Reply To: Short & Sweet

Mikeitz: Blind Spies

When Yosef meets his brothers, he hits them with what seems to be a bizarre accusation. “You are spies! You have come to see the weakness of the land!” Why did Yosef pick this crime to accuse his brother of?

R’ Mattis Weinberg explains that in truth, Yosef had already revealed enough information for the brothers to figure out his identity. He told them he knew their names, knew their birth order, and knew who had done what in their youth.

The only reason the brothers didn’t figure out that the person they were talking to was their own brother is because they didn’t want it to be true. They didn’t want Yosef to have been right all along about Hashem making him king. So they fooled themselves into not seeing the truth.

This is exactly the crime that Yosef was accusing his brother of. You are not looking for the truth. You are only spies, who concern themselves only with finding the bad. You are blinded by your agenda, by your own preconceived notions.

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לע״נ ר׳ חיים דוב בן ר׳ בןציון שלום