Parshas Miketz 5786: Light the Flame

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Parshas Miketz 

לעילוי נשמת האדא בת מרדכי 

 

Light the Flame 

As the years of famine started, the Torah (41:57) describes that everyone from all over headed towards Mitzrayim to purchase food. Well, almost everyone. Yaakov’s family seemingly still had some food and didn’t yet feel the sense of urgency to go to Mitzrayim. The passuk (42:1) tells us that when Yaakov saw the shevatim “sitting around”, he gave them mussar, saying, “לָמָּה תִּתְרָאוּ”. Rashi explains that Yaakov was teaching them an important lesson that even if you have enough for yourself, you must be emotionally intelligent and have an awareness of what is going on around you. If you are in a state of success but everyone around you is struggling, that needs to be an input factor as to how you express yourself. The Gemara Taanis (10b) says this principle as well that if one were to forget that it was a fast day and accidently eat or drink, he shouldn't show himself in front of others if it is evident that he has more strength and is satiated. One needs to realize that one’s reality is part of others’ and others’ realities are part of yours as well. If others are suffering, it needs to impact and influence the way one behaves and expresses oneself.  

The Sforno adds another layer. He explains that the brothers at this point understood that it was time to head to Mitzrayim, but they were all looking at one another, each waiting for someone else to decide what to do. Each assumed that another brother would be the one to “take one for the team” and head to Mitzrayim to purchase food for the family. Like the mashal in Eruvin (3a), a pot owned by partners never gets hot, so too here, no one was stepping forward to act. 

The Torah (42: 3) then tells us, “וַיֵּרְד֥וּ אֲחֵֽי־יוֹסֵ֖ף עֲשָׂרָ֑ה לִשְׁבֹּ֥ר בָּ֖ר מִמִּצְרָֽיִם”, that “Yosef’s brothers went down, ten of them, to Mitrzrayim”. Rashi is bothered by why they are referred to here as “Achei Yosef”. He explains that the brothers felt remorse for selling Yosef and were now prepared to act as true brothers, and to search and rescue and spend whatever necessary to redeem him.  

However, the passuk’s wording is still strange. Why emphasize “ten of them”? The passuk already explicitly states that Binyamin stayed back, and we know Yosef wasn't around. So the math is simple (12-2=10). Why does the Torah need to specify that 10 of them went down? 

Rashi (ibid) explains that the reason the Torah calls out that “ten of them” went to purchase the food, is to indicate to us that while they were unified in their purpose to go to get food, they were not unified in their resolve regarding Yosef.  

This Rashi however is difficult to understand on two fronts. First, it seems contradictory. Rashi just said that the brothers were all determined to save Yosef at all costs, so how could Rashi now explain the passuk that they weren’t all unified on their resolve to save Yosef? Second, what significance is it that they were all unified in their purpose of going to buy food? It seems so mundane. Why use that as the inference to then learn out that they weren't all unified in their feelings about getting Yosef? If anything, from these two Rashi’s together it would seem on the surface that that the whole narrative would be easier in the Torah if it wouldn’t have referred to them as “Achei Yosef” in the first place, as it would eliminate the need to counter this (the expression of resolve to rescue Yosef) with the “all ten of them” (hinting that they didn’t all share the resolve to save Yosef)? How could we understand these Rashis? 

The Sforno has a different explanation as to why the Torah specifies that “ten of them" went. The Sforno explains that the policy in Mitzrayim that Yosef had established was to only sell food to a family representative for that immediate family. He did this to prevent people from coming and claiming that they were there to purchase on behalf of many, only to then hoard and resell at inflated prices. The problem with this explanation is that if this was the policy, how could we understand how the Seforno explained what the brothers’ hava amina was? If you recall, the Seforno had taught that the original rebuke that Yaakov gave to the shevatim was “why are you all looking at each other waiting for someone to take action”. Seemingly explaining that Yaakov was expecting at least one of the bothers to step up and take responsibility. Yet now, when explaining why all 10 brothers went, the Seforno is explaining that it was by necessity. If the Mitzrayim policy required everyone to come down, how could Seforno learn the way he did originally in explaining that they were all looking at each other to begin with? How could any of them assume another brother would take responsibility, if it was necessary for all of them to do so?  

It must be, in order to understand the Sforno, that even though it was a rule that each nuclear family needed its own representative, the brothers were still willing to "risk” having one brother go down on behalf of all and figure that part out as well. This must be the explanation otherwise how could we possibly understand the original Sforno or the relevance of the moshol he brings. So, the brothers were each waiting for another to take that full responsibility until Yaakov stepped in and called them out and commanded them to “go down to Mitzrayim...so we will live and we will not die”.  

 

What was this crucial messagethat Yaakov was conveying? Perhaps as follows. While the mesorah was a single chain of Avraham, Yitzchak, and Yaakov, each of the avos had their own big impact and particular kochos that they contributed to the chain in a foundational way. Now that the mesorah was continuing from one to many (ie from Yaakov to the shevatim), Yaakov was telling them that this comes with a new framework for accountability rooted in “living, and not dying”. Each person in B’nei Yisroel has a dual responsibility: on the one hand, each person needs to become and live up to the best version of themselves, and on the other hand, one must be there to support and help others as well. When we all do this, we are ensuring that as a klal we will never die. K’lal yisroel was destined to go through galyius (exiles), tragedies, wars, holocausts, and hardships, but the mesorah and Klal Yisroel as a unit will never fade. Each of us has that responsibility to invest in ourselves and also investing to support those around us to continue this mesorah.  

This was the lesson that Yaakov was teaching B’nei Yisroel. First, don’t just wait around assuming someone else will take the responsibility – as you need to take the responsibility. Second, it doesn't stop there that one should then represent all. Rather, everyone needed to go down to Mitzrayim to ensure that full efforts were put in that we live and not die. As the Ohr HaChaim explains further, Yaakov warned them that failure to act would make them יתחייבו בנפשם בדין העליון: dead in this world and accountable in the next. 

With this, perhaps we could answer our questions with Rashi’s p’shat (explanation) as well. The brothers’ consensus on going down together to Mitzrayim to get food, is not a mundane comment at all, it is crucial. It is the representation of their acceptance of what responsibility to mesorah now looks like. It is exactly this point that brings out that they were all aligned with this responsibility. And the contradiction in Rashi is explained as follows: even though the brothers weren’t aligned emotionally on going to rescue Yosef, they were all determined to put the feelings behind them for the bigger picture of maintaining the mesorah and having the complete “shivtei k-ah”. The brothers felt remorse about selling Yosef, but their willingness to act on that remorse was unequal. What Yaakov taught them about purchasing the food, they understood as the new carriers of the mesorah. Responsibility is now collective. No longer is mesorah passed from father to son alone; it is carried by twelve shevatim together. 

This is the deeper transformation happening here, and it leads directly to Chanukah. Mesorah survives when every individual puts efforts in being both a receiver of the flame as well as a source of light. Like a candle that remains lit while igniting others, each person must grow themselves while also supporting and contributing to those around them. That is the responsibility Yaakov impresses upon B’nei Yisroel and Achei Yosef, and the responsibility we inherit as links in the same chain.