[Avodah] Did Yosef Forgive His Brothers?

[Micha Berger]

On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 04:08:41PM +1100, Rabbi Meir wrote:
: R Micha says from R' Bachya that Yoseif did forgive his brothers. He did not
: however articulate that mechilah; and suggests that the problem wasn't
: obtaining Yoseif's mechilah, but HQBH. 

: My understanding of the R Bachya 50:17 seems not so. I offer my loose
: translation: "Whoever has hurt another, is not forgiven until the victim is
: appeased, even though he has repented...."

We disagree over the translation of ratzon. They gained Yoseif's ratzon,
which I took to mean that the relationship was healed.

He did not, however, grant them mechilah. I was thinking of that in
terms of his letting them know they were off the hook. I now realize
that's more based on the Yinglish "granting someone mechilah" than
any historically authentic turn of phrase.

Ratzon takes the offended person as an object.
Mechilah is something the offended person does to the one who offended
him.

Which was the kind of thing I pictured. But again, I realize after
reviewing the words inside that I didn't think it through before forming
that picture.

The bottom line is that until we know what R' Bachya meant by ratzon vs
mechilah, we really can't know that he meant by this.

Tir'u baTov!
-Micha

-- 
Micha Berger             Take time,
micha at aishdas.org        be exact,
http://www.aishdas.org   unclutter the mind.
Fax: (270) 514-1507            - Rabbi Simcha Zissel Ziv, Alter of Kelm