Tolna Rebbe Shlita
After the other brothers decided to kill Yosef, Yehuda suggested that they should not take Yosef’s life, "כי הוא אחינו בשרנו” – for he is our brother and flesh” (37:27). Instead, he said, they should sell Yosef as a slave to the Yishmaelite merchants who were passing nearby.
This remark which Yehuda made to his brothers seems very difficult to understand. Why, if Yehuda truly felt brotherly love and affection for Yosef, would he decide to sell him as a slave to Yishmaelites, where he would, undoubtedly, deteriorate spiritually? Our Sages teach that causing one to sin is worse than killing him, as it destroys both his body and soul. Was selling Yosef to the Yishmaelites, and thereby condemning him to spiritual ruin, any better than taking his life? Did Yehuda want his brother to live a life bereft of kedusha and purity?
The answer, it would seem, is that by poining out הוא בשרנו אחינו ,Yehuda was saying that Yosef shared the other brothers’ זכות אבות – the merits of their great predecessors, the saintly patriarchs. And this merit would help him spiritually survive even in impure surroundings, and maintain his level of kedusha despite the tests he would have to endure.
However, Yehuda was mistaken in this regard. The Midrash (Bereishis Rabba 85:3) comments that Yehuda should have brought Yosef on his shoulders to his father, and since he failed to do so, he ended up burying his wife and sons, as we read in the next section in the Torah. Indeed, Yehuda himself experienced firsthand the fact that when it comes to maintaining one’s personal level of kedusha, זכות אבות is insufficient, and he himself sinned by marrying a gentile woman, as the Midrash there writes: He experienced a decline, in that he married a gentile woman.
The Price of Separation
The sale of Yosef as a slave resulted in the test posed by Potifar’s wife. The Gemara in Maseches Sota (36b) comments that on the day when Yosef and Potifar’s wife were alone in the house, and she grabbed him by his garment and he fled, he had planned to succumb and commit the sin. Just at that moment, however, the image of his father, Yaakov, appeared to him and said, “Your brothers, in the future, will be engraved on the stones of the [kohen gadol’] apron, and you will be among them. Do you want your name to be erased?” Yosef thereupon withdrew and fled. The clear implication is that if not for this miraculous assistance, Yosef, as great a tzadik as he was, would not have been able to withstand this test. Significantly, the only other son of Yaakov who sinned in this fashion was Yehuda. Only Yosef and Yehuda faced this kind of trial, not any of the other brothers. The reason, it would seem, is because only Yosef and Yehuda were separated from the rest of the family. Had they not been separated, if they had remained with the rest of the brothers, they would not have confronted these difficult tests of kedusha. We learn from here the importance of remaining part of a group and always being together with fellow Jews. One who separates himself, even if he is on the level of Yosef Ha’tzadik, or of Yehuda, the king among Yaakov’s sons, he is prone to fail in this area. One must always be together with other people and engage in דיבוק חברים attachment with friends, so that he does not fall into sin.
This was the practice of my grandfather זיע"א , who throughout his life, and even in old age, ensured to be together with his fellow Jews. Every Shabbos, he would walk great distances from his home at the edge of the city to join the chassidim of Ger, Rachmastrivka, Karlin and other courts. This is the time for us to recommit ourselves to this practice, never to separate and withdraw, even for spiritual matters. It is always preferable to be with the community than to remain alone, even if by being alone one would be able to learn more. As the Sefas Emes writes in his commentary to Avos (2:4), – Do not separate yourself from the community, even if by oneself he can experience an elevation in stature.” If we ensure never to separate ourselves from the community, then we will save ourselves many difficult tests of the yetzer ha’ra. Additionally, we will develop a genuine sense of humility. When we function in a group, we must lower our heads and submit to the will of other people, whereas when we remain alone, we can bow to ourselves and our actions. Let us, then, always make a point of being together with other people, thereby avoiding difficult spiritual tests and engendering within ourselves the vitally important quality of humility.
