by Rabbi Avi Billet
וַיִּרְא֣וּ אֶחָ֗יו כִּֽי־אֹת֞וֹ אָהַ֤ב אֲבִיהֶם֙ מִכָּל־אֶחָ֔יו וַֽיִּשְׂנְא֖וּ אֹת֑וֹ וְלֹ֥א יָכְל֖וּ דַּבְּר֥וֹ לְשָׁלֹֽם
“And [Joseph]’s brothers saw that he was loved by their father [more] than all his brothers, and thus they hated him, and they were unable to speak peaceably with him.” (37:4)
After he has been shown extra favor and been given a special overcoat, the above verse immediately follows, setting the stage for the animus which will eventually lead to a brother being sold into slavery. At this point, without getting into the possible meanings of the word וישנאו (translated above as ‘they hated’), it is clear that there is disfavor from the brothers towards Yosef, such that they can’t even talk to him in a normal way.
Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Certainly, the inability to talk to someone can be viewed as a bad thing. Do we not see the humanity of the other person? Does the person have no merits whatsoever? Has the person done such horrible things that there is no common ground between us and nothing to talk about? Obviously, relationships can deteriorate in such a way. More reasonably, mortal enemies may feel this way, that there’s no one to talk to and no amount of meeting, talking, reasoning will get the two sides to see eye to eye on anything. Was that Yosef and his brothers, though? Were they mortal enemies? It is hard to imagine that this is how they viewed him, and even more so how he may have viewed them. So it would seem that being unable to talk to him is a bad thing.
On the other hand, it may also mean that they are principled. Because they are thoroughly convinced that Yosef is a danger to the family dynamic, they want nothing to do with him.
There is a passage in Bereshis Rabba in which Rabbi Achoah b’r Zeira says “From the disgrace of the Shvatim we learn of their praise. Elsewhere (Shmuel II 13:22) we are told that ‘Avshalom did not speak with Amnon – neither good or bad’ because he left what was in his heart inside his heart. However, here, they could not speak peaceably with Yosef because what was in their heart they said with their mouths.”
[The Avshalom/Amnon reference is to a tale involving the children of King David, who were half-siblings through their father, though had different mothers. Amnon had an infatuation over Tamar and raped her. Avshalom (who may have shared a mother with Tamar) took her assault very personally and plotted to kill Amnon for a long time, eventually succeeding. In the interim, he did not speak to Amnon at all, and he bided his time as his hatred for Amnon continued to grow.]
In his commentary on this in the Torah Shleimah, Rav Kasher writes:
“Avshalom didn’t speak to Amnon at all, and left what was in his heart hidden feeling it was better to leave a secret a secret. Regarding the brothers of Yosef, however, while they did not speak with him peaceably (בשלום), they did argue with him and fight with him. What was in their hearts they shared openly! The verse does not say they were unable to speak with him (עמו) – it just says דברו לשלום, that they couldn’t speak peaceably to him… What this indicates is that in their righteousness they demonstrated the quality of having תוכן כברן – their inside reflects their outside… In their own way they fulfilled the verse that says ‘You shall not hate your brother in your heart.’ Because they hated him so much, they could not pretend and speak with him in a manner that looks peaceable when in their hearts they feel the opposite. [They let it out in the open!]
“The Torah is warning us that one should not keep the hatred in the heart [or put it out there in the open]. The better way is to follow the model of Aharon HaKohen, to love peace and to pursue peace.” In other words, we must work on our own middos to find a way past the animus we feel.
So we go back to our question: Was the way they spoke to him (or didn’t speak to him) a good thing or a bad thing?
Rav Kasher’s teaching from the Midrash is that there is great merit to being תוכו כברו, for a person to be honest with oneself in how one feels, and to reflect outwardly what is going on inside.
However, there is even greater merit to working on oneself on the inside, so that what comes across on the outside is genuine, and a true reflection of one’s inner character.
A similar example of the degree of their hatred can be found later on when they bring the blood-covered coat to their father and say “Recognize it. It’s the coat of your son, isn’t it?” In the book “Maayana Shel Torah,” the editor writes in the name of “one of the gedolim” that this is a basic sign of clear hatred, when a person can’t even say the name of the other person. When the brothers could not even say Yosef’s name, Yaakov said טרף טרף יוסף, that the name Yosef has been torn apart in that even his own brothers couldn’t utter it.
There is peace and there is peace. There is a cold peace of simple existence, where you let me live and I let you live and we leave each other alone. There is a nice peace of coexistence, where we live together amicably, and we find a way to move past differences towards a greater common goal of making life better for all. And there is peace which is non-peace, which is when there isn’t an outer aggression all the time, but the aggression bubbles below the surface. When that animus exists, it is just waiting to rush out and commit unspeakable crimes.
In the brothers’ case, it is unfortunate that Yaakov did not heed the warning signs, sending Yosef off to Shechem, to an encounter that was predictable because the animus was out in the open.
Avshalom’s action upon Amnon was less predictable because it looked like peace but was a non-peace. And even if it had been predictable it is likely that no amount of talking to Avshalom would have gotten him to give up his aims on killing his sister’s rapist.
This is the challenge the Jewish people face in Israel with Gazan neighbors. Just about every Jew wants to leave alone and be left alone and to live in peace. Even if it’s a cold peace, it’s still peace. But when there is an enemy that just wants you dead, it is hard to have a conversation peaceably with that individual or entity. We have come to learn that some people who were viewed as trusted had betrayed (in some cases) over 20 years of trust, because they were of the Avshalom type. They acted normally, but hated in their hearts so deeply, that they betrayed every piece of information they could share about people they’d worked for and worked with for so long.
Perhaps there is merit to those who outwardly say they want to kill Jews, in that at least they are honest! The Torah teaches us that those who hate so deeply have to work on themselves to eradicate that hatred and to prefer to focus on good things in life and to be an inspiration to others in overcoming discord towards an equitable resolution that is peaceful. BUT it takes two sides to tango.
When one side says “we want to live in peace,” and the other says “there will be peace when all of you are dead,” then there aren’t really two sides. There is, in a sense, no one to talk to. When this is the “partner,” there is no partner, and we are left with the human tragedy that we call “war” which can only really end when the side that seeks death for all is defeated once-and-for-all.
May we merit to see the day when “we can talk to each other peaceably” – a day which will only come when the designs on killing our People are over, and the region is filled with an ideology that says “Look where we can find ourselves if we can work together towards the common goal of bettering our own lives and the lives of our children and grandchildren.” It begins by seeing the humanity in the other, and being able to say the other person’s name.
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