As I've been doing lately, trying to find a connection to the parashah of the week, so today the most appropriate topic is מכירת יוסף, the story of the sale of Yosef, story with Yosef and his brothers. And in the mefarshim, the commentaries, you find different explanations on what took place and why it took place. And usually this class we try to explain it a little bit the way it's explained in Chassidus and in Kabbalah, more the deeper meaning behind of what seems superficially to be very simple, but really in truth, it goes deeper than that. So we will discuss today the story of מכירת יוסף, the sale of Yosef. Now, this contains a few steps. Number one, the fact that his brothers wanted to kill him. And number two, that Reuven had recommended they shouldn't kill him, but they should throw him into the pit. And by doing that, as the pasuk says, his intentions were that he would come back later and save him. And the third step is that what actually took place was that they took him out and they sold him eventually to Mitzrayim. Now, the first thing that we have to understand is how is it possible to say that the brothers of Yosef were ready to kill their own brother, besides the fact that it's their own brother, but to commit murder? And we're talking about the shevatim, the sons of Yaakov, who were the שבטי י-ה, the shevatim of Hashem, greatest tzaddikim that we could imagine. How could it be that they were ready to kill Yosef? And inasmuch as they didn't like him, because we learn in the beginning of the parashah that from the way he repeated his dreams and the way he behaved, they saw that he's trying to rule over them, but that's not enough, chas veshalom, to say that he should deserve to get killed. So why did they want to kill him? These are people that later on, Hashem said that their names have to be written on the choshen. Imagine! On the choshen, the breastplate of the kohen gadol, who was supposed to have a zikaron, to have remembrance of כלל ישראל on him, and this went through the names of the shevatim. So these people should be people who are ready to kill somebody, to kill especially their own brother? So here we have different explanations in the mefarshim. The Sforno, one of the famous commentaries called the Sforno, he says that since he came to Yaakov and told Yaakov all kinds of lashon hara about them, they were afraid that this would bring that Yaakov would curse them. Rashi says that Yosef, in the beginning of the parashah, that Yosef came to his father and told him that his brothers, number one, eat אבר מן החי, eat limbs of live animals, which is forbidden even for the goyim, for the Bnei Noach. Now, most opinions hold that the sons of Yaakov had a din of Bnei Noach, they did not have a din of Jews. But even if they did not have a din of Jews, because till the Torah was given no one had a din of a Jew, so they did not have to keep all the 613 mitzvot, but the seven mitzvot that were given to the goyim they had to keep, and one of the seven mitzvot is אבר מן החי. And Yosef told his father that they eat אבר מן החי. He also told him that they commit adultery, which was not true—he thought they did, but it wasn't true. So when he came, when they saw from far that Yosef was coming, they assumed, based on their previous experiences with Yosef, that he's coming to look and find more faults with them. They didn't know, they didn't understand that he's coming because his father sent him to find out how they're doing, and that was a way of showing his friendship. They thought he's coming to find more faults, and then what would happen? He would go back to his father and speak more lashon hara against them. And then this would cause that their father should curse them, and then this would bring death upon them. That's what they suspected would happen. And therefore, they held that according to the הלכה, הבא להורגך השכם להורגו. If someone is out to kill you, you have to go kill him first. Which also falls under the other name, which is the same idea, the other title called a rodef. There is a halacha in the Torah that if someone is a rodef, a rodef means if you see a person chasing after somebody, trying to kill him, you are obligated to save that person's life even if it means to kill the one that's chasing. And that's not only if he's trying to kill you, if he's trying to kill another Yid, if you see one Yid running after another Yid to kill him, you are obligated to kill the rodef in order to save, to be matzil, to save that person who's in danger. And certainly if the person is coming to kill you. So, the Sforno says that they thought that he was a rodef and, therefore, they felt that he deserves to die. The Or Hachaim Hakadosh goes along the same lines, but he gives a little bit a different interpretation from a different angle. The Or Hachaim says that they looked at Yosef as an ed zomem. What does that mean? We know in the Torah we find the concept of edim zomemim. That means that if two witnesses come and testify about a person, let's use the example that he deserves to die, he did something that he has to die, and later other two witnesses come and say that these two who testified that they saw Mr. So-and-so do something on this and this day and this and this place is not true because they were with us on that same day, in the same time, someplace else. So, the Torah says ועשיתם לו כאשר זמם לעשות לאחיו. So, you have to do to the two witnesses, to the two bad witnesses, they are called edim zomemim, you have to do to them what they intended to have done to that person. So, the brothers of Yosef looked at Yosef and they said he is an ed zomem. He came to his father and testified against them, and he testified about things that they deserve to die. Why? Because they said that he eats אבר מן that they eat אבר מן החי, as I said before, he said that they commit adultery, and the law is, the halacha is, by a goy, that if a goy transgresses any one of the seven mitzvot, the punishment is death. See, by Yidden we have 613 mitzvot. Some mitzvot if you don't do, some aveirot if you do, the punishment is death, some is karet, some is malkot, some is payment of money, different levels of punishment, different types of punishment, but by Bnei Noach, by a goy, there is only one punishment, that you deserve to die, that's what it is. אזהרתן זו היא מיתתן, the Gemara says, that's their death. So, when Yosef came and testified to his father that they committed these sins, basically, he was testifying that they did something that they deserve to die. And since they were wrong, the brothers knew that he was wrong, so, therefore, they looked at him as being an עד זומם, somebody who's testifying against somebody else that wants to have him killed, so ועשיתם לו כאשר זמם, so you have to do to them, so they felt he has to get killed. And since this is talking by a goy, in other words, those days they had a din like a goy, like Bnei Noach, by Bnei Noach there is no din that you have to have two witnesses. It's an interesting thing. We know in the Torah that any type of testimony we have to have two witnesses, על פי שנים עדים יקום דבר the Torah says, based on two witnesses you could establish something. But by Bnei Noach, when it comes to goyim, you don't have to have two witnesses, one witness is enough. When it comes to goyim, you could have a relative a witness. So, even though he was their relative, he was their brother, he was considered a witness who came to testify against them saying that they deserve to die, and he was wrong, so they looked at him as an עד זומם, and, therefore, they felt that he deserves to die. But on the other hand, nobody came and contradicted him. Usually by עדים זוממים, the way it works is that one group of עדים come and testify, then you have another group who comes and contradicts them, and that's when the first group turns into עדים זוממים. In this case, no one came to contradict him. So, how did they think that he deserves to die? So, the Or Hachaim says that, in truth, there was nobody who contradicted them, but in their mind they knew that he was wrong, so they knew that he deserves to die, but being that there was nobody who contradicted them, they felt, we can't kill him outright. So, what we could do is bring him to die, and we will have done both things: we will have done the fact that he deserves to die because he's an עד זומם, on the other hand, we will not have killed him. And, therefore, as the Midrashim say, first they tried to shoot arrows at him with which they felt would not be an outright something that they're doing with their bare hands, and it didn't work. Then they tried to entice dogs against him, and it didn't work. So, then they decided let's actually kill him ourselves. But How can they do that when no one contradicted him, so why is he an עד זומם? So he says an interesting thing: When you look at what they said, they said, as the Chumash, as I brought the Chumash here, ועתה לכו ונהרגהו, \"Let us go and let us kill him.\" What they meant to say, if we all do it together, there is a halacha if two people or 10 people together kill a person, not one of them is חייב מיתה. Not one of them deserves the death penalty. It's only if you do it yourself. So they said, ועתה לכו ונהרגהו, let's all kill him together. So by doing that, we will not have done actually the killing, and that will take care of the fact that there was nobody who contradicted him. But on the other hand, the the death penalty will come to him because he is an עד זומם actually, without having someone contradict him. And then they even added, they said ועתה לכו ונהרגהו, let's kill him, ונשליכהו באחד הבורות, and let's throw him into one of the pits, ואמרנו, we will say, חיה רעה אכלתהו, that a wild animal ate him up. What they meant to say was, if we'll throw him after we kill him, we'll throw him into one of the pits, for sure there will be animals in these pits that will eat up the body, and we will come back to Yaakov and we will say to him that a wild animal ate him. They did not plan to say a wild animal killed him, that would be a lie. So they decided we're going to kill him, throw him into the pit, let a wild animal eat him up, and we'll come back and we'll say a wild animal ate him. But this was all because they felt that he is חייב מיתה. That's what they felt. It was wrong, but they felt he was חייב מיתה, that's why they felt they were able to kill him.

What happened? Reuven came, and Reuven said, let's not kill him. וישמע ראובן ויצילהו מידם, Reuven saved him. ויאמר, he said, לא נכנו נפש, let's not ourselves kill him. ויאמר אליהם ראובן, Reuven said, אל תשפכו דם, don't spill the blood. השליכו אותו אל הבור הזה, throw him into this pit, אשר במדבר, that's in the desert, ויד אל תשלחו בו, don't put your hand to him. And the reason he said that, the pasuk says, למען הציל אותו מידם להשיבו אל אביו, to save him from their hands and to bring him back to his father. So he meant to say, let's not do anything to him, let's throw him into the pit. And by doing that, he thought he'll come back later and take him out. But that is very, very not clear. It's not understood. Because Rashi says, and the Gemara says this, but Rashi brings it too, that this pit was full of snakes and scorpions. When it says when they threw him into the pit, the pasuk says, והבור רק אין בו מים, the pit was empty, had no water. So Rashi asks, if it was empty, obviously it had no water. Why does the pasuk have to say it has no water? It means מים אין בו, it had no water, אבל נחשים ועקרבים יש בו, it had scorpions and snakes. So by throwing in in a pit where you have scorpions and snakes, isn't that a clear, sure death that he's going to have? So why did he say to do this? Actually, in halacha we find that this is a sure death. There is a halacha that when it comes to testify on a person that he died in order to allow his wife to remarry, you have to have testimony that he died. Otherwise, if he's missing, she's an עגונה, she can't get married. So you have to have a person to testify. And the din is that the only time we accept the testimony if he comes and says, \"I myself saw him dead and buried him.\" But if a person says, \"I saw him standing there and someone was pointing a gun at him, let's say,\" he can't testify because maybe the guy didn't shoot. \"I saw many people die, and he was standing next to them,\" that's no proof. You have to be 100% sure. Nevertheless, there's a halacha that if you saw a person fall into a pit that has snakes and scorpions, and you didn't see him die, and you walked away, you could come and testify that this person died, because there is no question that he will die. So the question in this case is, when Reuven said throw him into this pit which had snakes and scorpions, this is a sure death. So how was he planning to save him, and what did he mean by throwing by saving him, by throwing him in? And it's very hard to say that Reuven did not know that this pit had snakes and scorpions. Well, obviously, it was very possible and he should have looked in before he threw him in. So probably he did know, and nevertheless he said throw him in. So the peshat is like this: What he meant to say was, we are baalei bechirah. We are people who have free choice. And when it comes to free choice, it's in our hands, and if we kill him, then it's almost as if Hashem himself doesn't intervene when it comes to Hashem himself doesn't mix in. So you know what let's do? Maybe you are right, he tells his brothers, that he deserves to die. Maybe not. Let's put him into the hands of Hashem. If we kill him ourselves, then we can't say, well, automatically shows that Hashem really felt that he deserves to die, because we chose to kill him. But if we don't do it, we throw him into the pit, then he's in the hands of Hashem. And even though the fact is that when you're thrown into a pit of snakes and scorpions, this is a sure death, but first of all, it's not with your hands, and second of all, it doesn't mean that it's impossible for a person to stay alive. It just that in the majority of the cases, this person will die, and not just the majority 51%, but a big majority, 85% will happen. And al pi halacha, it's enough that we follow the majority, the big majority, to testify that the person died, but still it's possible that a person should stay alive. The expression is that a nes might happen. Now we don't mean a nes, a miracle, outside of nature. It means that still could happen that he might not die. And actually it's interesting in the Yerushalmi, it says that you cannot testify. That's the opinion of the Yerushalmi, that you cannot testify if you see a person fall into a pit of snakes and scorpions, you cannot testify that he died and to have his wife remarry. And the Yerushalmi gives the reason why. Because we suspect that it happened by Yosef, that by Yosef he stayed alive and obviously it's not a miracle that happened to me out of the out of the world. But even according to the Bavli, which is not like that, and we hold that you could testify, it's only because we go בתר רובא, we follow the majority. But it's still possible. So Reuven said, \"Let's put him into the hands of Hashem.\" Especially that since the whole reason why we could testify, according to the Bavli, is because the majority of cases a person would die and we follow the majority, it's interesting that by Bnei Noach, by goyim, there is no halacha that we follow the majority. Even the minority counts. חיישינן למיעוטא by goyim. So, in this case, where they had a din like Bnei Noach, so in their case, the minority על פי הלכה counts. And this is actually what Reuven said and this is what the mefarshim say and the Rebbe explains it in detail, that this is what Reuven meant. He said, \"Let's not touch him. Let's not us do anything to him. Let's give him over to the hands of Hashem. And Hashem if he has a zechut, Hashem will save him. But if we do it, then it's basically seemingly out of the hands of Hashem and maybe he doesn't deserve to die and we'll be at fault.\" But we still have to understand, it's not so simple. How can we say that if they would do it, because they chose to do it, it's possible that he doesn't deserve it and the reason he received it is because they did it? This seems to contradict our true understanding in that everything comes from Hashem and I'll explain what I mean. It says in Tanya, in the Igeret HaKodesh, it says in Tanya an interesting thing. It says when someone hurts you, don't be upset at him. Why? Because whatever happens to you comes from Hashem. And if someone gave you a patch, there is no question that you deserved a patch. Hashem made it happen. So, you deserved it, so why be angry at him? He was only a shaliach of Hashem, that's all he was. But then the Alter Rebbe continues in Tanya, if that's the truth, then why should that person be punished? We know that if a person hurts somebody else, you have to punish him. Beit Din will punish him. Why punish him? All he did was Hashem's wishes. Hashem wanted this person to get the patch, so why punish him? So, he says he is punished because he chose to be the shaliach and he didn't have to be the shaliach. And when you choose to be a shaliach to do something harmful, you deserve the punishment. So, the person who did it deserves to be punished, but, on the other hand, the person who received the damage cannot be angry because Hashem gave it to him. And the Alter Rebbe brings even a re'ayah from from a pasuk. It says והשם אמר לו קלל. It says that by Shimi ben Gera when he cursed David HaMelech, the famous story when David HaMelech ran away from Avshalom, Shimi ben Gera cursed him. And David HaMelech said he didn't want to punish him, because השם אמר לו קלל, השם told him to curse. Hashem spoke to Shimi ben Gera and told him to curse David HaMelech? So, in Tanya he said what it means is David HaMelech said, \"If he cursed me, I deserve to be cursed from Hashem. And he happened to be the shaliach.\" So, he says, \"I have no reason to be angry. He should be punished.\" And actually he asked Shlomo his son later to punish him. But to be angry for what happened to him, he can't be angry because it comes from Hashem. As the expression he says, על הניזק נגזר מן השמים. On the ניזק, the one that received the damage, there was a decree from Shamayim, and the one that did it chose. Had this person not chosen to do it, he would have gotten the damage anyway. As he uses the expression, הרבה שלוחים למקום, there are many messengers to Hashem, he would find some other way to do the damage. So in that case, let's come back here, it's not clear here. So what did Reuven say? Reuven said, \"Let's throw him into the pit, we'll give him over to the hands of Hashem.\" So then we'll see if Hashem wants to protect him and save him, he'll save him. But if we do it, then we have free choice, then maybe he doesn't deserve to be killed, and we'll have killed him, so we'll be doing something he doesn't deserve. But how is that possible? According to what it says in Tanya, is that if he gets it, then he deserves it no matter who chose to do it. So the Rebbe once explained, and he said, \"This is the Pshat.\" The Pshat is, the Gemara says that the בית דין של מעלה, the heavenly court judges a person. And there are certain times when the heavenly court judges the person stricter than other times. And he will be punished for things that other times he will not be punished for it. If you are in a מקום סכנה, if you're in a dangerous place, so then the heavenly court looks at you and looks more strict. When the heavenly court sees that you need a miracle to be saved, they start looking more, do you really deserve the miracle? So if you're not putting yourself in a dangerous spot, so then they just judge you normally, whether to give you everything you need. But if you're in a dangerous spot, and the heavenly court looks at you and say, \"Well, we need a special miracle to save you,\" you might not deserve a miracle. And that's why it says a person should never rely on miracles. It says a person should not walk on a broken, stand on a broken ladder. And the question is why? If he deserves to fall, he'll fall anyway. If he doesn't deserve to fall, then he won't fall, everything happens from Hashem. But it says, \"No, Hashem might judge you when you're in a מקום סכנה, He judges you stricter.\" And that's what Reuven said here. If we are people of free choice and we're going to do it, this puts him in a greater danger, because we're choosing something. And if that puts him in a greater danger, then maybe this will cause the בית דין של מעלה to cause that he would die and he deserved to die because they're judging him stricter. But if we put him into the pit and he's there on his own and he's in the hands of Hashem, so then maybe Hashem will judge him lighter, and then he will not be punished. So let's leave him to the hands of Hashem. This is what Reuven meant when he said, \"Let's throw him into the pit.\" So we went through both situations: the situation how they, what they had in mind when they wanted to kill him, the situation what happened when Reuven said, \"Let's save him by throwing him into the pit,\" that's the second thing, and then what happened in reality, what happened, he was sold. He was sold as a slave.

Now, we all know that the fact that he was sold as a slave was something negative. They sold him as a slave, and they knew he was going to Mitzrayim, and he was going to be sold to Egypt as a slave. It turned out to be something positive. Actually, as Yosef himself said to his brothers, when he identified himself to his brothers, this is what he said. He said, \"ועתה אל תעצבו, don't feel bad, ואל יחר בעיניכם כי מכרתם אתי, don't feel bad you sold me here, כי למחיה שלחני אלקים לפניכם. Hashem sent me here to bring life to you, because there's a hunger here and if not for me, you would all starve to death, and it's only because you sold me here, and I came and I interpreted the dream of Paro, and I became the viceroy of Egypt, that's why I saved you. So it turned out to be good.\" And actually later in Parshat Vayechi at the end, when Yaakov passed away, and then the brothers were afraid, who knows what he's going to do, he might take revenge. So what did he say to them? He said to them like this: \"ואתם חשבתם עלי רעה, you had in mind bad, אלקים חשבה לטובה, Hashem had in mind for the good, למען עשה כיום הזה להחיות עם רב, to come to this day, to be able to give life to so many people.\" So in simple Pshat, why was it really good? Because this is the only way he was able to feed his family and feed the people, so this was for the good. The truth is in the Zohar, it says a much deeper Pshat in how the sale of Yosef to Mitzrayim was something good, was something positive, not just for the food that they now were able to survive and they had enough food, much deeper. But to understand the depth of what happened when they sold Yosef to Mitzrayim, we have to look at something else. There are two mitzvot, two mitzvot that were given to us, which are because of the sale of Yosef to Mitzrayim. And when we look at what these two mitzvot represent and what they mean, and how they connect to the sale of Yosef, we will see what is really the depth of Yosef's sale to Mitzrayim, why it was so good. Bichlal it says in פרקי אבות, שכר מצוה מצוה, the reward of a mitzvah is a mitzvah itself. And in Tanya he says, the Alter Rebbe says, what does that mean? One of the pshatim is משכרה נדע מהותה, that if you want to know what is the contents of the mitzvah, if you see the reward, from the reward you could see what the mitzvah is. The same thing in our case: if we want to know what is really the depth of the sale of Yosef, we could see it from the mitzvah that we got because of that sale. Which are the mitzvot that we got for the sale of Yosef? So it says in Yerushalmi like this, interesting Yerushalmi: It says when we look in Chumash, how much they pay for Yosef? וימכרו את יוסף לישמעאלים בעשרים כסף. They sold Yosef to the Yishmaelim for twenty כסף. How much is twenty כסף? Twenty כסף is five shekalim. There are four כסף, it's a name of a coin, four כסף in a shekel. Twenty כסף is five shekalim. As soon as we hear five shekalim, right away the mitzvah of Pidyon Haben comes to mind. There's a mitzvah that we have to redeem the firstborn child by paying five shekalim. Then the Yerushalmi says something else: Since there were ten brothers, when you divide twenty כסף into ten, each one received two כסף. Two כסף is a half of a shekel. So because of that we have the mitzvah of מחצית השקל. That's why every year we have to give a half a shekel. So here we have these two mitzvot as a result of Mechirat Yosef. What's the connection? The connection in numbers, well, that's not the only connection, obviously. So the mefarshim explain that the connection is that since when they sold Yosef, this was the cause of the Jews to go to galut, to go to Mitzrayim, which is basically the cause of our galut also, because Galut Mitzrayim was the first galut which led up to all the galuyot. So therefore, the sale of Yosef, which was a sin, is called a חטא נמשך, a continuous sin, because it's still going on now. We're still in galut because of the sin of what they did, they sold Yosef. So we have to have a continuous tikun. We have to fix that up. And therefore, by giving the מחצית השקל, half of a shekel, which the Torah refers to as כופר נפשו, this is redemption for your nefesh, so this is a redemption and a tikun for the aveirah what they did. And then they say, what is the second mitzvah of Pidyon Haben? It is because they sold Yosef to Mitzrayim and that brought all the problems we had in Mitzrayim. One of the things was that the firstborn Egyptians died, and really the gezeirah was that the firstborn Jews should have also died, and Hashem protected them specifically, but really they were going to die. So therefore, there's a mitzvah in connection to the firstborn also, and that's why we have the mitzvah of Pidyon Haben. This is what the Yerushalmi says, and let's evaluate what the Yerushalmi says here. We have to understand, why would we need two mitzvot to rectify this sin, the so-called sin of the sale of Yosef? Why do we need two? Usually, if you have an aveirah and the Torah wants you to make a tikun, it gives you a mitzvah, and the mitzvah rectifies what happened. Why do we need two things here? That's one question. Another question here is, the מחצית השקל the Torah says is redemption, is כופר נפש, is redemption for, so that's a kapparah, that's to forgive. But how is Pidyon Haben a kapparah? On the contrary, pidyon haben is a mitzvah of kedushah. Pidyon haben means that the firstborn is holy, and because he's holy we have to give the five shekalim. So how can the sin, the so-to-speak sin of selling Yosef, turn into a mitzvah of holiness? It should have been a mitzvah of forgiveness, but this is not connected to forgiveness. It's a mitzvah that is because of the kedushah of a bechor. And then we have another question on the Yerushalmi. Yerushalmi says that where do we get machatzit hashekel, a half a shekel? Because there was twenty kesef, ten brothers, each one, when they got the twenty kesef, each one got two, two kesef is a half a shekel. How do we have ten brothers here? There were only nine brothers when they sold Yosef, because Reuven wasn't there, and Binyamin wasn't there. All together there were 12. Yosef was being sold. We had nine brothers there, and Reuven was home, and Binyamin was home. So how does the Yerushalmi say that there were 10 there, and each one got two? Reuven, Rashi says, was home. Why was, you see, that's why he didn't even know that they sold him. He told them to throw him into the pit hoping to come back and take him out. He left. When he came back it was after everything happened, they sold already. So he wasn't there, he had gone home. Two peshtim: one peshat is that he went home because it was his turn to take care of his father. Every brother had their chance, their time to take care, and it was his turn to take care, so he happened not to be there. So he was there when Yosef came, but then he had to leave. Another peshat is that he was busy doing teshuvah for what he did to the bed of his father with Bilhah. So he was busy doing teshuvah, so he wasn't involved there. But whichever way, he wasn't there. So if he wasn't there, we only had nine brothers, because Binyamin certainly wasn't there. So how do we have 10? And the mefarshim ask this question, and the answer the mefarshim give is, one peshat is we count Reuven. Why? Because when he came back and they told him, \"Look, look what we got. We got 20 kesef for a sale, let's divide it,\" they gave him his share also. Now, it doesn't say he took it, but they had set aside a share for him. Actually, in Pirkei deRabbi Eliezer it says that when he came back and they told him what happened, shatak, he was quiet, he didn't protest, as if, as if he agreed to it. So he is counted as the 10th. Other mefarshim say, believe it or not, you know who we count? Yosef himself, because he was also part of the sale, because he brought it about. He caused it all to happen, so he's also considered as one of the people who received from his sale, and that's how we have 10 brothers. But the question is, it seems very, very strange that we're trying to figure out that there were 10 when really there were not 10. We're trying to push in Reuven as a 10th or even Yosef as a 10th. Why would we want to do that, and how does it fit? So to explain this, and this will lead us to understand what is the true spiritual good that took place when they sold Yosef. When we look at the two mitzvot that we got, one is for the five שקלים and one is for each one having two כסף, it's interesting: the five שקלים is the value of how much Yosef was worth, how much Yosef was sold for. The two כסף, which is a half a שקל, is how much each brother received. In other words, we have two angles here. We have the angle of Yosef and the sale in itself, and then we have the share of the brothers, the שבטים, their share in the sale. So the two שקלים, the two כסף, which is a half a שקל, is how much each one of the brothers received, that's their share in the sale. And then you have the sale on its own, how much the sale was worth, the sale itself, and that's the five שקלים, the 20 כסף. So there are two things here, which by the way answers why we need two mitzvot as a result of sale, because there were two things that happened here. There is something that happened here as far as the brothers are concerned, and that was something negative. And there's something that took place from the side of Yosef, the way Hashem made it happen from Yosef's side, from the sale, and per se, just the sale itself, and that's something good. And from that good part, as I'll explain in a moment, comes the mitzvah of פדיון הבן. The question we asked before, how could it be that a mitzvah of kedushah comes as a result of the sin of selling Yosef? That mitzvah of פדיון הבן came as a result of the good part of the sale. So there is a negative part to the sale, and that needs a kaparah, and that we have the mitzvah of מחצית השקל, the mitzvah of giving a half a שקל, which is a kaparah for a sin, because there was a sin aspect to what this, what this was done, and then there is a positive aspect, and that's the mitzvah of פדיון הבן.

Now, what is the positive aspect to the sale of Yosef? So we said before, the simple positive aspect is the fact that they had food later, but the Zohar says much more than that. And this is what the Zohar says: the Zohar says, כל דא עביד קודשא בריך הוא. All this was done by Hashem. Hashem caused that Yosef should be sold. And he says, the Zohar says, why? So the יידן should go to גלות. Hashem wanted Yaakov and his children, the יידן to go to מצרים, so Hashem made brought about that Yosef should be sold, and that would lead the Yidden to Mitzrayim. And then the Zohar continues, but why did Hashem have to make it that his brothers should be involved? Hashem could have made it that he should be lost, wander away by mistake and then end up in Mitzrayim and be sold. Why did he have to make Hashem make that the brothers should be involved? In other words, there is something that they did consciously from their free choice, but obviously this also Hashem made it happen. There's an aspect that Hashem made. So the Zohar says like this a very interesting peshat, very interesting. When the brothers grabbed Yosef, they basically made him into their עבד, into their slave. He they conquered him. When they sold him, he belonged to them. And the sale that that they did, halachically, is not a 100% sale. There is a halacha that says that if a person sells an עבד, sells a slave to a goy, or he sells a slave to חוץ לארץ, to outside of Eretz Yisrael, so the sale is a sale, but he's not free till he gets a גט שחרור, till he gets the document from his master that he's free. Because in order to free a an עבד, to free a slave, you have to give him a document called a גט שחרור. Just like when you divorce a wife you have to give her a גט, this is also called a גט. It's called a גט שחרור, a גט of freedom. So when you sell an עבד to a goy, or you sell an עבד outside of Eretz Yisrael, you still need a גט שחרור, and as long as the גט שחרור is not given, that person is still an עבד. So basically this is what the Zohar says: that Yosef belonged to the שבטים. So now when Yosef came to Mitzrayim and became an עבד, a slave in Mitzrayim, he really wasn't a slave of Mitzrayim. He couldn't be a slave of Mitzrayim, because he belonged to the brothers. And Zohar continues even more, that because he belonged to the brothers, so he was under their control. When Yosef became the viceroy of Mitzrayim, which means he is the boss of Mitzrayim, and all the Egyptians were under Yosef's control, and Yosef himself was under the control legally, halachically, of his brothers, so really all of the Egyptians were under the control of his brothers. And therefore the Zohar says it was impossible for the Egyptians to take full control of the Jews. Had Yosef not been sold in Mitzrayim to his brothers, he'd have gone to Mitzrayim, and this would have led up that all the Jews came to Mitzrayim, they were avadim, slaves in Mitzrayim, when they're slaves in Mitzrayim, they were under the jurisdiction and the control of the Egyptians. Finished! They would have been stuck in galut because they were under the control of the Egyptians, just like all other slaves, it says in Rashi in the Gemara that אין עבד אחד יכול לברוח ממצרים. Mitzrayim was so strong that not one slave ever, ever escaped. They were in control. The Jews would have been in control. In other words, as if there couldn't have been a geulah, there could have never been a redemption, because they would have been caught in this net of Mitzrayim. In order to make a possibility of the geulah, so Hashem made it so that Yosef should be taken by his brothers as a slave, then sold in this way which never left the control, the ownership of the brothers. So Yosef constantly remained owned by the brothers. So when the Jews came later to Mitzrayim, the Egyptians could not really control them. So here it comes out very interesting thing, that the sale of Yosef has two opposite aspects to it. On one side, it was the cause of the galut, it was the cause that brought the Jews to later on go to גלות מצרים, and at the same time it was the cause of the geulah. It was the potential of the geulah, it's the only reason why the geulah could have taken place because Yosef was sold by his brothers. Had that not happened, it wouldn't have been that way. And because of that, we have the two mitzvot. We have the mitzvah that comes as a result of what the brothers did, and what the brothers did was a negative thing, that brought about the galut. So we have a mitzvah from the brothers' side. Each brother got two כסף, so we have a mitzvah of מחצית השקל, a half a shekel, which is ordered to to be a kapparah, to forgive for the negative part of the sale of Yosef, but at the same time, because there was the other part that Hashem did, the positive part of the sale of Yosef, that brought about that Yosef now belongs to them, which takes away the possibility of the Egyptians controlling, but rather Jews controlling, Hashem controlling, we have a mitzvah of pidyon haben, which means that the firstborn is controlled by Hashem and owned by Hashem. So here we have the two mitzvot, and these two mitzvot fit to the two aspects of the מכירת יוסף. This explains this whole idea of the 10. It's an interesting thing, we said before that we have 10 people involved in this part, in their part, we have 10 people, and the question was asked, but there were only nine. So we said, well, really there were 10. So if we look at it like this: really there were 10, but really there were not 10. On one hand, there were 10, because you could count Reuven, you could even count Yosef as one because he did bring about, he was the cause of the sale. But on the other hand, really really there were no 10, because they really didn't participate. The reason we're looking here to find that there were 10 is because we just finished saying that according to the Zohar, the sale was the source of the geulah. The fact that the brothers sold him, that was the way they caused that the Egyptians should not be able to have a real, essential control. In order to accomplish that, you have to have a very very strong koach. You have to have a koach of Hashem that's beyond nature. Because naturally, when you're in a country and you're slaves to the country, then you're under the control of the country and you're not your own being at all. You lose your your identity. The whole idea of an עבד, a slave, is מה שקנה עבד קנה רבו, means whatever a slave acquires, owns, is owned by his master, he has no entity. He's not a מציאות for himself. So the Jews being עבדים, slaves in Mitzrayim, would have lost their entity. Here, what happened through the sale, this gave them a power of not losing their identity, I mean not losing their identity of being holy people and not being controlled by the Egyptians. For that, the שבטים at that time, the way Hashem made it happen, had to, we're using again kabbalistic terms, had to be ממשיך, had to bring down at that time such a great, godly light that should give them the power that the galut should not be able to overpower them and control them. Such a power could only come down through a tzibbur, through a minyan. We know that a minyan of Jews together brings down such great, godly light that it says in Tanya that even an angel, even a malach, would disappear, would get burned if he'd find himself in such a place. It says, that's why we have to have a minyan when we daven, because a minyan, the kedushah is so great. It says afilu a malach, an angel, would come down in a place where you have 10 Jews. And it says there an interesting thing: even if they're not sitting and learning, and they're not davening, and they're not even involved in a mitzvah. Obviously they're not doing bad things, but let's say you have a room with 10 Jews working, making a living, working in their regular work, the kedushah that's there because you have the 10 people is so great that if a malach would come in, he would disintegrate, he would get burned. So it's only a minyan that could bring down such a great light, and therefore at the time of the sale of Yosef, we needed a minyan. That's why we say there were 10 people there in order to accomplish this. But on the other hand, had there been an outright minyan, you know what would have happened? The galut would never have started. If they would have brought down such a great kedushah that the Mitzrayim, the Egyptians, would not be able to take control on them even superficially, because there would have been such a great light brought down to Yosef, that later on, when Yosef brought his brothers down and his father, the Mitzrayim could not ever make them into slaves, because the kedushah of a minyan. What we needed here was something in between. We needed here that there should be a minyan to be able to bring down the light, but it shouldn't be outright, because then, if it would be, then there would never be a galut. So we need enough to be the galut, and at the same time to have the power of giving them the potential of being able to go out of the galut. And therefore, the way it turned out was that there was a minyan, but not בגילוי, not outright. Outright there were only nine people, but in essence, if you count Yosef, or you count Reuven, you do have a minyan, so we have accomplished both. So you have the koach of the tzibbur, the koach of the community of ten, and that brought down in the מכירה, in the sale of Yosef, the fact that he was sold as slave of the brothers, and that gave the power that later on there should be able to be the geulah. If not for that, the geulah wouldn't be. And it's all because of the tzibbur. And it's interesting that that's why the mitzvah that we have as a result is a mitzvah of מחצית השקל. Because of the ten brothers and the sale of Yosef, we have the mitzvah of מחצית השקל. What does the mitzvah of מחצית השקל represent? מחצית השקל represents the idea that you have to have another Jew with whom to be united. We know that in every mitzvah, Hashem, when He gave us the mitzvot, He wants everything to be complete. In Torah, everything has to be complete. When you fill up your cup for kiddush, it has to be full, or when you give challah to make לחם משנה, it has to be a שלמה, everything complete. A korban has to be תמים. Here, all of a sudden, an interesting, strange mitzvah: half a shekel. Why not a complete shekel? It's to show us that a Yid has always to feel that he himself is half. When is there a complete shekel? When you combine him with another Jew. Which is the idea, a miniature, a little bit, of what a tzibbur is. One of the specialties of tzibbur, why does a tzibbur, a minyan, bring down such kedushah? Because you have an amount of ten together. So there is a union of Yidden together, and the number ten is so great that it brings us such great kedushah. The mitzvah that's going to forgive for the sin, so to speak, is a mitzvah that has to do with tzibbur also. And what did they do, what did they use the the money for the מחצית השקל for? Only for the קרבנות ציבור, for the korbanot, for the sacrifices of the community, communal sacrifices, not for private sacrifices. Again, because this is supposed to be connected to what they did then with their sale, the fact that they were a tzibur and brought the great light of Hashem as a tzibur into the sale in order for this to help the geulah. So here we see that we have one thing that happened, and on one hand it was negative, and it seems in simple peshat that from the perspective of the shevatim, they did something wrong, they sold Yosef to Mitzrayim, and this brought about something terrible, that brought about the galut. But at the same time, the pasuk says אלקים חשבה לטובה, השם had in mind for the good. Doesn't only mean for the good for the food that they wanted, that they'll survive. For the good that this brought about the possibility of the geulah, because otherwise there would not be the geulah. And in Tanya, the Alter Rebbe says that from here we should learn that if somebody, God forbid, does something negative to you, you should not be upset with it, with him, and you should not, God forbid, take revenge, but more than that, you should return him a favor. You should be good to him. You should do him a favor. And he says the expression, למגמל לחייבים טובות, even though they're chayavim, means people who are negative, but give them back a favor. And the reason is why? Because if you look at it that in truth Hashem made it happen, and whatever Hashem does is for the good, so really he did you a favor. He gave you a potch? Hashem wanted you to have the potch, so Hashem gave you the potch. And Hashem, whatever He does is for the good. So he did something good for you. Now, do we see it? Not always do we see it. Not always do we see everything that Hashem does is for the good. So here too, when it's done through another person, he might be punished by Hashem, but as far as I'm concerned, the person who gets it has to look at him and say, well, it all came from Hashem, and Hashem does everything, כל מה דעביד רחמנא לטב עביד, everything's for the good, so this is definitely good and you have to return a favor to somebody if he hurt the person. Now, that's not for בית דין, that's not an excuse. בית דין or the court has to punish him because he didn't he shouldn't have chosen, but we're talking about the person himself has to feel that way. Just like over here, the fact that they sold him, on one hand was galut, but it brought the geulah, so we hope that everything that happens to us, even if, God forbid, it seems negative, will only be another stepping stone to the geulah, and this time it'll be a geulah that will not have any galut afterwards, but it'll be a geulah sheleimah, and we hope it'll be במהרה בימינו ממש. Amen.

Yes. David told Shlomo to punish him. He told him. Yeah, but on the other hand, he himself did not. He remembered it for so many years. Yeah, because the בית דין, you see, that's like the בית דין has to He looked at David HaMelech at that point basically wore two hats. David HaMelech was the בעל דין. He was the individual that was cursed, so he has to look at it as a positive thing. But at the same time, he's the king. The king has to take care that everything runs. So the king has an obligation that if someone does something bad, you have to punish him. So here he was caught in between. So therefore, on one hand he said, השם אמר לו קלל, I can't do anything, but he told his son, because his son already something else, his son has an obligation to take up for the kavod of his father. So he says, you take care of him. Because as a Beit Din you have to take care of it. But he himself as a yachid, as a baal din, a baal davar, he couldn't. Yes. Man'alim, because the twenty The pasuk says twenty kesef, and in Tanach it says pair of shoes. So obviously they bought shoes, but I don't know if that means they bought one pair of shoes for twenty kesef, or each one bought himself a pair of shoes for a מחצית השקל. But in Kabbalah it does speak about the inyan of shoes. It says by Yetziat Mitzrayim it says that Hashem said be ready, ומנעליכם ברגליכם. It says when Mashiach will come, והדריך בנעולים, and they will go with shoes. And it says the reason is what's the inyan of shoes? Shoes is a separation between the foot and the floor, that's the like the mechitzah that saves you from from being influenced, just like gashmiyut, it protects your feet from being influenced by the elements, you know. So this is so shoes represents the fact that you protect yourself from being influenced from the outside. And I'm just saying my own, maybe here also, that this separates them. What? Beit Hamikdash, there you should take off your shoes because there shouldn't be a separation. There we don't want a separation, but bichlal ne'alayim is good. It says that a person talmid chacham, we learn in Gemara, should sell everything he has in order to buy a pair of shoes. Shoes are very important. But it says, but this is the reason could be here also, that because at that time what was happening is that they brought down such a great gilui that brought kedushah into the world, so they had to have the naal not to be influenced by the world, and the world the whole idea was that Mitzrayim should not influence, should not control them. That's what naal represents. I'm just saying this sevara. Okay, whatever they decided. Okay, so of everything, the sale of Yosef is the source of all the גלותן. Yeah, this was like the main one and then we still have to have See, this was a negative thing. They killed him, but we're doing a mitzvah. But as a tikun, it's not a payment, it's a tikun. There it was like a onesh, a punishment, that's a different thing. Not to his father, to his brothers. Here, it says וישב, and he came back, and ויאמר, he said, הילד איננו, the child isn't here, ואני אנה אני בא, where am I going to go? He said, what am I going to tell my father? How am I going to take my father's pain? And it seemed like that he had a long discussion with them. The mefarshim say not here, but when he said don't throw him into the don't kill him, throw him in the pit. So the mefarshim say that he must have had a lengthy discussion, because later on we learn in Parashat Miketz when the brothers came to buy the food, and he told them, you are spies, and they saw they are in trouble, so Reuven, it says in Chumash, ראובן turned around to his brothers and says, I know why we're having this trouble, because we sold our brother, and I begged you not to do it, and you didn't listen to me. So obviously that here he had talk spoken to them. So he was on the side not to do it. It says here, it says he didn't know what he's going to do, but he made up with them that he's not going to tell. He could have come back to his father and told him the whole truth. He agreed with them, according to Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer he even was quiet, basically saying okay, and even not according to Pirkei DeRabbi Eliezer, he definitely did not do anything to stop it at this point, but he felt very bad for his father. Well, the pasuk said that his father started crying and he recognized they brought him the shirt and he said this is he tore his clothes, and he mourned ימים רבים, he mourned after him for twenty-two years, could imagine how that was, twenty-two years! And he really mourned. And the reason is very simple. When a person a loved one passes away, God forbid, you mourn, but the nature is that as time passes, you forget, the feeling is not the same. It says in the גמרא, גזירה נגזרה על המת שישתכח מן הלב, השם made a decree that if someone dies, it should be forgotten, because if a person would not forget and he would always live with the same pain that he had at the moment it happened, you can't live that way, you can't live your life feeling for years and years the same pain that you have at the moment he passes away, so slowly it wears off. But that gezeirah, that decree, was only concerning a person who died. But a person who's alive, there's no such decree. And since he was mourning after the living, he felt that pain constantly. For twenty-two years he felt the same pain. You could imagine how he felt! Actually, the Rebbe explains, that's why when Yosef identified himself to his brothers, the first question he asked him, is our father still alive? And the Rebbe asks, doesn't understand, throughout the whole conversation that he had back and forth with his brothers, every time they kept on saying, why do we want Binyamin to come back? Because our father can't won't manage, and all kind of So he knew his father was alive! So the Rebbe says it wasn't a question whether the father was alive. alive, it was an expression of wonder: how is it possible he should be alive after 22 years of mourning in such a way that it doesn't wear off? And that's You're asking what his reaction was, this was his reaction. So they had a sincere love for each other. Who? Father and son. Well, that's for sure. What about the other sisters? He had more sisters. Dinah was the one mentioned, but the other ones every twin every shevet that was born, a twin was a girl was born with him. So they had I don't know, it doesn't say what they did. They No, it says they tried to They tried to comfort him. It says, ויקמו כל בניו וכל בנתיו לנחמו, all his sons and all his daughters went to comfort him. Yes. I explained that. You must have missed it. That when you sell a slave to Chutz La'aretz, to outside of Eretz Yisrael, to a goy, the sale is not complete unless you give the document. And since there's no document given, so the sale is not complete, so they remained partially belonging to to the brothers. Right, right. Exactly, Hashem being the tenth. Right, right, right, right. That's something else, yeah, just like Yitzchak didn't tell. Yitzchak was alive when this happened. And Yitzchak knew what happened. And Yitzchak didn't tell. Why didn't Yitzchak tell? So Rashi says, 'cause Yitzchak saw Hashem doesn't tell, why should I tell? The same How did he know? Because Yaakov didn't know. The fact that Yaakov didn't know, Hashem a סימן השם יצחק How did he know? The brothers told him probably. And he had Ruach Hakodesh also. By Yaakov, Hashem made specially he blocked out his Ruach Hakodesh, he shouldn't see. But Yitzchak, tzadikim know. Huh? I don't know if they knew. I don't I don't think they knew. There's even an argument in the mefarshim whether if Yaakov ever found out. From Rashi it seems that he did find out, 'cause Rashi in Parshas Vayechi says different things that he said to him to their to the brothers that he found out. But some mefarshim learn that Yaakov never found out ever, they never told him. We just mentioned it. Why didn't Yosef send a letter to his father? Why didn't he take a wagon and drive down to Canaan? So the the the simple reason is the same question asked, why didn't Yitzchak tell? Yaakov's father Yitzchak was alive when this happened. And he didn't tell. So Rashi says, why didn't he tell? Here, ויבך אתו אביו, Rashi says, Yitzchak cried for the pain of Yaakov, but he didn't mourn because he knew that he was alive. So why didn't he tell? So the real reason is because he said to himself, if Hashem doesn't tell, then how could I tell? And since Hashem didn't tell Yaakov, and specially made Yaakov shouldn't know, so Yitzchak felt that Hashem doesn't want him to know, so how could I go against Hashem? And Yosef made the same cheshbon. That if Hashem doesn't tell, how could I tell? So he didn't That's why he was didn't didn't do it. That's the simple the simple answer the Rebbe gives for this question. Illegal to a certain degree. In other words, it was a partial sale because there was no document written, so the sale is not 100%. So to a certain degree, Yosef still belonged to his brothers. Yeah. No, because the din, like I said, the din is if you sell a slave, the sale is a sale, but he's not completely free till you give him a שטר שחרור, till you give him the get. So the sale is a sale, and therefore partially he belongs to the buyer, and partially to the seller. So since partially belonged to the seller, so there was no complete control that the Mitzrayim had over Yosef. So the control was always back to the Shevatim and that gave kept alive that they're not controlled by Mitzrayim, and that's why there was a possibility of the geulah. Pending, yeah. Yeah, yeah, pending to get שחרור, yes. The dreams, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, exactly. Right, but later on he controlled them. They came and bowed down to him.