[Avodah] Fables and Lies

[saul mashbaum]

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I was taught (somewhere in my childhood) that Yoseif relented because
he saw the brothers had done teshuvah. After all, here was Binyamin,
another son of Rachel, who had just gotten better treatment than them --
a gift 5 times their size from the viceroy in Egypt. But unlike last time,
rather than their jealousy taking over, Yehudah places Binyamin ahead
of his own welfare. And the language used, "aval asheimim anachnu",
is the template for a key element of vidui.
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Rav Amnon Bazak, in Nekudat Pticha, short essays on all the parshiot of the Torah, also sees t'shuva as a central theme in the story of Yosef and his brothers. Going futher than the above, he sees Yosef as not only responding to tshuva, but actively taking measures to engender it. Yosef originally proposes that all but one of the brothers be imprisoned, and one return to Canaan to bring Binyamin.  After three days, he without explanation changes the plan, and keeps one in prison, sending all the others back to Canaan. The latter plan means that the returning brothers would essentially recreate the scenario of many years before, returning to their father with one of the brothers missing. It is precisely at this point, that the brothers, still in Egypt, but realizing what awaits them when they return to Yaakov, say "Aval asheimim anachnu al achinu, asher rainu et tzarat nafsho, b'hitcan'no aleinu v'lo shamanu, al ken baa aleinu hatzara hazot."
Saul Mashbaum
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