5784/2024
Parashat Tetzaveh introduces us to the בגדי כהונה – the priestly garments. One of those garments was the חושן משפט. As the פסוקים go on to describe, the חושן had twelve stones, or jewels, on it, corresponding to the twelve שבטים. As is famously asked, already back in פרשת וישב, “were they worthy”? Were the twelve שבטים or, more accurately, the ten שבטים who ganged up together to sell (or kill) Yosef when they were younger, worthy of being worn on the chest of the כהן גדול as he does his sacred service in the בית המקדש?
The Seforno, back in וישב, raises this question and gives the famous “רודף Pshat”. He explains that the brothers viewed Yosef as a רודף – someone presenting danger to their lives – and therefore they felt justified in getting rid of him by throwing him into the pit and preventing him from endangering their lives further. However, I’d like to go in a different direction, based on another Seforno in the same פרשה. Earlier in the פרשה, the פסוק describes Yosef as being seventeen years old YET a נער at the same time… how can Yosef be both a נער, which typically means about twelve years old AND seventeen at the same time?! Says the Seforno, “והוא נער”, in the פסוק, is describing Yosef’s actions – Yosef was making youthful, or adolescent, immature decisions and mistakes without having the ability to see their potential repercussions. And you can say, based on this idea, that the flip side is true as well. Yosef’s brothers were young then too – still maturing and developing – and maybe they as well were not seeing potential repercussions and therefore made a poor decision of throwing Yosef into the pit.
We all know how the story ends, though. Yosef’s brothers are faced with a similar situation down in Egypt – they need to choose between themselves or Binyamin – and this time they make the correct mature decision and choose to save Binyamin instead of leaving him hanging and “pushing him into the pit” as they did to Yosef years ago. The פסוק in Mishlei (24:16) says: “כי שבע יפול צדיק וקם ורשעים יכשלו ברעה” – a צדיק falls seven times and gets back up while a רשע falls once and is down for the count. What defines a צדיק? Someone who, no matter how many times he falls, gets back up. Both צדיקים and רשעים will most certainly fall, no one is perfect, but the difference between the two is that a צדיק gets back up and corrects his mistake while a רשע just gives up and never corrects what he did wrong. And, maybe, that is why the 10 שבטים who plotted against Yosef are still cemented in the חושן and worn on the כהן גדול’s chest. Yes, they messed up. Yes, they made a mistake. But they got back up and corrected what they did wrong. They are the ultimate role models and the ultimate צדיקים.
Furthermore, you can argue that there may be no one more appropriate to be engraved into the חושן than the שבטים – people who displayed human frailty but were able to overcome it; no one more appropriate to be worn on the כהן גדול’s chest as he does his holy service before Hashem on behalf of Klal Yisrael. We all are human and we all make mistakes, but what makes us truly great at the end of the day is our ability to get back up and keep moving forward, just like the שבטים. There’s a famous line I once heard – “It’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward” – will we get knocked down and knocked out OR will we follow in the ways of our שבטים, get back up, and keep moving forward?