[Avodah] Vayigash "Intent Determines the Actual Moral Dimension"

[Cantor Wolberg]

One thing has always bothered me.  Joseph tells his brothers that it  
was God's will that things
happened that way and therefore they were only instruments in what  
happened which was all
for the good. He's telling them not to be distressed and not to  
reproach themselves, etc. almost
as if he's praising them for the dastardly act.  Abravanel asks a very  
similar question:
"How come Joseph says: 'So it was not you who sent me here but God'?   
Surely they deliberately
and knowingly sold him to harm him.  The fact that by a fluke the sale  
turned out well, did not mitigate
their offense.  A person is not judged by the accidental results of  
his deeds but by his intent.  The
accidental results are irrelevant to the moral dimension." Another way  
of putting it is that the ends do not
justify the means.  This question that Abravanel asks is probably one  
many have asked but sort of glossed over.

The bottom line is that Joseph has forgiven his brothers (which he has  
the right to do) and in doing so, he is
extremely gracious and tells them not to feel badly as everything  
worked out so well.  The other thing that Joseph
realizes is the mental anguish the brothers went through as a result  
of what they had done.  Though they brought
it on themselves, nevertheless, it accounts for some atonement in  
Joseph's eyes, and he applies it toward forgiving
them for their crime. I would think there also may be an element of  
Joseph realizing that his immature behavior as a
teenager anatagonized his brothers so that he may have felt a small  
amount of culpability.  This, of course, does not
excuse what the brothers did, but it may have affected his dealing  
with them so graciously many years later.

ri
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