<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial" size="3"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; "><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-weight: normal; "><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">One thing has always bothered me. Joseph tells his brothers that it was God's will that things </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; ">happened that way and therefore they were only instruments in what happened which was all </span></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">for the good. He's telling them not to be distressed and not to reproach themselves, etc. almost </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">as if he's praising them for the dastardly act. Abravanel asks a very similar question:</font></div></span></b></span></font></div><div><strong><font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">"How come Joseph says: 'So it was not you who sent me here but God'? Surely they deliberately </span></font></font></strong></div><div><strong><font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">and knowingly sold him to harm him. The fact that by a fluke the sale turned out well, did not mitigate </span></font></font></strong></div><div><strong><font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">their offense. A person is not judged by the accidental results of his deeds but by his intent. The </span></font></font></strong></div><div><strong><font><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">accidental results are irrelevant to the moral dimension." Another way of putting it is that the ends do not </span></font></font></strong></div><div><strong><font><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal; "><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">justify the means. This question that Abravanel asks is probably one many have asked but sort of glossed over. </font></span></font></strong></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">The bottom line is that Joseph has forgiven his brothers (which he has the right to do) and in doing so, he is </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">extremely gracious and tells them not to feel badly as everything worked out so well. The other thing that Joseph </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">realizes is the mental anguish the brothers went through as a result of what they had done. Though they brought </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">it on themselves, nevertheless, it accounts for some atonement in Joseph's eyes, and he applies it toward forgiving </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">them for their crime. I would think there also may be an element of Joseph realizing that his immature behavior as a </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">teenager anatagonized his brothers so that he may have felt a small amount of culpability. This, of course, does not </font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">excuse what the brothers did, but it may have affected his dealing with them so graciously many years later.</font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial"><br></font></div><div><font class="Apple-style-span" face="Arial">ri</font></div></body></html>