Commentaire de citation sur La Genèse 45:22

ולאיצטליתו. Meaning: His clothing, for the Targum Onkeles of (Bereishis 45:22):חמש חליפות (and five changes of clothing) is חמש איצטלוון.

ואני נתתי לך, “I have given (allocated) to you;” Rabbi Moshe raises the point that Yaakov was directly responsible for fuelling jealousy between the brothers, commencing already with giving his son Joseph a garment that was visibly more expensive than those worn by his brothers. On account of this error in judgment, the whole family descended to Egypt, only to become enslaved for hundreds of years after initially having been welcomed there. (Compare Talmud, tractate Shabbat folio 10) We must also marvel that Joseph followed in his father’s footsteps by giving his full brother Binyamin far more valuable gifts than he gave to his other brothers (Genesis 45,22). In order to answer these questions we must remember that what Yaakov gave to Joseph was done while he was relatively young and immature, younger than 17 years old, an age at which Ishmael in Genesis 21,14 has still been described by the Torah as a ילד, “a child;” at that time the brothers who were jealous of him had reason to be so. What had he done to deserve preferential treatment by his father? Now that his dreams had come true, not only did they not feel jealous of him, but they were grateful and proud of his achievements. Moreover, they had become economically dependent upon him. Even if he had not treated them well, they were legally obligated to honour him on account of his position. If he gave Binyamin more gifts, that was easily explained by the fact that he was his only full brother. However, what bothers me is that at a time when he had not yet revealed to the brothers who he was, (Genesis 43,34) the brothers of Binyamin must have asked themselves for the reason that this ruler of Egypt who had –according to their assumption- never previously laid eyes on Binyamin, should have given him five times as much as he gave to them. Surely, this would have aroused the other brothers’ jealousy of Binyamin. However, the brothers found a reason for this also, as they considered it as Joseph compensating Binyamin for having insisted that he make the journey to Egypt just because he had not trusted the brothers’ statement that he even existed. Furthermore, I believe that Joseph, already at that point, had decided to reveal his true identity. He was certain that as soon as they would find out that he, Joseph, was a full brother of Binyamin, they would not begrudge him the additional gifts. Some commentators explain the words: שכם אחד, in our verse, the extra portion of ancestral parts of the land of Israel, allocated by Yaakov to Joseph, as referring to the grave in that city in which the remains of Joseph would be interred after the Israelites taking over that country. (Compare Joshua 24,32) The matter can be compared to a parable of thieves who had robbed the owner of a vineyard of a full casket of wine when they were found out by the owner. That owner asked the thieves to do him one favour; seeing that they had already emptied the casket of its contents he asked them to at least return the empty casket to him. Joseph had been sold in Sh’chem. The time had come to at least bring his remains back there. (Compare B’reshit Rabbah, 85,3).

“To Benjamin he gave three hundred pieces of silver” [45:22]. He gave silver to Benjamin because he was not at the sale of Joseph. He did not give money to the other brothers. It was a penalty, since whoever sells a person as a slave; he must give thirty weights of silver. Therefore, Joseph penalized each brother thirty weights of silver and there were ten brothers who sold Joseph. Ten times thirty is three hundred. Therefore Joseph gave Benjamin three hundred weights of silver. So write Bahya and Hizkuni.³⁶Bahya, Genesis, 45:22; Hizkuni, Genesis, 45:22.