Isn't it also incredible that the people assumed that if Hashem stuck up for Sarah, a tzadakes and one of the Imahos, he would also stick up equally for them?)

R' Shneur Kotler has a beautiful insight on this episode.  One of the famous disputes in hil lashon ha'ra revolves around the issue of confessing to someone that you slandered them.  The  Chofetz Chaim held that if someone speaks lashon ha'ra against an innocent party and that party doesn't don't know about it, you have to tell them what was done and apologize in order to do teshuvah.  R' Yisrael Salanter disagreed with this psak.  The innocent party, said R' Yisrael, will only feel worse if he hears that he has been slandered.  The speaker's need to do teshuvah does not give him the right to cause more pain to the innocent party, even if well intentioned.  Halacha l'maaseh, we follow R' Yisrael (listen here  at about the 5:45 mark or see here  footnote 21). 

Given that background, why in our parsha did Hashem tell Moshe to go and announce to Bn"Y that he had doubted them and spoken against them?  Isn't that gufa what R' Yisrael Salanter wanted us to avoid?  Just like R' Yisrael Salanter did not see the speaker's need to do teshuvah as an adequate "matir" to allow him to cause pain to others by divulging his wrongdoing, here too, why was the need for Moshe to prove his bona fides an adequate "matir" to allow him to tell Bn"Y that he had slandered them?  Surely Hashem could have come up with another sign that would allow Moshe to prove himself to the people!

One should not have the misimpression that Bn"Y's willingness to believe in the shlichus of Moshe was not subject to an iota of doubt, and it's just Moshe who had a hang up and raised the issue of  וְהֵן֙ לֹֽא⁠־יַאֲמִ֣ינוּ לִ֔י.  Aderaba, the exact opposite would seem to be correct.  Had you asked Joe Ploni, the man on the street, before Moshe came along, whether Bn"Y would believe Moshe's message, his money would be on Bn"Y showing him the door.  No one would take your bet otherwise, as it was a sure thing.  The chiddush of the parsha is that even Moshe Rabeinu, even the adon ha'neviim who had such deep insight, even Moshe the great kateigor and defender of the Jewish people, even he also saw the people's disbelief as a sure thing too.

Had Hashem not responded in the way He did, every Joe Ploni  would think that he is right in thinking that the people lack faith.  No one would know otherwise! Therefore, Hashem did not just respond to Moshe privately, but rather instructed Moshe to reveal the response, his being stricken with tzaraas because he doubted Bn"Y, to all.  Hashem needed to teach everyone, from Joe Ploni to Moshe Rabeinu, that they were all wrong, that emunah was baked in the DNA of Klal Yisrael, and that should never be questioned or doubted.  Even if the strongest microscope can't find it, even if the greatest navi can't see it, Hashem is mechadesh to us in this parsha that it's there.  Our job is to find it and reveal it.

There is yet another chiddush here as well.  A person might think, "So what if I am a cynic and don't give the people the benefit of the doubt?  Who am I hurting?"  The end of Rashi lumps together those who would doubt the Jewish people together with  כגון: פרעה ואבימלך בשביל שרה, our enemies.  It's not just some kind of lack of middas chassidus.  To doubt, or even to sit on the fence and remain neutral -- waiting to be convinced -- is dangerous and harmful.  

A person who is afflicted with tzaraas is a metzora, which Chazal tell us is a combination of the words motzi- ra.  The slanderer brings out the bad in people.  Moshe, as the case with everyone else, did not see the emunah latent within Klal Yisrael.  He was therefore given the mission, which is out mission as well, of bringing out that goodness, of revealing otherwise.

Pesach sheni in the zechus of Yosef

1) Midrash Rabbah Shmos 20:17

אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא, אַתָּה אָמַרְתָּ לְאַחֶיךָ (בראשית נ, כא): אָנֹכִי אֲכַלְכֵּל אֶתְכֶם, חַיֶּיךָ אַתָּה נִפְטָר וְיִהְיוּ עַצְמוֹתֶיךָ מְחַזְּרִין עִמָּהֶם בַּמִּדְבָּר אַרְבָּעִים שָׁנָה, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (במדבר ט, ו): וַיְהִי אֲנָשִׁים אֲשֶׁר הָיוּ טְמֵאִים לְנֶפֶשׁ אָדָם, וְאֵין אָדָם אֶלָּא יוֹסֵף, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים עח, ס): אֹהֶל שִׁכֵּן בָּאָדָם, וּכְתִיב (תהלים עח, סז): וַיִּמְאַס בְּאֹהֶל יוֹסֵף, בִּזְכוּת עַצְמוֹתֶיךָ הֵם עוֹשִׂים פֶּסַח קָטָן.

What connection is there between Yosef offering to sustain his brothers and Pesach sheni?  

The pasuk tells us that Yosef offered  וְעַתָּה֙ אַל⁠־תִּירָ֔אוּ אָנֹכִ֛י אֲכַלְכֵּ֥ל אֶתְכֶ֖ם וְאֶֽת⁠־טַפְּכֶ֑ם. Obviously he wasn't going to feed only his brothers and let their children and family starve.  Why mention וְאֶֽת⁠־טַפְּכֶ֑ם?  The Netziv points out that we find a similar pasuk earlier (47:12)  וַיְכַלְכֵּ֤ל יוֹסֵף֙ אֶת⁠־אָבִ֣יו וְאֶת⁠־אֶחָ֔יו וְאֵ֖ת כׇּל⁠־בֵּ֣ית אָבִ֑יו לֶ֖חֶם לְפִ֥י הַטָּֽף׃ and there he explains that Yosef didn't just provide a one-size-fits-all bag of groceries to his brothers to give to their families.  What you feed an adult is not appropriate for a baby.   Yosef personally managed things, אָנֹכִ֛י* אֲכַלְכֵּ֥ל אֶתְכֶ֖ם*, to make sure that each individual got what he/she needed, right down to the nitty-gritty of making sure the Gerber baby food jars were included for the babies too. 

Hashem could easily have said, "So what if a few individuals got left out of offering the korban pesach?  So long as the bulk of the people are covered, good enough."  But just like Yosef saw that each individual was cared for, so too, midah k'neged midah, Hashem took care to make sure that each individual would have n opportunity to offer the korban pesach properly.  (see the Ostrovtza for two other interpretations)

2) וַיְבָ֨רְכֵ֜ם בַּיּ֣וֹם הַהוּא֮ לֵאמוֹר֒ בְּךָ֗ יְבָרֵ֤ךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ לֵאמֹ֔ר יְשִֽׂמְךָ֣ אֱלֹקים כְּאֶפְרַ֖יִם וְכִמְנַשֶּׁ֑ה וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֶת⁠־אֶפְרַ֖יִם לִפְנֵ֥י מְנַשֶּֽׁה׃ (48:20)

R' Reuvain Katz (Dudai Reuvain) has a beautiful diyuk here  Yaakov was blessing both Ephraim and Menashe.  Shouldn't it therefore say בּכם in the plural, not בְּךָ֗ יְבָרֵ֤ךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל֙ in the singular?  

Secondly, the text of the bracha itself,  יְשִֽׂמְךָ֣ אֱלֹקים כְּאֶפְרַ֖יִם וְכִמְנַשֶּׁ֑ה, puts Ephraim in front of Menashe.  Why then does the pasuk needs to reiterate in its conclusion וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֶת⁠־אֶפְרַ֖יִם לִפְנֵ֥י מְנַשֶּֽׁה׃?

Menashe and Ephraim each had a different role.  Menashe worked at his father's side in tending to the affairs of state.   וַיְצַ֞ו אֶת⁠־אֲשֶׁ֣ר עַל⁠־בֵּיתוֹ֮ (44:1) Targum Yonasan writes ופקיד ית מנשה דממנה אפיטרופוס על ביתיה.  Similarly, וְהֵם֙ לֹ֣א יָֽדְע֔וּ כִּ֥י שֹׁמֵ֖עַ יוֹסֵ֑ף כִּ֥י הַמֵּלִ֖יץ בֵּינֹתָֽם (42:23) Rashi writes המליץ – זה מנשה.  Ephraim, on the other hand, sat and learned by his grandfather.  Rashi 48:1: אפרים היה רגיל לפני יעקב בתלמוד, וכשחלה יעקב בארץ גשן, הלך אפרים אצל אביו למצרים, והגיד לו. Each child had his own talents, interests, skills. 

Yaakov Avinu tells us that when you bless your children, don't bless one child to be a Menashe and another child to be an Ephraim.  בְּךָ֗ יְבָרֵ֤ךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל֙, in the singular -- we should hope each and every child can excel at learning and be a talmid chacham like Ephraim, but also have the skills to make his way in the world, just like a Menashe.

That being said, make no mistake about priorities.  Yaakov put Ephraim before Menashe, and lest you think אין מוקדם ומאוחר בּתורה and what difference does it make, the pasuk reiterates וַיָּ֥שֶׂם אֶת⁠־אֶפְרַ֖יִם לִפְנֵ֥י מְנַשֶּֽׁה.   

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