ונחיה ולא נמות. "so that we shall live and not die." The reason that Jacob repeated "so that we shall not die," was that negligence would be a capital sin for which an accounting would have to be given even in the Hereafter. On the other hand, if they made appropriate efforts to secure a supply of food, their lives in this world as well as in the Hereafter would be assured.

The verse might also be read thus: ונחיה, "so that we may live comfortably," ולא נמות "or at least not die." It would all depend on the amount they were able to buy in Egypt.

אחי יוסף, Joseph's brothers. The reason they are described as Joseph's brothers instead of as Jacob's sons is that at that time they were determined to perform the brotherly act of redeeming him out of slavery.

עשרה, ten. During famine, more than during any other time, people are extremely miserly and malevolent; they are apt to commit robbery and even murder to secure a piece of bread. This is why all the brothers went down to Egypt. If attacked, they could help one another. They also wanted to take Benjamin with them, but their father demurred. This is why the Torah makes a point of saying: "he did not send Benjamin." Had it not been for Jacob's concern that an accident would befall Benjamin he would have sent him along.

Besides, it appears that Joseph was selling a fixed amount of grain to each purchaser. He had two objectives in mind, an obvious one and a secret one. The obvious objective was to prevent speculating in grain if someone were to purchase an amount larger than for his own needs. Joseph's method was of benefit both to him and to the purchasers. By refusing to sell large quantities at one time, Joseph could take advantage of any rise in price when it occurred. The customers benefited by what he did since Joseph did not raise prices unreasonably. Joseph's secret objective was to force each of the brothers to make a trip to Egypt to provision himself as he only sold rations for one family at a time.

ויבאו בני ישראל…כי היה רעב, The children of Israel arrived…for there was a famine in the land of Canaan. The fact that there was a famine had to be repeated. This is to explain why the Torah first wrote בתוך הבאים. You should not ask where these הבאים have been mentioned previously so that the Torah could describe the brothers as "being amongst them." Once we are told that there was a famine in Canaan it becomes obvious that many other people from Canaan must have been going to Egypt to buy grain there.

The Torah also wanted to indicate that the brothers devised a clever scheme to disguise themselves "among the other travellers." They created the impression that they were in Egypt for the same purpose as all the other travellers from Canaan, whereas in reality they were searching for Joseph. In other words: the brothers' disguise was to appear as shoppers for grain. This ought to have been an easy way to camouflage their real purpose because of the famine in the land of Canaan.

הוא השליט על הארץ הוא המשביר לכל עם הארץ, he was the ruler of the land; he was the one who sold to all the people of the land. Even though Joseph was the ruler, and it is not usual for the ruler to personally conduct the grain sales, especially when this involved so much effort, he did so himself in order to encounter his brothers eventually.

וירא יוסף את אחיו, Joseph saw his brothers, etc. When he saw them he felt as their brother and displayed friendliness towards them. It was only from the brothers' side that he appeared as a stranger. The Torah emphasises that he acted like this because the brothers did not recognise him. Joseph could speak to them sternly without the brothers taking offence as brothers. After all, he was a stranger to them. Joseph's whole purpose was to devise a scheme whereby also Benjamin would come to Egypt. He also wanted to test them to see how they felt now about what had transpired between them many years ago. He then became aware that they were sorry for what they had done to him and considered themselves as having committed a sin against him.

ויכר יוסף את אחיו. Joseph recognised his brothers. Joseph had no trouble recognising his brothers since they all wore beards when he left them. Although it is normal for acquaintances who have not seen each other for a long time to recognise one another, i.e. that as soon as one person recognises the second person, he in turn suddenly is able to recognise the first person also, this was not the case here. Normally the heart communicates secrets as we know from Proverbs 27,19 "man's heart will be reflected by his counterpart;" the Torah reveals that in this instance this phenomenon did not work. The reason was that Joseph's exalted position stifled any glimmer of recognition there might have been on the part of the brothers.

ויזכור יוסף את החלומות, Joseph remembered the dreams, etc. Inasmuch as he had really dreamt what he claimed to have dreamt and they had accused him of telling lies because he wanted to become superior to them, he now intended to let them atone for their sin by in turn accusing them of something they had not been guilty of. He accused them of coming to spy.

ויאמרו אליו לא אדוני, They said to him: "No sir, etc." They said; 1) There is no reason to suspect us of spying even if we had come without a specific purpose. [I believe the author derives this from the tone-sign tipcha under the word באו; we would have expected the tone-sign mercha Ed.] 2) "In fact your servants have come to purchase food." They presented the purpose of their presence to buy food as the most natural explanantion for their journey to Egypt.

כלנו בני איש אחד, "we are all the sons of one man." There is no reason to suspect us of being spies. Spies are always from different branches of a community. Moses sent out spies from all the twelve tribes; even the two spies Joshua despatched were not sons of the same man. It is in the nature of things that spies should be representative of the people on whose behalf they spy. It would not make sense to appoint ten members of the same family as spies. They added: כנים אנחנו, "we are honest men," meaning that after we have identified ourselves it should be obvious that we are honest. Spies would never identify themselves voluntarily.

לא היו עבריך מרגלים, "your servants have never been spies." They chose the past tense to indicate that they had not even been spies before they had been identified. Naturally, now, that they were known, they could not be spies even if they wanted to.

ויאמר אליהם לא. He said to them: "NO!" "Your words are not convincing since your actions contradict what you have said. You have demonstrated by your actions that you were searching for weak points in the land. I know this because you have each entered the country by a different border point (compare Bereshit Rabbah 91,6). The only reason for this is that you wanted to spy.

ויאמרו שנים עשר עבדיך אחים, They said: "Your servants are twelve brothers, etc." They explained that they had split up in order to locate the missing brother. They added that the youngest brother remained at home with his father. They volunteered this information as it was something that could be proved and would help establish their credibility.

הוא אשר דברתי, "This is precisely what I have said (you came to spy)." Joseph meant: "I do not retract a single word from what I have said before." The word לאמור here means "I continue to say what I have said all along."

It is also possible that Joseph meant: "When I accused you of spying this is exactly what I had in mind. You came to look for something you had lost. You yourselves have only confirmed it. The Midrash there describes the discussion about what the brothers were going to do if they located their brother and the owner would refuse to release him The word לאמור is an allusion to what the brothers had said they would do in such an event.

בזאת תבחנו, "You will be tested as follows:" Joseph expressed readiness to put their words to the test by the yardstick they themselves had provided, although this was not sufficient proof for their claim that they had come to Egypt to obtain the release of their brother.

Alternatively, Joseph meant that if their younger brother would confirm that all his brothers had come to Egypt to locate and free their lost brother, he, Joseph, would believe all they had said.

שלחו מכם אחד, "Despatch one of you, etc." They did not do this as they were concerned that their father would worry needlessly about the fate of all the remaining brothers.

Furthermore, they were convinced that if only one brother would arrive back in the land of Canaan their father would never allow Benjamin to travel. We only need to look at the strenuous efforts Yehudah had to make to obtain permission for Benjamin to travel even though all the brothers except Shimon had returned home. If all the brothers were in jail in Egypt there would be no chance at all of Jacob allowing the last of the brothers to risk his life also.

It may also be that the brothers did not even consider being separated. The only reason that they eventually agreed to leave Shimon behind was that Joseph had made this a test of how they could establish their credibility. I shall explain this in greater detail in my commentary on verse 19.

אם כנים אתם, "If you are really honest, etc." This verse may be understood with the help of our sages in Yerushalmi Terumot chapter 8. We read there as follows: "If a group of people travel together and they encounter Gentiles who demand that one of them be handed over to be killed, the alternative being that they would all be killed, it is forbidden to hand over anyone belonging to the group. The whole group must face death rather than make the decision whom to hand over. If, however, the person to be handed over had been named by the killers, the others may save their lives by handing over that person." When Joseph said: "if you are honest, etc.," he meant that the brothers knew full well if they were telling the truth; אחיכם אחד, your one brother will be imprisoned. There was no death threat to the brothers, hence they were allowed to choose whom to hand over for incarceration. Joseph implied that if, on the other hand, they were dishonest, i.e. spies, (which made all of them guilty of the death penalty) then, of course, they would not be allowed to hand over one of their number who had not been specified. Handing over their brother would then be tantamount to killing him. This would also be illegal as they would all have to be prepared to die. The brothers were agreeable, thus indicating that they had spoken truthfully all along. We may presume that the brothers themselves elected that Shimon be imprisoned; Joseph did not single him out.

It is also possible that the brothers had agreed between themselves to leave one of their number behind as a guarantee but before they could agree on who it should be Joseph decided to keep Shimon as he considered Shimon and Levi together as very dangerous.

ויאמנו דבריכם. "And your words will be verified." This means that if the brothers did not agree it would prove their guilt and that that was the reason they did not dare leave one brother behind. Moreover, it would be forbidden to hand over an unnamed individual if there was a likelihood he was guilty of the death penalty. Another possible meaning of these words is simply that by bringing Benjamin down to Egypt Joseph would make sure their families would not die of starvation. The brothers referred to this when they told their father in verse 34 that Joseph had offered ואת הארץ תסחרו, "you may travel freely in the land."

ויאמרו….אבל אשמים אנחנו, They said:…"but we are guilty (of something else)." The word אבל, "but" does not appear to have any meaning here. Onkelos translates it as "truthfully;" I do not agree with this translation either. There was no need for the brothers to say: "truthfully," as if they had so far not spoken truthfully. Besides, why did the brothers have to add: "when we saw his anguish, etc,? All they had to say was that they were guilty of having sold their brother into slavery. This was the essence of their guilt.

Perhaps they still considered that Joseph had been guilty of the death penalty and if they had only sold him they had actually performed an act of kindness. As to the grief they had caused their father at the time, they were certain that at the present time G'd would not heap further grief upon their father as a result of their having sold Joseph at that time. The only thing they did feel guilty of was not displaying a sense of compassion when they saw Joseph's anguish when he pleaded for his life and they proved cruel. It is not becoming for people who consider themselves as righteous to conduct themselves in such a heartless manner.

It is also possible that when the brothers saw that they were all being jailed, they began to think which one of them was the cause of the disaster that had befallen them. The common denominator up to that point had been the fact that they had sold Joseph. Since Reuben had been innocent of that crime, not having been present when both the suggestion and the implementation of selling Joseph had been made, they had to search for something that both they and Reuben were guilty of. They concluded therefore that it must have been their heartlessness. Reuben too had not responded to Joseph's pleas as he had suggested that the brothers throw him in the pit instead of killing him outright. No doubt Joseph had pleaded with all the brothers not to do that to him. In fact, slow death in the pit was a more frightening prospect to Joseph than a relatively swift death. The words על כן באה אלינו are an acknowledgement that they all, Reuben included, were guilty of a lack of compassion. Presumably, the brothers must have said these things as soon as they were being led to prison, whereas the Torah reports them as if they had been said after they had all been in prison for three days. Why does the Torah make it appear as if the brothers had only come to this realisation after three days in prison? Presumably, the Torah did not want to diminish the impact Joseph's words and deeds are to make upon the reader. Any diversion would detract us from the clever way Joseph set about creating the scenario he had planned.

Besides, if we were to assume that the brothers acknowledged their guilt only after they had themselves agreed that Shimon would remain in prison as the hostage, why did it take them so long to acknowledge that Shimon had been more guilty than they?

Perhaps up to the time when Joseph had said that one of their number had to remain in prison as hostage, they had not related their present experience to the sale of Joseph at all. They had thought that inasmuch as man is a free agent that whatever had happened to them was in retribution for freely committed wrongs. They had not considered what they had done to Joseph as a wrong at all. When Joseph pointedly said: "one of your brothers has to stay here," they suddenly realised that their situation was connected to what they had done to another one of their brothers. The words ויעשו כן then mean that they singled out Shimon. They suddenly realised that the painful experience they now underwent of leaving one of their brothers with a stranger was tit for tat for having abandoned Joseph to a fate with strangers at the time of the sale. I have frequently alluded to the fact that guilt somehow creates situations in which the retribution experienced reminds one of the nature of one's sin. David has mentioned this in Psalms 62,13: כי אתה תשלם לאיש כמעשהו, "for You repay each man according to his deeds." The brothers saying אבל may therefore be understood thus: "If our present experience had been even slightly different we would not have realised why we are now being punished; but the very fact that our punishment corresponds to the nature of our sin convinces us of our guilt. Now we are absolutely certain that we are guilty of lack of compassion."

The very fact that it was Shimon who was being detained convinced them; after all, according to Tanchuma Parshat Vayechi, it had been Shimon who had made the suggestion to kill Joseph; he and Levi were the subject of 37,19 "one said to his brother." Shimon the elder said to his brother Levi the younger. They had been a team already when they wiped out the men in the city of Shechem.

ויען ראובן אתם. Reuben answered them. How can the term "he answered" be justified in this context? Who had asked him anything? The repeated use of the word לאמור and the words וגם דמו also require justification.

Reuben reacted to the brothers having said that they were being punished for not having displayed compassion when Joseph pleaded with them, something in which they had included him also. Reuben retorted that he did not consider himself included in that sin as he had warned: "do not commit a sin against the boy!" Even though at that time he had only warned them not to lay a hand upon Joseph and to throw him into the pit, his intention had been as if he had said: "do not commit a sin." The Torah itself exonerated Reuben independently by revealing Reuben's intention to restore Joseph to his father.

You could ask what reason Reuben gave for the brothers to believe that this had been his intention, when on the contrary, selling Joseph at the time was more merciful than to let him die a slow death in the pit and therefore Reuben had no reason to complain?

The fact is that Reuben's principal complaint against the brothers was that he told them not to lay a hand upon Joseph. "Selling him into slavery was certainly laying a hand upon him!" Reuben's argument was certainly valid; moreover, by selling Joseph to other human beings the brothers had made his fate dependent on people with a free will who could act arbitrarily. Reuben's intention had been not to allow Joseph's fate to be in the hands of people who could make arbitrary decisions. Selling Joseph did not reduce the danger to Joseph's life or wellbeing any more than throwing him into the pit. We only need to read the Bereshit Rabbah 86,3 according to which Potiphar bought Joseph to commit acts of sodomy with him. G'd Himself made Potiphar impotent to protect Joseph against such abuse. When Reuben had advised throwing Joseph into the pit he felt that if Joseph was not guilty nothing would happen to him. He had been most concerned to remove Joseph from the hands of people who could arbitrarily decide his fate. That is why he accused them ולא שמעתם, "you did not listen." He meant: "you did not understand my intention.

When you think that you are being punished only for your cruelty and not for the deed itself, you are quite wrong. Also his blood is being demanded, i.e. you are also guilty of either killing him or putting his life in jeopardy." According to Reuben this was why they now had to face the charge of spying, a charge that was punishable by death. Reuben resented being considered a partner of that part of the brothers' crime. He was not willing to share their responsibility seeing he had not taken part in the sale. As of that moment Reuben only agreed to remain with them, but not to share their guilt. At the end of the examination it would become clear who was legally guilty and who was innocent. Our interpretation of the words אבל אשמים אנחנו as referring to the brothers waking up to their guilt only after Shimon alone was being held prisoner is completely compatible with everything else we have written.

והם לא ידעו…כי המליץ בינותם. They did not realise this….for the interpreter was between them. The brothers who had observed the interpreter all the time, assumed that Joseph did not understand Hebrew.

Alternatively, they could not speak freely being afraid that the interpreter would overhear them.

ויקה מאתם את שמעון, He took Shimon from them. The brothers had singled out Shimon, or Shimon had volunteered to be the hostage as I have explained on verse 19.

ולהשיב כספיהם, and to give back their money. The reason that this verse does not employ the syntax that is commensurate with the first half, i.e. וימלאו, or למלאות…ולהשיב, could be that the person who filled the sacks was unaware of the fact that someone else had returned the money. The person who put back the money was Joseph's most trusted servant. It is also possible that Joseph ordered that the filling of the brothers' sacks with grain was to be done publicly, whereas the return of their money was to be accomplished secretly after the sacks had already been filled with grain. The reason Joseph did not give both instructions simultaneously was so as not to arouse the envy of the person entrusted with filling the sacks with grain.

וישאו…וילכו, They loaded…and went on their way. The Torah mentions this to show that they did not linger after their sacks had been filled. Unless the Torah wanted to make this point, the whole verse is unnecessary. We would all have assumed that the brothers carried their supplies with them.

לאמור את שני בני תמית, saying: "you may kill my two sons, etc." The reason the Torah inserts the expression לאמור at this point is that Reuben was not willing to utter such a sentence outright, seeing that even a conditional curse by a wise man may have fatal consequences (Makkot 11). He phrased his offer in such a way that the meaning was unmistakable though he did not actually speak about killing his sons.

The reason he said ואת שני is that he referred to two of his four sons.

The word תמית is to be understood as "you may punish." We find a similar punishment being inflicetd upon Aaron, when G'd killed two of his four sons as an expression of His anger at Aaron's share in the sin of the golden calf. Compare ובאהרון התאנף Deut. 9,20. Vayikra Rabbah 7,1 makes this point. Reuben made it clear that he did not want to risk losing more than two of his sons if he failed to honour his guarantee of Benjamin's safe return. His reason was that if he risked more he would nullify the merit of having fulfilled the commandment to be fruitful. He therefore risked only something that would not impair his standing in the Hereafter. Yehudah understood Reuben very well; this is why he undertook to risk even his life in the Hereafter in order to secure Jacob's consent to take Benjamin to Egypt and to secure their lives in the present world first (compare 43,9).

תנה אותו על ידי, "Put him in my charge, etc." Perhaps Reuben's knowledge that he had no share in the guilt of selling Joseph gave him confidence that both he and Joseph would return unharmed. He alluded to the fact that only he was able to have such confidence seeing the other brothers bore the guilt of having sold Joseph, by twice emphasising "entrust him to my hands," and "I will return him,"

כי אחיו מת והוא לבדו נשאר, "for his brother is dead, and he alone remains, etc. Jacob felt the need to explain how he evaluated the certain loss of Shimon who was presently a hostage in an Egyptian jail- if Benjamin were not to go to Egypt, compared to the possible loss of Benjamin if the latter were to go to Egypt. Jacob explained that if he were to lose Benjamin he would not have a son of Rachel left at all. If he were to lose Shimon, however, he would at least have other sons of Leah left to him. Besides, Jacob described an accident which would happen to Benjamin as practically certain; this is why he spoke about וקרהו אסון in the past tense instead of יקראהו אסון, something in the future. He added the words בדרך אשר תלכו בו, "on the journey you will undertake." He hinted that what happened to Joseph happened to him although he travelled on a route which he was familiar with and had travelled many times without encountering anything dangerous. Jacob was afraid that something similar could happen to the brothers even on a route they considered safe.