Summarized by Shmuel Goldberg. Translated by David Strauss
Let Us Not Take His Life
And they saw him from far off, and before he came near to them, they conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another: Behold, this dreamer comes. Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say: An evil beast has devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams. And Reuven heard it, and delivered him out of their hand; and said: Let us not take his life. And Reuven said to them: Shed no blood; cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, but lay no hand upon him – that he might deliver him out of their hand, to restore him to his father. (Bereishit 37:18-22)
When I think about these verses, I try to imagine how much courage, how much strength, was required of Reuven to argue with his brothers to spare Yosef's life. The brothers in their hatred are eager to kill him –they raise the idea even before he reaches them, and agree among themselves: "Come now therefore, and let us slay him, and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say: An evil beast has devoured him." And Reuven comes out against them. We know what a crowd of angry people looks like, all eager with the same desire, the same aspiration, and shouting "Death to so-and-so! Death to so-and-so!" And yet Reuven does not join this crowd; he knows within himself that their idea is unjust and immoral.
And he does not remain in the category of "We are busy with ours, and they are busy with theirs" (Berakhot 8a), not getting involved in what his brothers are planning, but rather he cries out, he opposes them, he stands up against the group consensus and declares: "Let us not take his life." When you say such a thing to an angry crowd that wants to kill someone, it is not unlikely that you will become their first victim. Indeed, Reuven risked his life for what he knew to be the truth.
Reuven's opposition has an effect on the crowd. Of course, in the end, Reuven's plan to "restore him to his father" fails, but that does not matter – he still saves Yosef. Had Reuven not immediately intervened, the brothers would have killed Yosef right away. By saying "Let us not take his life," Reuven forces the brothers to take a step back and consider other options. Ultimately, Yehuda's suggestion, "Let us sell him to the Ishmaelites," (Bereishit 37:27) was accepted, but the one who actually ensured that Yosef's life would be spared was not Yehuda or anyone else, but Reuven.
Reuven's act is all the more impressive when we consider that he has the greatest reason, of all the brothers, to want to kill Yosef – Yosef receives the birthright that was taken from him. The scoffers of the generation might argue that, on the contrary, this is why Reuven had an interest in saving Yosef: he thought that if he intervened and saved Yosef, he might regain his firstborn status. "Because he defiled his father's couch, his birthright was given to the sons of Yosef, the son of Yisrael" (I Divrei Ha-Yamim 5:1), but now that he is doing an act of heroism and saving his brother, perhaps Yaakov will return it to him. But the Torah testifies that Reuven's intention was pure: "And Reuven heard it, and delivered him out of their hand."
There is an important message here for us, concerning our role in complex situations in which we find ourselves facing a crowd that has been swept up by a single opinion.
I would like to relate to a similar case in the parasha, another complex situation in which a person makes a decision to act when it would have been much simpler to go with the flow. The Torah takes a break from the story of Yosef and his descent to Egypt to tell us about Yehuda and his family – the births of Er, Onan and Shela, their marriage to Tamar, and Yehuda's act with her. We will not consider now the main body of the story, but only its conclusion:
And it came to pass about three months after, that it was told Yehuda, saying: Tamar your daughter-in-law has played the harlot; and moreover, behold, she is with child by harlotry. And Yehuda said: Bring her forth, and let her be burnt. When she was brought forth, she sent to her father-in-law, saying: By the man to whom these belong, am I with child; and she said: Discern, I pray you, whose are these, the signet, and the cords, and the staff. (Bereishit 38:24-25)
This is the context; let us enter for a moment the labyrinths of Yehuda's soul – what are the things that are at stake at this moment?
Yehuda knows that only Tamar knows that he is the one who had slept with her; and that if he remains silent, she will be burned and he will be able to continue on, without anyone knowing the story. He also knows that if he confesses to her, everyone will know the story – she has already explicitly said: "By the man to whom these belong, am I with child." Yehuda is certainly afraid that if he concedes to her, his reputation will be severely damaged. He already has standing in Yaakov's house; he is aware that after Reuven lost the birthright and Shimon and Levi did wrong in the eyes of their father in the incident of Shechem and Dina, he is next in line to receive the birthright and the leadership; and if he admits to having fornicated with Tamar, his chances of receiving the birthright will plummet. We already saw earlier in the parasha that he is interested in concealing the fact that he had visited a prostitute, "And Yehuda said: Let her take it, lest we be put to shame" (ibid. v. 23).
However, Yehuda knows deep down that there is no point to receiving the birthright if it comes at the price of injustice. Because of his conscience, because of this inner truth, he cries out: "She is more righteous than I!" (ibid. v. 26) and saves her. In this case, as well, Yehuda goes out against the tide of the crowd. Certainly in those days, the crowd was entirely on his side – Tamar was pregnant with the product of illicit relations! She deserves to be burned, and we will go on with our lives. But Yehuda cannot let that happen.
Chazal in Ruth Rabba (5, 6) comment on Reuven's action – and the same applies to the act of Yehuda – that had they known that their good deeds would be written in the Torah by God, they would have done much more. But that is precisely the point – they did not know. They did not think about honor, they were not aware of the historical impact of their decisions; they simply felt a moral obligation to prevent the angry crowd from doing evil. Hence, one can, one should, and one must, oppose the crowd when they are doing wrong. Not only must one not participate, in the spirit of "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" (Yehoshua 24:15) – but one must cry out in protest.
Whoever Is for God, Follow Me
All this is highly relevant to our own lives. There are always bad movements around us that sweep up the crowd, and what is more – certainly in the modern era – they may be well-funded and driven by public relations and media people; and we must be careful not to be carried away by these opinions but to think. Each one of us must examine the issues and come to a decision – not simply to go with the flow, but to decide for himself where he is swimming, even if it is sometimes against the current, even if he says one thing and the whole world says something else. It is difficult today to voice an opinion that goes against everyone, but a person must listen to his conscience and know how to say "enough," to recognize when the public is exaggerating and to stand up and tell everyone that the king is naked.
Soon we will light the first candle of Chanuka, and the story of Chanuka revolves precisely around the point we have been discussing. The Greeks, 2,200 years ago, arrived in the Land of Israel and brought with them a new culture that carried away the whole world, but the Chashmonaim prevailed and prevented the Jewish people from being swept away in the current. The simplest thing would have been to Hellenize, to accept the new reality that was emerging, to flow with the crowd and dissolve into it, but the Chashmonaim could not let this happen. This is not only about their idolatry, but about the entire impure culture of Greece that emphasizes the beauty and heroism of man and erases God. It is against this culture that the lights of Chanuka are lit.
Matityahu, too, when he calls out "Whoever is for God, follow me," puts his life on the line, standing alone against the current. Despite the risk, despite the fact that everyone says otherwise, he must go with the truth. And with that cry, Matityahu influences public opinion and succeeds in starting a rebellion. Thanks to Matityahu's resistance, the Jewish people overcome the Greeks.
Think how history would have looked if not for Matityahu who cried out "Whoever is for God, follow me," if not for Yehuda who cried out "She is more righteous than I," if not for Reuven who cried out "Let us not take his life." But it is important for me to emphasize: Reuven and Yehuda and Matityahu, at the moment they made the decision to act and go against the crowd, did not know that their decisions would be fateful. They simply could not accept injustice; they could not remain silent when the crowd acted against their conscience. In the end, after the fact, we know that they stood at a crossroads and their decisions had great significance. But the cry they cried out at that moment was a pure cry. Responding with a cry, standing up to the mob and saying, "Enough," is one response to a bad culture that one finds oneself in, and it is the appropriate response at the right times.
Extracting the Good in a Foreign Culture
There is, however, another appropriate response to a problematic reality or foreign culture that one sees developing before one's eyes. Sometimes, one need not cry out against that reality or culture and reject it completely, but rather one can take it and develop it in a way that allows it to be integrated into one's service of God and to add to it. It is difficult to say categorically that A stemmed from B, but it seems not coincidental that it was precisely around the time of the Chashmonaim, in the wake of the Greek presence in the Land of Israel, that the Oral Law began to develop in full force and breadth. Of course, an oral tradition accompanying the written Torah had always existed; but the Oral Law as we know it – the systematic study of the depth of the Torah, the Batei Midrash – began to develop fully in the period of the Pairs (Zugim), and later in the period of the Tannaim and Amoraim. The first Pair was around the time of the Chashmonaim.
Where did that surge in the development of the Oral Law come from? It probably came from the Greeks, who invested heavily in the development of the capacity to think. Noach blessed his sons: "May God enlarge Yefet, and let him dwell in the tents of Shem" (Bereishit 9:27); and Chazal (Megilla 9b) said about this that "the beauty of Yefet will be in the tents of Shem," the good things about Yefet can serve the Torah of Shem. But the Greeks saw human wisdom as the goal, whereas we take human wisdom and use it to understand the Torah and to raise the treasures from its depths. The Oral Torah draws from the Written Torah and is based on it.
Anyone who thinks that he can learn Torah without using human reason should stay out of the Beit Midrash. God gave us the Torah so that we can contemplate it in every generation and try to understand it as much as possible with the tools that He gave us, namely human reason. We must utilize the human intellect that God has given us. This is a good value that we learned from the Greeks. Often, when we speak of the positive contributions of Greece to the world, we speak of the buildings, the aesthetics, the philosophy – all of these are good, but beyond that, I relate to their contribution in understanding that we must utilize the powers of reason that exist in man. But of course, while they saw this as an independent value of glorifying man, we see it as a tool to be used for the service of God. Within the culture of Greece there are good parts and bad parts, and we must examine each part by itself and see whether it is possible to take from it for our service of God.
We have seen two paths to dealing with a difficult reality or a foreign culture that is emerging. In every situation, each person needs to be independent and look at things himself; not to be swept away by the crowd and by what everyone says. Sometimes we need to go against the crowd, stand up for ourselves, and cry out against the injustice that the crowd is perpetrating, in accordance with our inner conscience. A person is capable of doing this and so it is incumbent upon him to do so, as we learn from Reuven, Yehuda and Matityahu the priest. But we need not always reject a foreign culture completely. As mentioned, one must examine things for oneself, and thus sometimes one will conclude that one can take part of this culture and use it, in one way or another, for the benefit of one's relationship with God.
[This sicha was delivered by Harav Baruch Gigi on Shabbat Parashat Vayeshev 5783.]
Edited by Yair Lichtman
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