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Yeshivat Har Etzion

PARASHAT VAYESHEV

By Rav David Silverberg

            In the middle of Parashat Vayeshev (chapter 38) we read the story of Yehuda's marriage and children, including the untimely death of his older sons, Er and Onan, and the birth of his two other sons from his former daughter-in-law, whom he had mistaken for a harlot.  Among the questions raised regarding this narrative is the obvious chronological problem that emerges.  According to the sequence of the Torah's presentation, Yehuda married and begot children after the incident of Yosef's sale, which occurred when Yosef was seventeen years of age (see 37:2).  Now later, in Parashat Vayigash (46:12), Yehuda's youngest two sons – Peretz and Chetzron – are listed among the members of Yaakov's household who relocated in Egypt to escape the famine that ravaged Canaan.  This would mean that in between Yosef's sale and the family's relocation in Egypt, Yehuda married, begot three children who grew to marriageable age, and then begot the twins Peretz and Chetzron.  Now Yosef rose to power in Egypt at the age of thirty (41:46), at which point began the seven years of plenty which were immediately followed by the famine.  It thus emerges that only twenty-one years or so transpired from Yosef's sale until the family's descent to Egypt, and in this short period Yehuda married and begot three children who reached marriageable age!

            To explain the chronology of these events, the Seder Olam claims that Yehuda's sons married very young, and died at the age of nine.  This obviously assumes that boys in the ancient world developed sexual maturity much earlier than they do nowadays.

            A number of writers addressed another issue regarding the Seder Olam's position, besides the biological question of Yehuda's sons' marriage at such a young age.  In a number of places (Yerushalmi, Bikkurim 2:1; Bamidbar Rabba 18:4; Midrash Tanchuma, Korach, 3), Chazal establish that God's "heavenly tribunal" does not administer mita bi-dei Shamayim, the punishment of death, to people under the age of twenty.  Although young men and women become eligible for punishment by Beit Din at the age of bar/bat-mitzva, they are not subject to divine punishment until the age of twenty.  And yet, the Torah writes explicitly that God killed Er and Onan because of their sins (38:7,10), despite the fact that, according to the Seder Olam, they were but nine years of age.

            The Hadar Zekeinim, a compilation of commentaries from the Tosafists, brings an explanation claiming that in truth, the age at which a youngster becomes eligible for divine punishment depends on his mental development.  The Almighty determines each person's degree of accountability based on his intellectual and emotional maturity, and it is therefore very possible for an advanced nine-year-old child to receive divine punishment.  When Chazal speak of the age of twenty as the earliest age for divine punishment, they refer only to judgments rendered against an entire community or nation.  When rendering these judgments, God takes into account only the conduct of the adults twenty and older.  Personal accountability, however, could begin even at a younger age, depending on the individual child's level of maturity.

            The Hagahot Yabetz on the Seder Olam proposes a different theory, namely, that the principle mentioned by the Gemara, restricting divine punishment to adults aged twenty and above, did not apply before Matan Torah.  Before Matan Torah, even children could be eligible for divine punishment (presumably once they reached a certain level of maturity).  However, Rav Mordechai Frankel, in his Mayim Rabim, questions this claim in light of a Midrash, cited by Rashi in his commentary to Parashat Bereishit (5:32), which writes that before Matan Torah people became eligible for divine punishment only at the age of one hundred.  Now clearly the Midrash refers only to the era before the flood, when people lived for eight or nine hundred years; after the flood, when the average lifespan decreased dramatically and eventually reached around one hundred years, people became eligible for divine punishment much earlier.  Still, Rav Frankel contends, it is hard to imagine that even a nine-year-old child would be eligible for divine punishment after the flood, if before the flood the cutoff mark was one hundred years of age.

            The Chakham Tzvi (49), as Rav Frankel cites, dismisses this question entirely, arguing that Chazal's comment regarding the age of twenty as the minimum age for divine punishment falls under the category of divrei aggada – homiletic discussion – and cannot serve as a basis for questioning the Seder Olam.  There are instances where God punishes men and women even below the age of twenty, and we cannot really know for sure the precise significance of the age of twenty with regard to divine retribution.

            Of course, this entire discussion assumes that this narrative of Yehuda and his sons appears in the Torah in chronological sequence.  Ibn Ezra (38:1), however, in contradistinction to the Seder Olam, argues that Yehuda actually married and begot children before the incident of Yosef's sale, and Er and Onan married at an older age.  As the Peirush Ha-Tur notes, this view obviously negates the question of how God punished these nine-year-old children for their sins, for in truth, they were much older than nine years of age.

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            The opening section of Parashat Vayeshev tells the unfortunate story of Yosef's sale as a slave to Egypt.  We read that the brothers initially planned to kill Yosef as he approached them, but Reuven, in an attempt to save his younger brother, convinced them to instead kill him indirectly, by casting him into an empty pit.  His plan was to later come and rescue Yosef.  However, Yehuda then advised removing Yosef from the pit and selling him as a slave to passing merchants.  The Torah tells that Reuven returned to the pit – to rescue him – and found that Yosef was missing.  Evidently, Reuven was not with his brothers when they removed Yosef from the pit and sold him to the merchants.  Rashi, citing from the Midrash (Bereishit Rabba, 84:19), explains that Reuven was "occupied with his sackcloth and fasting for having switched his father's bed."  According to the Midrash, Reuven left after Yosef was thrown into the pit to focus his attention on his repentance for the sin recorded earlier, in Parashat Vayishlach (35:22), which Chazal understood as disrespectfully moving his father's bed into Leah's tent.  (Reuven wished to defend his mother's honor, which was infringed upon when Yaakov moved his bed into the tent of Rachel's maidservant, Bilha.)

            The obvious question arises, what connection is there between this incident, of the sale of Yosef, and Reuven's repentance for his sin?

            One simple answer, perhaps, has to do with the meal the brothers conducted after throwing Yosef into the pit (37:25), and during which they noticed the merchants and decided to sell Yosef.  When the brothers sat down for a meal, Reuven, who was still observing regular fasts to atone for his disrespect towards his father, left to continue his prayers.  He was therefore not present when the brothers sold Yosef to the merchants.

            The Beit Ha-levi suggests a different explanation.  Even though Reuven succeeded in convincing his brothers to cast Yosef into a pit rather than actually kill him, and thereby hoped to rescue Yosef, there was nevertheless no guarantee that his plan would work.  As Chazal famously comment, the pit was occupied by poisonous snakes and scorpions.  The prospect of Yosef's death meant not only the tragic loss of a brother, but a loss of one of the twelve tribes of Israel.  The Midrashim elaborate on the spiritual and symbolic significance of the number twelve as the number of the tribes; Reuven was thus saddened by the possibility that this number would now be reduced to eleven.  This led him to feel that had he not interfered with his father's marital life, Yaakov perhaps would have begotten more children, in which case the number twelve could still be retained.  Therefore, after the brothers cast Yosef into the pit in Dotan, Reuven returned to his process of repentance for his sin against his father.

            A much simpler explanation was suggested by Rav Mordechai Gifter, in Pirkei Torah.  Chazal emphasize Reuven's ongoing teshuva in this context because it directly impacted upon his response to the brothers' plan to kill Yosef.  Reuven's preoccupation with correcting his wrong engendered within him a heightened sensitivity to his father's feelings.  Specifically as a result of his mistake and pangs of remorse that surfaced in its wake, he, much more so than his brothers, was sensitized to Yaakov's emotions and outright refused to do anything that would cause him anguish and grief.  It was therefore he who stood up for Yosef and attempted to rescue him.  Having already insulted his father once before, Reuven understood the need to save his father from further grief, and herein lay the connection between his ongoing process of teshuva and the story of Yosef's sale.

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            Yesterday, we discussed the Midrash's comment regarding Reuven's absence from the sale of Yosef.  Recall that Reuven dissuaded his brothers against actively killing Yosef, advising instead that they cast him into a pit and let him die naturally.  Reuven's intent, as the Torah explicitly testifies (37:22), was to later come and rescue Yosef from the pit.  Ultimately, of course, the brothers decide to instead sell Yosef into slavery.  The Torah tells (37:29) that Reuven returned to the pit – presumably to rescue Yosef – and, much to his horror, discovered that he was missing.  This indicates, of course, that Reuven was not present when the brothers lifted Yosef from the pit and sold him to passing merchants.  Yesterday, we cited the explanation offered by the Midrash, cited by Rashi, that Reuven left his brothers to engage in ongoing prayer and repentance to atone for his sin involving Bilha.

            The Rashbam (37:28), however, who very often offers interpretations that differ drastically from those that appear in the Midrashim, explains this entire incident much differently.  He addresses a discrepancy that troubled many commentators regarding the identity of the merchants to whom the brothers sold Yosef.  The Torah tells that as the brothers sat down to eat after casting Yosef into the pit, they saw Yishmaelites coming from the east and heading towards Egypt, and the brothers decided to sell Yosef to them (37:25-27).  But then the Torah writes, "Midyanite merchants passed by, and they pulled and brought Yosef out of the pit, and they sold Yosef to the Yishmaelites…" (35:28).  (I still recall my ninth grade Chumash teacher describing this verse as "one of the most confusing pesukim in the entire Torah.")  This verse mentions two groups – Midyanites and Yishmaelites.  Rashi explains that the brothers took Yosef from the pit and sold him to the Yishmaelites, in accordance with their plan, and the Yishmaelites then sold him to the Midyanites.  Others, including Seforno, claim that the term "Midyanites" is interchangeable with "Yishmaelites."  The Rashbam, however, proposes a much simpler solution to this problem, namely, that the brothers never sold Yosef.  The brothers, he claimed, sat at a distance from the pit, and before they returned to the pit to pull Yosef out and sell him to the Yishmaelites, a different group of merchants, from Midyan, passed by and noticed or heard Yosef in the pit.  It was they who – without the knowledge of Yosef's brothers – pulled Yosef from the pit and sold him to the Yishmaelites, who brought him to Egypt.

            In light of the Rashbam's approach to this event, we can more easily understand the verse that speaks of Reuven returning to the pit and discovering it empty.  According to the conventional understanding, that the brothers took Yosef from the pit and sold him, we must struggle to explain Reuven's absence.  According to the Rashbam, however, this verse is perfectly clear.  Upon hearing the brothers' plan to pull Yosef from the pit and sell him into slavery, Reuven realized that his plan to rescue Yosef was in jeopardy.  He immediately "excused himself" and hurried back to the pit to pull Yosef out before the brothers did.  Much to his surprise and horror, however, by the time he arrived the Midyanim had already pulled Yosef out and sold him to the Midyanites.  Reuven thus returned to his brothers and painfully informed them, "The boy is gone" (37:30).

            One interesting result of the Rashbam's approach is that the brothers never knew that Yosef had been sold as a slave and brought to Egypt.  They likely assumed that he had died in the pit, as a result of a snakebite or other natural occurrence.  This perhaps sheds light on their utter astonishment when Yosef reveals his identity to them as the Egyptian viceroy many years later.  Not only had they not expected him to rise to power in Egypt; they had presumed him to be dead for the last twenty years.

            (Rabbi Menachem Leibtag elaborates on the Rashbam's in much greater detail, at http://tanach.org/breishit/vayesh/vayesh1.htm.)

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            We read in Parashat Vayeshev of the sale of Yosef as a slave by his brothers.  Initially, the brothers decide to kill Yosef (37:20), and Reuven then persuades them to kill him passively, by casting him into a pit (37:22), with the intention of later rescuing Yosef from the pit.  But later, they notice a group of merchants in the distance, and Yehuda remarks to his brothers, "What gain is there in killing our brother and concealing his blood; come, let us sell him to the Yishmaelites, so that our hand will not be wielded against him, for he is our brother and flesh" (37:26-27).  The construction of Yehuda's comment gives rise to some ambiguity as to the motivation behind selling Yosef into slavery rather than letting him die.  Yehuda's opening remark – "What gain is there in killing our brother" –suggests that he advises selling Yosef, rather than letting him die, so that the brothers will earn financial profit, in addition to their desired elimination of Yosef.  This seems to be the reading of Targum Onkelos and Ibn Ezra.  But Yehuda's later comments – "so that our hands will not be wielded against him, for he is our brother and flesh" – indicate that it was the ethical issue that prompted this decision.  Yehuda argued that their fraternal relationship with Yosef mandated that they should not kill him, and should rather achieve their goal of eliminating him by selling him as a slave.

            In other sources we find additional factors that may have contributed to the decision to sell Yosef, rather than let him die in the pit.  The commentary of Rabbenu Efrayim (cited in Torah Sheleima, note 159) cites an explanation from a Rabbi Yochanan claiming that the brothers sought to relieve themselves of the decree of the berit bein ha-betaarim, God's prediction to Avraham of his descendants' subjugation.  Yosef's brothers figured that by selling Yosef as a slave, they can transfer the decree onto him; his years of slavery will constitute the fulfillment of God's decree to Avraham, thus saving them and their descendants from this obligation.  (This idea is briefly mentioned by Chizkuni, 37:27.)  Thus, the "gain" of which Yehuda speaks is not financial gain, but rather the benefit of their absolution from the decree of berit bein ha-betarim.

            Bereishit Rabba (84) presents an entirely different reason for the decision to sell Yosef, claiming that the brothers based themselves on historical precedent.  In Parashat Noach (chapter 9), we read of Cham's mistreatment of his father, Noach, who responded by condemning Cham's descendants to slavery (9:25).  Yosef's brothers looked to Noach's condemnation of Cham as a precedent for punishing their brother through slavery.

            The obvious question arises, what connection did the brothers see between Cham's crime against Noach, and Yosef?  Why did Cham's condemnation serve as the appropriate model for dealing with Yosef?

            Rav David Kviat, in his Sukat David, suggests an explanation based on the Midrash's explanation for Cham's crime against his father.  As Rashi cites (9:25), Cham castrated his father to prevent the birth of yet a fourth son, which would further decrease his portion of the inheritance.  Appropriately, he and his descendants were condemned to slavery, a condition which allows for no personal financial gain; anything a slave receives automatically becomes the property of his master.  Yosef's brothers applied a similar line of reasoning in determining how to punish Yosef for what they perceived to be his crime against them.  They wrongly assumed that Yosef actively and deliberately sought favored-son status in order to seize exclusive rights to Yaakov's estate and spiritual heritage.  In their eyes, Yosef reported negatively about them to Yaakov so that he would disinherit them, leaving Yosef as Yaakov's sole heir.  His crime, they determined, parallels Cham's scheme against his father, and thus warranted the same punishment.  Yosef, too, should be doomed to slavery, where he will have no opportunity to achieve the fame and wealth that he – in their eyes – had so passionately coveted and pursued.  (How ironic it is, of course, that it was specifically their sale of Yosef that brought him to extraordinary wealth and prestige.)

            This Midrash, which tells of the comparison drawn by Yosef's brothers between him and Cham, accentuates one of the critical life lessons that emerges from this story: the extent to which a person's sincere actions and conduct can be so drastically misconstrued.  Remarkably, Yosef, his father's loving and devoted son, was likened by his brothers to Cham, who committed an unspeakable crime against his father Noach.  When we fail to give others the benefit of the doubt, when we assess other people's conduct with preconceived notions and an initial standpoint of hostility, we can reach terrible conclusions about them that are in direct opposition to reality.  Yosef may very well have been wrong to bring negative reports about his brothers of Yaakov; they may have been justified in resenting his tale bearing.  But they went even further than that – attributing to him fiendish, selfish motives.  We need not always agree with what other people do, say or believe, but the story of Yosef and his brothers should remind us to prevent our disagreements with – and even criticisms of – other people to evolve into exaggerated conclusions about their motives and general characters.

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            In the middle of Parashat Vayeshev we read the story of Yehuda's daughter-in-law, Tamar.  After Tamar's first husband died, Yehuda had her marry his second son (in accordance with the law of yibum), who suffers the same fate as his older brother.  Yehuda then refused to allow his third son to marry Tamar, who – in an effort to have a child – posed as a prostitute as Yehuda passed by on the road.  Yehuda learned that his daughter-in-law was pregnant, and, not realizing that he was the father, condemned her to execution.  Just before her execution, Tamar sent to Yehuda the items she had taken from him as collateral for payment, as a subtle indication that he was the father.  Yehuda then reversed his ruling, realizing that she had slept with him, and not another man.  (It appears that before Matan Torah, the law of yibum allowed for the widow's marriage to any member of the deceased's family, including his father, and thus Tamar's relations with Yehuda were sanctioned.  We will not elaborate on this issue here.)

            The Gemara (Bava Metzia 59a) famously observes that Tamar was prepared to allow herself be killed rather than come forward and explicitly identify the child's father.  From here the Gemara establishes that "a person should preferably cast himself into a furnace of fire rather than humiliate his fellow in public."  Tamar's preparedness to suffer death by fire rather than subject Yehuda to public humiliation demonstrates that one must be ready to die for the purpose of avoiding humiliating another person.

            The Rishonim debate the issue of whether we are to take this remark literally as a halakhic obligation to allow oneself to die rather than humiliate his fellow.  Tosefot in Masekhet Sota (10b) wonder why the prohibition of malbin penei chaveiro be-rabim (publicly humiliating another) does not appear in the Talmud's famous list of three transgressions that override the concern for human life.  It is generally assumed that only idolatry, adultery and murder are subject to the rule of yeihareig ve-al ya'avor – that one must die to avoid their violation.  Why is malbin penei chaveiro not included in this list?  Tosefot suggest that the Gemara omits this prohibition from the list because there is no explicit, direct reference to malbin penei chaveiro in the Torah.  Since this prohibition does not appear explicitly in the Torah, the Gemara did not mention it in its list of prohibitions subject to the provision of yeihareig ve-al ya'avor.  Others explain based on the Gemara's comparison (in Bava Metzia 58b) between humiliation and murder; since murder is included in this list, that category includes humiliating others, as well.  In any event, Tosefot's comments clearly suggest that we are indeed to take the Gemara's remark at face value, and one must be prepared to give his life to avoid humiliating his fellow.  This is also the implication of Rabbenu Yona's discussion of this topic, in his Sha'arei Teshuva (3:139).  By contrast, the Meiri (Sota 10b) describes the Gemara's comment as a remark derekh he'ara – as an exaggerated comment to impress upon us the gravity of humiliating others.

            The Meiri's position was adopted as authoritative in the work Shevut Ya'akov, which addressed a case of a person who commissioned a gentile to publicly humiliate his fellow.  Is the dispatcher liable to pay the required fine for humiliating his fellow?  Although generally Halakha establishes that ein shaliach li'dvar aveira – a messenger to commit a sin bears full accountability for his actions, rather than the dispatcher – in cases where a person commissions a gentile, who is not bound by the Torah's laws, this principle does not apply.  The Shevut Yaakov therefore holds the Jewish dispatcher liable to pay the stipulated fine.  At first glance, however, as the Shevut Yaakov notes, one might argue that since we deal with the prohibition of malbin penei chaveiro, which, as mentioned, the Gemara likens to murder, we should perhaps rule differently in such a case.  When it comes to murder, we hold even a gentile messenger accountable for the crime, and thus exempt the dispatcher.  Perhaps, then, the dispatcher in this case would not be liable to a fine.  However, the Shevut Yaakov concludes that the Gemara's comparison between humiliation and death should not be taken as a literal halakhic axiom, but rather as a means by which the Gemara seeks to emphasize the severity of the prohibition of malbin penei chaveiro.  We therefore return to the standard rule governing cases where a gentile messenger is commissioned to commit a violation, whereby the Jewish dispatcher bears liability.

            Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, in Minchat Shelomo (7), elaborates in much greater detail on the precise halakhic status of malbin penei chaveiro.

(Taken from the work Ke-motzei Shalal Rav)

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            Yesterday, we mentioned the debate among the Rishonim surrounding the Talmud's comment in several places, "A person should preferably cast himself into a furnace of fire rather than humiliate his fellow in public."  The Gemara arrives at this conclusion from the incident recorded in Parashat Vayeshev, where Tamar, Yehuda's daughter-in-law who disguised as a prostitute and slept with him, refused to explicitly divulge information before her execution that would spare her life.  (She instead only subtly indicated to Yehuda that he was the father of her children, and he came forward and reversed the death sentence.)  That Tamar was prepared to subject herself to execution by fire demonstrates that one should allow himself to be burned rather than humiliate his fellow.  As we saw, Tosefot and Rabbenu Yona appear to accept the literal reading of this statement, and maintain that one must indeed sacrifice his life to avoid humiliating another.  The Meiri, by contrast, approaches this statement as a poetically exaggerated remark intended to impress upon us the gravity of subjecting another person to embarrassment.  Some writers have attributed this position to the Rambam, as well, who makes no mention in Mishneh Torah of an obligation to surrender one's life rather than humiliate his fellow.

            Rav Asher Zelig Weiss, in his Minchat Asher (Bereishit), discusses this issue at length and expresses his view that one can hardly entertain such a notion, of an actual requirement to sacrifice one's life to avoid humiliating his fellow.  In one of the contexts where the Gemara records this statement, in Masekhet Bava Metzia (58b), the Gemara also remarks, "It is preferable for a person to have relations with a possibly married woman rather than humiliate his fellow in public."  Clearly, Halakha would not actually require a person to engage in relations with a woman whose married status is in question to avoid humiliating another person.  It thus appears that the Gemara here seeks to underscore the importance of ensuring not to humiliate a fellow Jew, and to that end it expresses in very dramatic fashion the idea that one must go to great lengths to avoid putting others to shame.  These remarks were not intended as dogmatic, halakhic guidelines requiring one to allow himself to die or to violate a possible sexual offense to avoid this prohibition.

            Furthermore, Rav Weiss points out that if, indeed, we equate humiliation with murder and thus demand surrendering one's life to avoid this violation (as we do regarding murder), then we should mandate killing a person who prepares to humiliate his fellow.  Just as the famous law of rodef allows (or perhaps requires) killing a person attempting to murder another person, so would we sanction killing one who goes to put somebody else to shame.  Rav Weiss writes regarding such a conclusion, "Whoever says such a thing would be considered a fool."  Nowhere do we ever find such a provision, and we must therefore conclude that the comparison drawn in the Gemara between humiliation and murder was not meant as an actual halakhic ruling.

            Rav Weiss records an incident told of the Maharil Diskin, who was asked whether one must, indeed, surrender his life to avoid humiliating his fellow, and replied with absolute certainty in the negative.  He argued that the underlying logic behind the obligation to surrender one's life to avoid murder – that his blood is not any "redder" (meaning, more valuable) than his fellow's – does not apply in the case of humiliating another person.  The victim of humiliation will at least continue to live; it is illogical, therefore, to demand that a person die rather than humiliate his fellow.  The story goes that the questioner then showed the Maharil Diskin the comments of Tosefot in Masekhet Sota (10b), which, as we mentioned yesterday, strongly imply that they accepted the literal reading of the Gemara's remark.  The Maharil – though flabbergasted over having forgotten a Tosefot – nevertheless stood by his ruling and insisted that Halakha does not demand the sacrifice of life to avoid the prohibition of subjecting another person to shame.

            Rav Weiss goes so far as to reread the comments of Tosefot and Rabbenu Yona, such that even they would not actually require allowing oneself to die to avoid humiliating another.  He acknowledges, however, that the Rashbatz, in his Magen Avot commentary to Avot (3:11), explicitly applies the rule of yeihareg ve-al ya'avor (that one must die rather than violate the transgression) to the prohibition against publicly humiliating one's fellow.

            In any event, he concludes, even if Tosefot, Rabbenu Yona and the Rashbatz are of the opinion that this prohibition overrides the concern for human life, this halakha appears nowhere in the Rambam or the Shulchan Arukh, and thus seems not to have been accepted as authoritative.  He therefore strongly objects to the ruling of the Binyan Tziyon (1:172) that as a practical matter one must be prepared to die rather than subject another person to embarrassment.

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            Parashat Vayeshev tells of Yosef's mistreatment at the hands of his brothers, who initially plan to kill him and ultimately decide to sell him into slavery.  (Whether or not they actually sold him depends on the different interpretations of the story discussed earlier this week.)  This episode begins when Yosef's brothers leave their home in Chevron and travel "to shepherd their father's sheep in Shekhem" (37:12).  Yaakov then sends Yosef to check on his brothers, and it is when he approaches them that they plan to kill him (37:18).

            Rashi, commenting on the phrase, "to shepherd," observes that two dots traditionally appear in the Torah scroll on top of the word et in this verse.  He cites the Midrash's explanation (in Bereishit Rabba 84:13) that these dots allude to the brothers' ulterior motive in traveling to Shekhem – "li-r'ot et atzman," literally, "to shepherd themselves."  The Torah here alludes to the fact that shepherding their father's sheep was only a pretense; in truth, they journeyed to Shekhem for the purpose of shepherding not the sheep, but rather themselves.

            Later writers offer numerous different interpretations as to what the Midrash means when it speaks of the brothers "shepherding themselves."  The most likely interpretation, as Rav Menachem Kasher discusses in Torah Sheleima (chapter 37, note 93*), associates the Midrash's remark with parallel Midrashic passages that describe the brothers as going to Shekhem to "eat and drink."  Meaning, they went to Shekhem not to "shepherd" – to feed – the animals, but primarily to feed themselves, to indulge in food and drink.  Avot De-Rabbi Natan, for example, explains, "They went not to shepherd the sheep, but to eat, drink and be led astray.  (The Vilna Gaon, as Rav Kasher cites, erases the final word in this sentence, u-le-hitpatot – "and to be led astray.")  The Midrash Lekach Tov comments more specifically that the brothers went to eat their father's sheep.

            Nevertheless, other commentators suggest different explanations.  The Rosh, in Hadar Zekeinim, and the Riva, explains the Midrash to mean that although the brothers went to Shekhem with the intention of shepherding their father's sheep, ultimately this trip resulted in their "feeding themselves."  As a result of this journey to Shekhem, Yosef was sold to Egypt and rose to a position which enabled him to sustain his family during the years of famine.  According to this interpretation, the Midrash seeks to convey the message that very often the decisions we make and things we do yield long-term ramifications far beyond anything we could have imagined at the time.

            Rav Eliyahu Mizrachi, in his work on Rashi's commentary, suggests that the Midrash understood the word li-r'ot ("to shepherd") as a reference to making policy decisions.  He explains that the brothers went to Shekhem under the pretense of shepherding the flocks, but in truth assembled there to make a decision as to how they should handle Yosef given what they perceived to be his dangerous ambitions for family leadership.

            A particularly fascinating explanation of this Midrash, which also sheds light on this narrative in general, is cited in the name of Rav Yaakov Kaminetzky (in the newer editions of Emet Le-Ya'akov).  The second verse of Parashat Vayeshev describes Yosef as "ro'eh et echav ba-tzon," which is generally understood to mean, "shepherding the sheep with his brothers."  Seforno, however, interprets this phrase to mean that the brothers shepherded under Yosef's charge.  Apparently, Rav Yaakov speculates, Yaakov had assigned Yosef as "chief shepherd," or as a sort of supervisor over the brothers' work with the sheep.  (Incidentally, Seforno proceeds to explain in this vein the end of the verse, which tells that Yosef brought negative reports about his brothers to Yaakov.  This would mean that as supervising shepherd, it was Yosef's duty to report to his father any incidents of laxity or carelessness on his brothers' part.)  This position of authority naturally fueled – or perhaps ignited to begin with – the brothers' resentment towards Yosef and the fears they had of his future plans and ambitions of leadership.  They therefore went to Shekhem to shepherd the sheep – and to "shepherd" themselves.  According to Rav Yaakov, this means that they left Chevron to be able to do their work independently, without Yosef's supervision and authority.  The Midrash thus refers to the brothers' assertion of independence, as they attempted to shake themselves free of Yosef's watchful eye and authority.

            On this basis Rav Yaakov explains why Yaakov sent Yosef to Shekhem to check on his brothers.  Yosef was responsible to oversee his brothers' work, and therefore when they took their flocks north to Shekhem, it was his duty to follow them and supervise.  When the brothers saw Yosef approaching, they immediately understood that he had come to continue his work of supervision, and they thus realized that there was no possibility of asserting their independence from his authority.  This realization led them to the fateful conclusion that they had no alternative but to eliminate him.