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Thursday, December 15, 2011

vayeishev

The posuk says ולא יכלו דברו לשלום: and they couldn't talk peacefully to him. However, says רב יהונתן איבשיץ, had they spoken to each other, perhaps they would have made peace. The nature of feud is that the more it lingers inside of you, the more intense it becomes, growing stronger by the day. However, if the feuding parties would talk & work it out, then they wouldn't be angry anymore, which is why the Torah commands us לא תשנא את אחיך בלבבך: don't hate your brother in your heart, but הוכח תוכיח את עמיתך: tell your friend what's bothering you & through that you will come to peace.
Alas by the brothers, it says ולא יכלו דברו לשלום: that they couldn't speak peacefully to him, so they never made peace. Why wouldn't the brothers have tried to make peace & talk it out?
The posuk says וימצאהו איש והנה תעה בשדה וישאלהו האיש לאמר מה תבקש. Rashi says, who was the איש? It was the angel Gavriel. In last week's parsha, it said ויאבק איש עמו, and over there Rashi said איש was the guardian of Eisav.
Asks רבי חיים מצנז, in both places the angel is referred to as איש, so how does Rashi know that over here it's talking about Gavriel, & over there about the guardian of Eisav?
There's a story told over in the ספר שאל אביך ויגדך, that one of the early rabbis was traveling & ended up in a town he had never been in before. He was looking for the shul when a jewish man hurried by. He started to ask him where the shul was, when the man interrupted him saying, I'm in a rush, I can't talk now; I'm running to shul. The rabbi, having no choice, followed after him to the shul. After they both arrived at the shul the rabbi approached him & asked him this question of how Rashi knows that once where it says איש it's Gavreil, & once it's the guardian of Eisav. The answer is that from the posuk itself it alludes to the difference between them. Over here, what happened? The איש finds a man wandering & lost, & he asks him, what are you looking for? Can I help you? That, says רב חיים, is the מלאך גבריאל, looking out for someone else, trying to help. However, when yaakov asked the other מלאך for a ברכה, what did he say? Send me away for the morning star rose. Chazal say that he had to go say shira - he couldn't bless him for he had to run to go daven. That's Eisav's מלאך, not having time for other people under the pretense of religion.
Maybe that's where the problem started with the brothers. Yosef thought they were sinning & they in turn thought he was sinning. The halacha is that if you know someone is a deliberate sinner, it's a mitzva to hate him so neither side would talk to the other. However, had they talked it out instead of just thinking the other one was a baal avaira, they would have seen that no side was sinning, & could have avoided this intense hatred which untimely led to our nation's servitude in egypt.
We could learn from this not to judge just by what you see, but to listen to what other people say, calmly, without rushing, & by doing so avoid the disastrous effects of מחלוקת!

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