My first Dvar Torah! Parshas Mikeitz

A Dvar Torah mamesh (literally) means a word of Torah. It is customary for people to produce a dvar (written or oral) on the weekly Torah portion or Parsha that tries to analyze the meaning of the parsha based on commentaries written by great rabbis and Torah scholars throughout the ages.

I did this Dvar Torah for a Siyum in which each person was assigned a different Torah portion for which to write a dvar. My Torah portion dealt with Yosef (Joseph) dealing with his brothers in Egypt while they were under the false impression that he was an Egyptian (Joseph is at this point a high-ranking official in Egypt). Below is my Dvar Torah. I apoligize to anyone inexperienced in studying Jewish texts if any of the Hebrew or Yeshivish lingo is confusing. If you have any questions, leave it in the comment section and I'll get back to you. I hope you find my Dvar Torah insightful and inspirational!

Dvar Torah
Parshas Mikeitz
Will Gotkin

In Parshas Mikeitz 42:21-23 found in Bereishit we see Yosef’s brothers (with the exception of Binyamin who at this point is at home in Canaan) overcome with feelings of regret for how they mistreated Yosef. They experience their remorseful feelings when Yosef, who at this point the brothers do not recognize and therefore think is simply an Egyptian official, accuses them of being spies. Yosef, who secretly recognizes his brothers, punishes them measure for measure for the grief they caused him and his father Yaakov. He also puts the brothers in a position in which they will be forced to bring Binyamin to Egypt. This way his obligation to fulfill the prophecy foretold in his dream that all eleven of his brothers would bow before him can be completed. After Yosef imprisoned his brothers for three days, ransomed Shimon, and demanded his brothers go back to Canaan and fetch their youngest brother, Binyamin, the brothers feel tremendous remorse and regret at how they treated Yosef when they sold him into slavery.

The Pshat understanding seems to be that the brothers who already have a guilty conscience for their past misdeed are seeing their current plight as a Divine retribution for their cruel treatment of Yosef in the past. The commentaries explain that the fact that Yosef’s brothers see this as punishment for their misdeed reveals their greatness as moral human beings, the Midrash HaGadol declaring thus, “Happy are the righteous who submit to retribution with joy and declare the Almighty just in whatever way he acts.”

This should teach the Jewish people that when we fall victim to negative circumstances that seem to us to be Hashem punishing us for a wrongdoing we should be like Yosef’s brothers and accept the punishment graciously. After all, everything Hashem does – even when he punishes us – is ultimately for our benefit and to make us better people. In the long run we will be glad for all situations we experience, good or bad, whether we understand the situations during the times we experience them, long after they have been experienced, or even if we do not understand the reason for them until Moshiach.

However, there is another important insight in this passage. From a surface reading of the Parsha, one might think that the brothers are feeling remorse at having sold their brother into slavery. Rav Aharon Kotler, founder of the Bais Medrash Gevoha in Lakewood, New Jersey and a great Torah leader of his generation, says the contrary. According to Rav Kotler, the brothers did not acknowledge guilt for their earlier judgment against Yosef; interpreting his actions as they did, they were convinced they had acted properly and legally in ridding themselves of a mortal danger (Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash, 236). In fact, they felt it was their obligation to remove Yosef from their midst at the time that they sold him into slavery. Furthermore, they believed it would have been sinful to show compassion towards him at a time they were required to be firm.

Now, however, seeing their predicament as punishment, they blamed themselves for their lack of compassion in how they carried out their decision (Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash, 236, my emphasis). Yosef’s brothers, concluded Rav Kotler, regarded their callousness toward Yosef’s entreaties or protests – not the actual sale – as deserving punishment. We see proof for this in verse 42:21: “They then said to one another, ‘Indeed we are guilty concerning our brother inasmuch as we saw his heartfelt anguish when he pleaded with us and we paid no heed; that is why this anguish has come upon us’.” In other words, their experience of having their anguish unheeded was punishment measure for measure for their refusal to heed the anguish of their brother years earlier.

So what does this teach us about how we the Jewish people must act in the world? For one thing, this Parsha teaches us that we must treat criminals – those who society punishes – with as much compassion and humanity as their punishment will allow. The Talmud derives from the Torah that even heinous criminals who suffer the death penalty must be treated as kindly as possible to minimize their humiliation and suffering (Artscroll Stone Edition Chumash, 286). The brothers now realized that failing to treat Yosef in a compassionate manner while exacting judgment on him brought upon their current plight as punishment. The Yafeh Torah notes that the brothers contrasted their own behavior toward Yosef with that of the viceroy toward their hungry families. Remember, the brothers did not know the viceroy was Yosef so from their vantage point, the ‘Egyptian’ did not know and would never see their families in Canaan, yet he felt enough sympathy for their plight to send them food. Yet the brothers had been apathetic to their own flesh and blood.

The Torah clearly takes a position against cruel and unusual punishment. It advocates that criminals must be punished according to the severity of their misdeed. The punishment must fit the crime, so to speak, and criminals must be punished measure for measure for their crimes. Administering cruel and unusual punishments that torture wrongdoers and cause them unnecessary suffering brings us down to a barbaric, animalistic level unbefitting of a holy people. When we cause undue suffering – even to evil individuals – our neshama is affected in such a negative way that we are degraded to the same low spiritual level as the criminals we punish. We must behave in a morally elevated fashion so that we in turn do not become the evil we wish to dispel from our midst.