Shemos

If one were to examine the outcome of the census that Moshe took in the desert, one would find that the tribe of Levi was far fewer in numbers than the rest of the tribes. When the other tribes were counted, they were counted from age of twenty and up and the smallest of the tribes numbered over thirty thousand. When the tribe of Levi was counted, they were counted from a month old and yet only numbered twenty-two thousand. Why was Shevet Levi so small?

Ramban explains, after the Egyptians enslaved the Jewish people, the posuk states וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה וכן יפרוץ, “but as much as they would afflict it so it would increase and so it would burst forth.” The increase in numbers that the Jewish people had in Egypt was supernatural. If one were to calculate based on the number of people they started with, and the number of years that they were there, the number should be much smaller. As the medrash explains, when the Egyptians started the enslavement, one of their reasons was that MAYBE the Jews would outnumber them and join up with their enemies; then Hashem said, “you, the Egyptians, say MAYBE they will increase, I say they SHALL increase”. However, our posuk states that the expansion will be contingent on the hardship,  וכאשר יענו אותו כן ירבה וכן יפרוץ, “but as much as they would afflict it so it would increase”, the more that they were afflicted, the more they would increase. Now, as we know, Shevet Levi was not subjugated to the hard work in Egypt. They had the clergy exemption. Since they weren't included in the affliction, they also weren't included in the miraculous expansion. Therefore, their numbers were so much fewer than all the other tribes.

In a similar vein, the Ben Ish Chai explains with a parable.
There was a wealthy man who had a son who was getting into a lot of trouble; he wouldn't listen to anyone and was heading toward a life of crime. He didn't know what to do with his son to get him to turn his life around. One day, when the slave market was in full swing, the wealthy man took his rebellious son with him to the market. To the son’s shock, his father put him up on the slave block to sell him as a slave.

The father had to choose between two men who gave the highest bid. One was a kind, wealthy man and the other was a coarse, wicked man. Imagine everyone's surprise when the father sold his son to the wicked man. He was asked how he could do that; even if he felt he had to sell him to get him off the dangerous path in which he was heading, he should sell him to someone who would at least take care of him nicely, rather than to one who is going to torment him.
He answered, “my friends, what you are saying is true. However, had I wanted to just get rid of him, I should have sold him to the nice man where he would have been taken care of. However, then he probably wouldn't have changed much. My intention, though, was to get him back. I just sold him so that he would mend his ways. I sold him to that wicked man, so my son would have a hard time there and think about where his life was headed, recognize the error of his ways and come back to me. As hard as this was for me to do, it was the only way that he will learn.

Sometimes we need the hardships in our lives to bring out the most good. The tribe of Levi, which wasn't subjugated to all the hardships in Egypt, didn't merit the blessings that came from it. Had the boy in our story not suffered at the hands of the wicked man, he wouldn't have mended his ways. We have to look at all our hardships as a means to grow, to get blessings. The more difficult our challenge, the more we can gain. We have to recognize this and use our own personal hardships as a means to grow and merit all the Divine blessings that come with it

Vayechi

When Yosef heard that Yaakov was sick, he brought his two sons to get a bracha from Yaakov. The posuk states, וירא ישראל את בני יוסף ויאמר מי אלה, then Yaakov saw Yosef's two sons and said, “who are these?” Rashi explains this question to mean, where did these children, that are unfit to bless, come from? However, this question is a little hard to understand. Yaakov had been with Ephraim and Menashe for the last seventeen years, why did he suddenly find them unworthy?

Reb Zalman Sorotzkin explains that certain types of behavior, while appropriate for the average person, do not befit one who is prestigious and refined. One who occupies a position of leadership must set an example and maintain higher standards. Therefore, while Ephraim and Menashe were just Yosef's sons, they were fine. However, now that they were given the elevated status of being one of the tribes, they were held to a higher standard.

We see a similar concept by the bracha that Yaakov gave to Yissachar: יששכר חמור גרם, Yaakov gives the analogy of a donkey when he blesses Yissachar. הגר”צ מרקוביץ explains why he's compared specifically to a donkey. When a horse finishes his work, one has to take off everything from his back and then he can run free and relax. However, for a donkey to rest, all he needs is a corner to sit in. One can leave everything still loaded on him; he just needs a quiet corner to rest.

The tribe of Yissachar was the tribe that was supposed to be the masters of Torah, the ones that would sit and learn all day and teach others. One of the challenges of a true Torah Jew requires him, even at a time when he’s on break and has rest from the normal schedule, to still carry the load of the Torah and act in a way that is befitting a Torah Jew. He must always be on a higher standard.

The method Yaakov used to bless Ephraim and Menashe provides us an example of how we can elevate ourselves. We know that Yaakov switched his hands around and put his right hand on the younger one and his left hand on the older one. Why didn't he just move them around? Why did he need to switch his hands around when he could have just switched them and blessed them normally? Rav Zilberstein explains that, had he switched them around, that would have been much more embarrassing to Menashe. Therefore, he left them where they were and switched his hands to teach us how sensitive we have to be to someone's feelings. Even though he had to do what he had to do, he tried to minimize the embarrassment as much as he could.

Rav Zilberstein relates a story about רב אברהם גניחובסקי who was a rosh yeshiva in Yerushalayim.  Every Friday night,  he had a chavrusa who came to his house. One Friday night, the chavrusa comes and mistakenly rings the bell which was heard throughout the house. However, no one opens the door. He waits a little, but still no one opens the door, so he knocks on the door and still no answer. He knows that the rabbi is home, so he keeps knocking. Eventually, the rabbi comes to the door in pajamas, yawning and rubbing his eyes like he just woke up and apologizes to the chavrusa if he had been knocking for a long time because he went to sleep.

Now, it was only nine o'clock and the rabbi never went to sleep that early especially since he had a chavrusa coming to learn. He did all that: ignoring the bell, getting in pajamas, pretending to be sleeping just so that his chavrusa wouldn't be embarrassed that he had rung the bell. He pretended that he was sleeping and didn't hear it. This instructs us not only to be on a higher level morally, but also to be on a higher level when it comes to recognizing the feelings of other people!  

Vayechi

After Yosef reveals himself to his brothers, he sends them back home to get Yaakov to bring him and the rest of the family to Egypt. While the Torah tells us that he sends them with wagons to bring everyone back, it then says that Yosef gave everyone a change of clothes ולבנימין נתן שלש מאות כסף וחמש חליפת שמלת, but to Binyamin he gave five changes of clothing and three hundred pieces of silver.

The Gemara in Megillah poses the question: why would Yosef, who, because of his brothers’ jealousy, had all these bad things happen to him as Rava says, “because of the weight of two coins of fine wool that Yaakov gave Yosef over his brothers, the Jewish people ended up in Egypt” give Binyamin more than all the other brothers to possibly start another cycle of jealousy?

The Gemara answers that he did it to hint that in the future, one of his descendants, Mordechai, would leave the presence of the king dressed in royal clothing and save the Jewish people. However, the question still remains. At that moment, if he gave Benjamin more clothing, then the brothers could get jealous even if he is hinting at something. The בינה לעתים answers that what the Gemara means is that Yosef only gave a hint. He didn't actually give him the clothing, but just hinted at future events.

However, that only answers the question of the clothing. What about the three hundred pieces of silver? רבינו בחיי  has a fascinating answer. The Gemara tells us that someone who sells a Jewish slave to a non-Jew is fined up to ten times the amount that he's worth. Parshas Mishpatim tells us that the standard price for a slave is thirty silver coins, therefore ten times the amount is three hundred silver coins. The brothers who sold Yosef were each obligated to redeem him for three hundred silver coins. Now that Yosef was no longer a slave, they no longer had to redeem him. Since they didn't have to spend the three hundred silver coins, each one benefited three hundred coins.  However, Binyamin wasn't in on the sale, so why should he lose out on a gain of three hundred coins? Therefore, Yosef gave him the coins to even out the gain so there was no room for jealousy, for they all benefited the same.

However, we could ask, “that's really just a perceived benefit for the brothers, whereas Binyamin's was actual; how could he be sure they wouldn't be jealous?”

The גר"א once had a very interesting case. A woman was left by her husband, who came back many years later. However, even though he said the right things and he looked like her husband, she wasn't convinced so she asked the גר"א what to do. He told her that, on Shabbos, when the man comes to shul, have the gabbai tell him to go to his old seat. When the gabbai did, the man became all flustered and embarrassed for he didn't know where it was and finally admitted that he was an imposter!
When they asked the גר"א how he knew that the man wouldn't know that, he said that someone who would try to pose as a woman's husband must be a very wicked person. He must have met the husband somewhere and asked many questions so that he would be able to trick everyone. Someone who was so wicked would never think to ask about anything holy, so I knew, if he were an imposter, he wouldn't know anything in shul.

We see from this story that a person is where is mind is. A person like this imposter, with his mind in the gutter, certainly is not thinking holy thoughts. However, by the brothers, the opposite was true. When they came to Egypt, their resolve was to find Yosef at all costs. Then, when they thought that Yosef was going to keep Binyamin and send them back, the midrash tells us they were about to start a war until Yosef saw he had no choice but to tell them who he was. The brothers’ mindset now was togetherness. They were back together; they were a unit; there was no way they wouldn't interpret what Yosef did for Binyamin the right way and be jealous. This teaches us to try to always look at things the right way, to know that whatever happens, there has to be a good reason for it's all from Hashem. Since there are always two ways to look at events, let's try to be like the brothers who didn't get jealous and looked at it the right way.  We, too, should always be able to see things in the right light!