It is a savage crime that haunts the Jewish people to this day. And it never should have happened.
Joseph’s brothers, enraged by envy, decide to murder him, only to change course at the last minute and sell him into a lifetime of slavery.
Joseph certainly had provoked them; he was clearly his father’s favorite, and a braggart. To top it all off, Joseph had bad-mouthed the brothers to Jacob. The brothers hated him for all of this. And all of this comes to a tragic climax when Joseph visits his brothers as they are tending to their sheep in the fields.
The brothers didn’t realize that a different Joseph was on his way to see them. If you read the Torah carefully, there are clear hints that this was no ordinary visit, but rather an attempt at reconciliation.
Jacob, who loves Joseph dearly, is the one who dispatches Joseph into the hands of the brothers. The Torah (Genesis 37:13-14) says:
And Israel said to Joseph, “Are not your brothers feeding the flock in Shechem? Come, I will send you to them.”
So he said to him, “Here I am.”
Then he said to him, “Please go and see if it is at peace with your brothers and at peace with the flocks, and bring back word to me.”
A careful analysis of the text reveals that Jacob is sending Joseph on a peace mission. First, as Seforno notes, if all Jacob wanted was a report, he could have sent a servant, not Joseph. In addition, Jacob uses the word “na” “please,” a word that in the biblical context indicates a special request. Joseph in response to Jacob, says “Hineni” “Here I am.” This term is used seven times in the Bible, all in missions of great importance, including the Akeidah and Moses’ appointment by God. The word “shalom” “peace,” is used twice in Jacob’s request. And this is exactly what was lacking between Joseph and his brothers, who could not speak to Joseph “in peace.” Jacob is telling Joseph that it is time to fix the rift with his brothers.
Joseph takes this mission seriously. He searches in the fields for his brothers. Despite getting lost, he is not ready to give up. When Joseph asks someone for directions, he says: “I am seeking my brothers.” This short phrase speaks volumes, a cry for peace that will echo through the ages.
But Joseph is too late. The brothers decide to murder Joseph “from a distance,” well before he arrives. Joseph never gets a chance to make peace.
Rabbinic literature magnifies this crime, and implicates the sale of Joseph for many later misfortunes including the exile in Egypt, Haman’s decree, and the destruction of the Second Temple. In the Midrash Eleh Ezkerah, the execution of ten distinguished Rabbis by the Romans in the first and second centuries is seen as God’s punishment for sale of Joseph. The ten brothers had committed a capital crime, kidnapping; and in their place, ten great rabbis were executed.
The sale of Joseph becomes Judaism’s original sin, the ground zero of sinaat chinam, internecine hatred. Yes, there are many other examples of fraternal violence in Jewish history. King David’s family features a murder, a rebellion, and an execution; in the Hasmonean dynasty, warring siblings are almost a tradition. But Jacob’s sons are different. They are not just brothers, they are symbols of the future tribes of Israel; their battles are a premonition of civil wars to come.
And the Jewish people, small and dispersed, cannot survive such strife. As Lincoln put it: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” Jewish unity is an existential necessity.
In the early 1800’s most Jews were traditional, what we would call today “Orthodox.” But the twin forces of The Enlightenment and Jewish Emancipation changed the religious landscape; and only a century later, most European and American Jews had either abandoned tradition or embraced Conservative and Reform Judaism. Others, notably Bundists and some Secular Zionists, abandoned Judaism; they saw Jews as a people, not a religion.
Some Orthodox Jews saw these changes as religious treason. Rabbi Moshe Sofer argued that Orthodox Jews should completely separate themselves from those in the Reform community; marriages between members of the two communities should be forbidden. The Chatam Sofer’s student, Rabbi Moshe Schick, offered a more disturbing metaphor, saying that in multiple areas, the Reform community should be treated as non-Jews in the eyes of Halakha. Neither saw Jewish peoplehood as central.
But others took a very different approach. Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Berlin, the head of the famed Volozhin Yeshiva, was asked about a similar plan for religious Jews to cut themselves off from secular Jews; he responded that “this advice is as harsh as a sword to the body of the nation and its survival.” One must hold on to both the Jewish religion and Jewish people at the same time.
This approach is a solitary one. On one side of the Jewish world are those who hold on to a common national identity but have left Orthodox Judaism. On the other are those who hold tight to religious tradition but want to divide the Jewish people by divorcing themselves from those who are not Orthodox. Only a few continue to hold on fully to Orthodoxy and peoplehood at once.
And those who do so are the lonely brother, who doesn’t fit in either camp. They watch the other brothers quarrel and pull apart, and do everything they can to hold them together. All too often, the lonely brother feels misunderstood by everyone. Yet they remain the only Jews who can say that their contacts list includes people from the Satmar and Reform communities; they are the ultimate connectors of the Jewish people.
The lonely brother undertakes his mission with a deep sense of purpose. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, in his essay Kol Dodi Dofek, explains that two foundational covenants created the Jewish people: the covenant of fate and the covenant of destiny. The covenant of fate was enacted in Egypt, a place of shared suffering and shared redemption; it is here that one becomes a nation with a shared history. The covenant of destiny was enacted at Mount Sinai, when the Jews took upon themselves the mitzvot and joined in a shared spiritual destiny. And Jewish identity comprises both covenants, and combines religious and national identities at once.
One can imagine that Jewish solidarity is just pragmatism, that banding together is necessary for survival; or perhaps it is just based on sentimentalism and nostalgia. But it is much more than that. Rav Tzadok of Lublin explains that to declare “I am a Jew” is in and of itself a profound religious act. Even the most secular of Jews is continuing Abraham and Sarah’s mission; by standing proudly with the Jewish people, they too are embracing this holy history as their own. Embracing secular Jews is not a calculating arrangement to maximize mutual protection; to love these courageous souls is truly spiritual.
During the last fifteen months, the Jewish people have come together like never before; and for a short time, we were all playing the role of the lonely brother, standing in the center to hold the different segments of the community together.
Crisis can do that. And it has in the past.
In 1944, Rabbi Aharon Kotler was visiting Rav Yaakov Yitzchok Ruderman at his home in Baltimore. It was Friday, and the two great Roshei Yeshiva, leaders of the Haredi community, were talking in the kitchen. The postman knocked on the door, and came in to deliver the mail; and in Yiddish he said to them: “Ah gutten shabbos helige rabbonim” “good shabbos holy rabbis.” It should be noted that a postman couldn’t be an observant Jew at that time; one had to work on Saturdays. Nevertheless, Rabbi Kotler got up and hugged the postman. After the postman left, Rabbi Ruderman asked Rabbi Kotler why he did that. Rabbi Kotler responded: “how can you not jump to hug a Jew during these terrible years, when there are so few of us?” Rabbi Ruderman immediately ran out to hug the postman as well.
The last 15 months have been terrible; our only comfort comes from being able to hug each other. But we should not take it for granted. Even after this crisis passes, we need to continue to call out “I am seeking my brothers.”
And we really need to do so, even when it’s not a crisis. Because there are so few of us, and it’s always time to hug a fellow Jew.
Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.
