A thought on Parshas Vayeshev

"...v'hinei archas Yishamaelim..." "...a caravan of Ismaelites..." (37:25) Once the brothers decided to hoist Yosef out of the well and sell him as a slave, we have a variety of verses referencing that sale. Some verses reference the "Yishmaelim" as the slave mongers who purchased Yosef. Other verses reference the "Midyanim." Ultimately the Torah says he was brought to Egypt and sold there. Later still (45:4), however, we have Yosef asserting to his brothers that "you were the ones who sold me." Who did what in this cryptic saga? The Panae'ach Raza offers the following sequence of logic to explain the variance among the verses: The brothers sold Yosef to the Yishmaelim. However, being that Yosef was in the dry well (about which we are told that it held no water, which our sages take as a sign that it did house scorpions and serpents), the Arabs who purchased Yosef were afraid to descend into that pit lest they be bitten by the vermin creeping down there. So, they waited until a caravan of Midianites passed near. The Arabs of Midian, we are told elsewhere (BaMidbar 22:24), were versed in the occult arts. They could charm snakes and were able therefore to enter the pit and draw Yosef up. They handed him over to the Yishmaelim, who had to tend to Yosef's distress after his having been subjected to the traumatic ordeal among snakes and poisonous scorpions. How do we know that Yosef had become ill with fright? The Panae'ach Raza reasons that on the one hand, the Torah considers Yosef to have been a very attractive man (39:6), but on the other hand, he was purchased for only 20 silver coins (37:28), which is very cheap by Torah standards (see Shmos 21:32). He was apparently sick with stress when the Midianites handed him over to the Yishmaelim. That lowered his value on the slave market, for who would hire a sickly servant? The Yishmaelim had to revive Yosef to make him marketable. How did the Yishmaeli Arabs know how to treat his transitory illness? It is, as we learn elsewhere (37:25), because they were versed in the healing arts. They bought him for very little money, then restored his health to a robust state. In his now recovered healthy condition, he was a prize catch, which is why he was purchased by a royal officer (37:36) who put him in a position of responsibility, something unlikely to occur had Yosef still been frail and sickly. So, even though it was Yishmaelim who actually sold him (39:1) to that Egyptian, it was only through the agency of the Midianites who rescued him from the well that they had been able to acquire Yosef. Hence, the Torah writes that it was the Midianites who "made" that sale (37:36). If so, the brothers' sale to the Yishmaelim was facilitated by the Midianites, which is why one verse (37:28) is somewhat open-ended, implying that the brothers sold Yosef to the Midianites. This approach of the Panae'ach Raza is profound, not for its spiritual or moral lesson, nor for any mystical nuance, but because it gives us a deeper sense of how a Ba'al Tosafos applies the tools of analysis and precision to understanding the Written Torah, much as he approaches the Talmud. Wishing you a thought-filled Shabbos. D Fox