Chasidut su Genesi 43:41

Genesis 42,18. “on the third day Joseph said to them: ‎‎‘do this and live, seeing that I am G’d fearing. If you are ‎truthful, one of your brothers will be kept captive, etc.” ‎The position of the words: ‎את האלוקים אני ירא‎ in this verse is ‎puzzling. We would have expected it at the beginning of the ‎verse. Furthermore, the words: ‎ויעשו כן‎, “the brothers did so,” ‎is strange, as it gives the impression that the brothers ‎immediately brought Binyamin to Egypt, something that is ‎impossible. The brothers not only first had to return to their ‎father’s house in Canaan, but, as the Torah testified they ‎procrastinated until they ran short of food before their father ‎agreed to let Binyamin travel with them. (Genesis 43,13) Perhaps ‎the lesson Joseph wanted to teach the brothers was that if one ‎determines to do G’d’s will, this will be accounted as if one had ‎already done so, when the circumstances make immediate ‎execution of the task at hand impossible. Joseph told the brothers ‎that their lives would be secure once they had made up their ‎minds to carry out his demand. The Torah confirms this by ‎describing the brothers as if they had immediately brought ‎Binyamin to Egypt. Joseph was at pains to demonstrate to the ‎brothers that his insistence that Binyamin come to Egypt was not ‎based on distrust or ill will toward them. When they found ‎themselves in jail they realized this and did not blame Joseph for ‎this but themselves, when they said: “but we are guilty, ‎etc.”(Gen. 42,21). They accepted his statement that he was a G’d ‎fearing individual, whereas they had brought their troubles upon ‎themselves. ‎

In the Jewish tradition, the number seven is associated with music. According to the Pirkei de-Rabbi Eliezer, there are seven major bodies of water, and the seventh is the Kinneres (Sea of Galilee), which lies east of Tiberias, Israel. The word Kinneres comes from the word kinor, “harp,” for it is a lake shaped like a harp that leads all the other lakes in song to God.⁴⁶⁹“All the bodies of water sing to God. This is the meaning of the phrase in our prayers: illu finu malei shirah ka-yam u-lishoneinu rinnah ka-hamon gallav, ‘Were our mouths filled with song like the ocean, and our tongues with praise like the multitudes of waves.’ Apparently, the ocean and its waves are viewed by Jewish thought as a great song to God, and we are saying that we too should sing like them. The Kinneres Lake is the cantor leading all the waves and oceans in their musical chant” (Tzion Ve-Arehah pg. 90). The Midrash states further that there are seven major land- masses: the six continents and the Land of Israel. The Land of Israel is the land of song. When Jacob told his sons to take some of the produce of the land, he said, Kechu mi-zimras ha-aretz, which can be translated, “Take some of the song of the land” (Gen. 43:11).⁴⁷⁰When Messiah will arrive, we will hear the songs that the stones and pebbles of Israel are singing. Then we will merit the fulfillment of the verse, Mi-kenaf ha-aretz zemiros shamanu, “From the edges of the land we heard songs” (Tzion Ve-Arehah pg. 50, quoting Isa. 24:16).