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<DIV> R' Saul Mashbaum writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>>>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."<<</FONT></BLOCKQUOTE>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>>>>>></DIV>
<DIV>This reminds me of something striking that I always think about this time
of year, when we read the whole Yosef story. That is, when Yosef is set upon by
his brothers, put in a pit, and then sold -- the Torah doesn't say a peep about
how Yosef reacted to all this at the time, whether he said anything, fought back
or what. He's just -- silent. The emotional tone of the
sale is flat. That's how the brothers feel, that's how the reader
feels.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Only years later, when the brothers say this, "We are guilty about our
brother, because we saw the /suffering of his soul/ when /he pleaded with
us/ but we didn't listen" -- do we get a glimpse of the emotions and drama of
the events that had occurred years earlier. Now we first hear about the
young boy crying and pleading with his older brothers, the terrible tza'ar he
felt. Only at the same moment that the brothers finally feel what they had
suppressed all those years -- sorrow and compassion and regret for their
brother's pain -- do we, the readers of the Chumash, first get a sense of
the fraught emotions of that event, the sale of Yosef. <FONT
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<DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV><FONT lang=0 face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2 FAMILY="SANSSERIF"
PTSIZE="10"><BR><B>--Toby
Katz<BR>=============</B></FONT></DIV></FONT><BR><BR><BR><DIV><FONT style="color: black; font: normal 10pt ARIAL, SAN-SERIF;"><HR style="MARGIN-TOP: 10px">See AOL's <A title="http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004" href="http://food.aol.com/top-rated-recipes?NCID=aoltop00030000000004" target="_blank">top rated recipes</A> and <A title="http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop00030000000003" href="http://body.aol.com/fitness/winter-exercise?NCID=aoltop00030000000003" target="_blank">easy ways to stay in shape</A> for winter.</FONT></DIV></BODY></HTML>