Musar untuk Kejadian 15:13

Here is an instance that shows that the sequence in which the Torah reports events is not necessarily the chronological order in which things occurred. Remember that Abraham was seventy years old at the time of the covenant between the pieces in 15,18 (as we know on the authority of סדר עולם). Our sages also consider the count of the four hundred years that the Torah mentions in that covenant (15,13) as commencing with the birth of Isaac. When Exodus 12,40 mentions a period of 430 years that the Israelites "resided" in Egypt, our sages compute that period as having commenced at the ברית בין הבתרים "the covenant between the pieces," i.e. when G–d revealed Himself to Abraham in 15,1. [Rashi's commentary that this number includes the years spent elsewhere as strangers by Abraham and his descendants, may be based on the letter ו (and), before the word מושב in 12,40. Ed.]

Joseph accepted his father's mission with alacrity as we know from his immediate response: הנני, "I am ready!" Although Joseph had known intellectually that he faced deathly danger, he did not demur by saying to his father:"my brothers hate me, who knows what will happen when they merely see me." His father, who did not entertain such concerns, felt in a way that he complied with something decreed already since the time of Abraham. When the Torah describes Joseph as parting from his father in the valley of Hebron, (Genesis 37,14), the Talmud in Sotah 11 comments that the reason that detail is mentioned is to show us that this mission was the first step in the fulfillment of the prophecy which Abraham (who is buried in Hebron) had received that his descendants would be strangers and slaves in a land not theirs (15,13). Joseph obeyed his father's instructions despite the danger he knew himself to be in. Our sages have said in Yevamot 5 that when one is commanded by one's father to desecrate the Sabbath, one must not obey such an instruction, the reason being that both father and son are under G–d's orders to keep the Sabbath holy and thereby to honor G–d Himself. Such exceptions to the requirement to obey father or mother apply only when commandments between man and G–d are involved. When the father's command may jeopardize the son's life without, however, infringing on one of G–d's commandments, the son is not free to disobey his father.

But he also alludes hereby to an awesome phenomenon. And that is: If a man does not do evil to himself, who can do evil to him? For the truth is that everything that happens to a man in this world, both for the good or for the bad, is brought about by the man himself. As it relates to our subject, the descent to Egypt, its first cause was Abraham's saying [to the Holy One Blessed be He] (Genesis 15:8): "How do I know that I will inherit it?" and His responding (Ibid. 13): "You will surely know, for your seed will be a stranger in the land [Egypt], etc." And Chazal have said (Shabbath 89b): "Jacob should have gone down to Egypt in iron chains, but his merit availed him to be honored by being brought honorifically to his son who reigned in Egypt.