In this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, the sale of Joseph by his brothers takes place. However, selling him was not his brothers’ original intent. The Torah is very clear: they meant to kill their brother even though he came in peace, because they were jealous of him.
“His (Joseph’s) brothers were jealous of him…His brothers went off to pasture their father’s sheep in Shechem. Israel said to Joseph, ‘Behold your brothers pasturing in Shechem. Come, I will send you to them…go please and see after the well-being of your brothers, and the welfare of the sheep, and bring me a report.’ He sent Joseph from the plains of Hevron and he came to Shechem. …The brothers saw Joseph from a distance, and before he approached them they were plotting against him to kill him. One man said to another, ‘Here comes the dreamer. Now, come let us kill him and throw him into one of the pits, and we will say that a wild beast devoured him. Then we shall see what will become of his dreams.’”
How could this happen? These are our great ancestors, and though there are not many laws in the Torah at this point, there is one that has been repeated twice, both in Parshat Bereshit and in Parshat Noach—not to kill! How are we to fathom the brothers of Joseph wanting to kill him, and what can we learn from the narrative?
Some have suggested complex halachic solutions, such as utilizing anachronistic Talmudic laws which would cast Judah as an Israelite King and Joseph as a mored, the leader of a coup against a sovereign, thus providing legal grounds on which to judge Joseph worthy of the death penalty. But we have a rule that the plain meaning of Biblical verses must be reasonably able to stand on their own. I think if we look closely at the verses they can shed some light on our question.
The verses repeat the location of the sheepherding, Shechem, several times. Why does the Torah go out of its way to keep repeating the scene of the crime? I think the answer is, in order to link this story to the one which happened in last week’s parsha in the same place. Dina was raped by a man named Shechem, who is the prince of the place called Shechem, and Shimon and Levi respond by killing all the people of Shechem. Now they seem to be back in the same spot shepherding their flocks. The Torah seems to be highlighting this geographic link between the two episodes.
Another element stands out which presses this point further. Reuven is the oldest, and so in theory he should be the leader. He steps forward and attempts to save Yosef by convincing the brothers to not kill him with their hands and instead to throw him in a pit; the Torah tells us that he has in mind to circle back and get Yosef out of the pit. But this plan fails because Yehudah, the fourth brother, steps forward and tries to save Yosef by suggesting they sell him instead of killing him. Who is missing? Two brothers, Shimon and Levi, fall between Reuven and Yehudah in age. Shouldn’t they try to save Yosef after Reuven? Aren’t they next in line for responsibility?
The answer, I think, is that Shimon and Levi don’t step forward to save Yosef because they want to kill him. Perhaps the Torah is telling us that they have brought with them the resonance of the vindictive war they just fought to avenge the honor of their sister. When violence takes over there is no stopping it from working its way into life and society. War is not something that can easily be left on the battlefield. A society needs very strong boundaries and safeguards in order to leave war on the battlefield and not bring violence back into society.
This is well understood in the Torah, where it is written regarding the return of soldiers from the war against Midyan (Bamidbar 31:19): “And you shall sleep outside the camp for seven days, anyone who has killed someone…and purify yourself…”
This was not purely a matter of ritual impurity, for someone who is impure does not need to leave the camp entirely. After war, however, the Torah instructs the fighters to remain outside the entire camp for seven days.
When we kill, even for the right reasons, it impacts us; it makes violence a bit less foreign and a bit less shocking. We must have cultural safeguards in order to retain the Torah’s central pillar: that all people are made in the image of God.