Комментарий к Берешит 44:17

It would be degrading for me. I do not wish to be the instrument of chastisement for your earlier crimes because Hashem uses the wicked for that purpose; see I Shemuel 24:14.

חלילה לי מעשות זאת, "It would be a disgrace if I were to do such a thing." Joseph meant that even if it were true that G'd was using this opportunity to punish the brothers for some other sin, he was neither authorised nor competent to administer such retribution. He was only authorised to deal with guilt which was obvious to him. He was entitled to judge the person in whose possession the goblet had been found. The brothers were free to go home, however. Joseph thought that by allowing them all to go and by keeping only Benjamin as a slave he had appeased Yehudah. He felt certain that Yehudah had accepted the verdict. How was he to know that Yehudah would immediately begin to lambast him as is evident in the following verses. According to our view Yehudah reasoned with Joseph as long as he felt that they were all being punished for something they had done in the past. When he realised that innocent Benjamin was being singled out for punishment whereas they, the guilty ones, were allowed to go free, he realised that he did not confront divine judgment in the person of Joseph, but that Joseph was a capricious ruler who had framed Benjamin for reasons of his own. There was therefore no cause for the brothers to submit to what they had previously considered as divine retribution.

אל אביכם. Who is waiting for you to bring back food.

הוא יהיה לי עבד, “he shall be my slave.” The word eved should have been vocalized with a segol, both under the letter ayin and under the letter beyt. The reason why the letter ayin is vocalised with the vowel kametz, normally reserved for when the word appears at the end of a phrase or sentence, is that Joseph hinted by means of this that Binyamin’s status as Joseph’s personal slave would be far superior to that of regular slaves. He would be treated as if he were royalty.

ואתם עלו לשלום אל אביכם, “and you return and make your peace with your father (in heaven).” Menashe could simply have said: ”go on your way in peace.” Seeing that the Torah focuses on the ten brothers and the grievous wrong they had done to their brother Joseph, it is not surprising that the Torah also uses this opportunity to hint at the historical consequences of the brothers’ behavior at the time. Our sages in Pesachim 50 go so far as to say that the acceptance of G’d’s decree by the ten martyrs who died a cruel death at the hands of the Romans for a crime committed over fifteen hundred years earlier put these people into a class by themselves, one that could not be matched in piety/faith by anyone else previously. We can apply to them the verse in Isaiah 64,3: “Such things have never been heard or seen. No eye has seen them O G’d, but You, who acts for those who trust in Him.”