One of the enduring questions which arises when learning about Yosef’s sale to Mitzrayim, and his rise to power within the Egyptian government, is his lack of communication with his father. Why didn’t he use his position and considerable influence to contact his father at all during the 22 years they were separated? Would it have been too much to let him know that he was alive and well? How hard would it have been for Yosef to send a messenger with the good news to his father, after all, weren’t there caravans and merchants travelling back and forth between Mitzrayim and Cana’an all the time?
Rav Yoel Bin-Nun offers a well-known, and somewhat controversial, response to this problem, http://www.vbm-torah.org/parsha.61/11vayiga.htm. He suggests that the reason Yosef did not reach out to his father was because he genuinely thought that his father was in on it with his brothers and that Yaakov gave the go ahead to have him exiled. Yosef had no idea that his brothers dipped his coat in blood and lied to their father about it; after all, how could he have known? As a result, he reached the only conclusion that made any sense to him- my father hates me too! All those years that Yaakov presumed Yosef was dead, suggests Rav Bin-Nun, Yosef was wondering why his father had not contacted him. (Readers might be interested in reading Rav Ya’akov Medan’s critique of Rav Bin-Nun’s thesis here, http://www.vbm-torah.org/parsha.61/12vayechi.htm).
If Yosef’s brothers were able to convince their father to exile Yosef, it wouldn’t have been the first time a member of his family had done such a thing, and Yosef knew that. After all, didn’t Sarah convince Avraham to get rid of Yishmael? Didn’t Rivka force Yitzchak’s hand into choosing Yaakov over Eisav? They all acted l’sheim shomayim thought Yosef- What if Leah and my brothers convinced my father that getting rid of me was also the right thing to do?
Perhaps the strongest argument for this hypothesis, argues Rav Bin-Nun, is the fact that Yaakov sent Yosef to check up (spy) on his brothers in Shechem. Why would Yaakov do such a thing? Didn’t he know that the brothers would not take kindly to Yosef checking up on them? Whatever one’s feeling is about Rav Bin-Nun’s supposition, if you look at the beginning of this week’s parsha you have to admit that Yaakov’s behavior is difficult to explain: Yaakov sends Yosef to Shechem on the pretext that his brothers needed to be watched over, (37:12-14 and Rashi on 37:12). We are told that Yosef ‘s brothers hated him (37:4,8), that they were jealous of him (37:11), and that he had a habit of reporting on their indiscretions to their father (37:2). What good could Yaakov possibly have thought would come from sending Yosef? Did Yaakov send Yosef because he wanted there to be a confrontation between Yosef and his brothers?
It is interesting to note, that in possuk 37:2, we are told that Yosef would bring evil reports back to his father about his brothers and then immediately following this, in 37:3, it say “ ‘v’Yisrael,’ And Yisrael loved Yosef more than all his sons since he was his ben-zekunim…” The word “v’Yisrael” implies that there might be a connection between Yaakov’s love for Yosef and the evil reports he brought back to his father. But why would this be? Was it perhaps for the same reason he sent him to look after them in the pasture on that fateful day?
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