His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all the brothers, and they hated him…[2]
A medrash[3] inexplicably asks about the reason for the hatred – as if the Torah had not spelled out exactly why Yosef’s brothers hated him! The answer Chazal give is even stranger: They hated him, so that he would split the Sea for them.
Perhaps it is not so strange. As the Zohar[4] explains, when the Sea saw Yosef’s bier approaching, it noted that Yosef “fled and ran outside.” Therefore, it too, “saw and fled.” This reflects what the Zohar says elsewhere,[5] that a person cannot be considered a tzadik unless he is first put to the test. Yosef was, in the episode of Potiphar’s wife. The waters of the Sea fled before the approaching tzadik who needed to proceed along the get through in a hurry.
This was a fitting reaction on the part of the Sea. Yosef’s nisayon was not a conventional challenge. It took effort beyond ordinary limits for Yosef to extricate himself from the attraction to his seductress. Yosef’s beyond-natural response led to the Sea as well behaving in a beyond-natural manner.
The medrash, then, makes much sense. The hatred of the shevatim towards Yosef directly led to his sale. But this was really only the beginning of the story. That sale resulted in Yosef having to deal with Mrs. Potiphar’s wiles. His incredible strength in fighting the yetzer hora was what compelled the Sea to split before the descendants of all the shevatim many years later. Like so much of the lives of the avos, Yosef’s accomplishment became the legacy of all the Bnei Yisrael. When he overcame his lust for his employer’s wife, he imparted a powerful strength to them as well, so that the Sea would split for them when needed!
Rashi on the first word of our parsha tells us that Yaakov desired to live tranquilly in his home city, but that is not in the game plan for tzadikim. In his case, his euphoria was short-lived. Immediately, the ordeal of Yosef (rogzo, from the word “anger”) was thrust upon him. We usually understand this to be the apparent death of Yosef, and the decades of mourning that it brought on. Indeed, it was the brothers’ anger at Yosef that precipitated the sale, and Yosef’s subsequent sojourn in Egypt.
Rogez, however, also means incitement. Thus, the gemara[6] advises that a person should angrily incite the power of his yetzer tov against his yetzer hora at times, in order to directly silence and vanquish it. This is precisely what Yosef did. He is called Putiel, because he “scorned his yetzer hora” in fleeing from his temptress.[7] He stood tall and resolute in defying his yetzer hora, when he extracted himself from his battle zone.
Thus, rogzo shel Yosef has two meanings. It refers to the sale of Yosef, and all that this implied for the family. And it also channels Yosef’s angry rejection of his unusually powerful yetzer hora in the episode with Potiphar’s wife. The latter resulted in the ability of his descendants (and all of Klal Yisrael) to deal with temptations of arayos. This was a necessary tool for surviving Egypt and all the exiles thereafter.
- Adapted from Be’er Moshe, by the Ozharover Rebbe zt”l ↑
- Bereishis 37:4 ↑
- Bereishis Rabbah 84:8 ↑
- Zohar2 49a ↑
- Zohar1 194b ↑
- Berachos 5a ↑
- Sotah 43a ↑