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‫פרשת וישב‬
)‫ (פרק לז' כד‬.‫ אין בו מים‬,‫ויקחהו וישלכו אותו הברה; והבור רק‬
Then (the brothers) took (Yosef), and cast him into the pit; and the pit was empty, no water was
in it.
Rashi, based on .‫שבת כב‬, explains: "From the implication of that which it says, ‫והבור רק‬/and the
pit was empty, do I not know that no water was in it? Why, then does the verse say ‫?אין בו מים‬
To imply that although there was no water, there were snakes and scorpions in it." The
authorship of this very famous exegesis is traced back to R' Tanchum. Ramban explains that "if
it was so that the pit was infested with dangerous animals, they must have been in the crevices
of the pit, or else the pit was so deep that that the brothers did not know about them because
they could not see the bottom of the pit." The Torah Temimah is even more emphatic: Reuven
and his brothers could not have known of the dangers in the pit. Clearly Reuven wanted to save
Yosef and return him to their father. And even the other brothers, had they known about the
snakes and scorpions and then seen that Yosef was not harmed, they would have immediately
desisted from their plans to sell him, for they would have realized that Yosef must have
tremendous merits to warrant such a miracle. (For even the wicked Nebuchadnezzar, when he
saw ‫ חנניה מישאל ועזריה‬exiting the fiery ovens unscathed, was overcome with pangs of
repentance, and changed his ways.)
How deep was the ‫ ?בור‬At least twenty ‫אמות‬, for the immediately preceding ‫ גמרא‬quotes our
same R' Tanchum who ruled that "a Chanukah light that one placed twenty ‫ אמות‬from the
ground is invalid" and as Rashi explains, "For it will be out of ‫שלטא ביה עינא‬-a passerby's field of
vision, and so the goal of ‫פירסומי ניסא‬-publicizing the miracle, will not be achieved." So that
according to R' Tanchum, the brothers did not know what was crawling on the bottom of the
‫ בור‬because of its depth.
The Meshech Chochma takes us to another ‫ דרשה‬of R' Tanchum's found in Beraishis Rabba
‫פרשה ק' ח‬: Upon Yosef and his brothers' return to Egypt after burying their father, the pasuk
relates ‫ והשב ישיב לנו את כל הרעה אשר גמלנו‬,‫ויראו אחי יוסף כי מת אביהם ויאמרו לו ישטמנו יוסף‬
‫אתו‬/Yosef's brothers saw that their father was dead, and they said, "Perhaps Yosef will nurse
hatred against us and then he will surely repay us all the evil that we did to him." What made
them suspicious that Yosef, at this juncture, would seek revenge against them? The Medrash
explains: "R' Yitzchak said: 'It was that while in Canaan to bury his father, Yosef went and
peered into that pit.' R' Tanchum added: 'Yosef was motivated only for the sake of Heaven. But
the brothers did not say this; rather, they said, 'Perhaps Yosef will nurse hatred against us.'" The
‫ מפרשי המדרש‬explain that Yosef's motivation was to recite a blessing in recognition of the
great miracle that Hashem had wrought for him there. The brothers misinterpreted this
gesture.
The Meshech Chochma sees a beautiful consistency in these three statements of R' Tanchum as
follows: He begins with a ‫ משנה‬in .‫ ברכות נד‬which says that one who sees a place where
miracles were performed on behalf of the Jewish people recites ‫ברוך שעשה נסים לאבותינו‬
‫במקום הזה‬. The ‫ גמרא‬questions whether this contradicts Rava, who told a gentleman that
whenever he views the area where a miracle was performed for him, he should recite ‫ברוך‬
‫שעשה לי נס במקום הזה‬, whereas the aforementioned ‫ משנה‬seems to imply that the ‫ ברכה‬is
only made for a ‫ נס‬done for the ‫ ?צבור‬The ‫ גמרא‬answers that for a miracle performed for the
masses, everyone is obligated to recite a blessing. But on a miracle performed for an individual,
it is only he who is obligated to recite a blessing. (Of note, both Rif and Rav Hai Gaon include
the beneficiary's children and grand children in the obligation.) Rav Meir Simcha cites Rav David
Abudraham who rules, "This applies only to a miracle that is truly extraordinary, an act of Divine
providence that supersedes the laws of nature, such as the splitting of the sea or being saved
from the clutches of a lion; a lesser miracle, though, does not warrant the blessing...During
Chanukah, the "real" miracle that we are celebrating and for which the holiday is named is the
victory of the small band of Macabees over the Greek army, which returned the Beis
HaMikdash into Jewish hands and reinstated the Jewish monarchy in ‫ארץ ישראל‬. But it was the
miracle of the vial of oil burning for eight days, which was clearly ‫יוצא מדרך הטבע‬, for which the
blessing ‫ שעשה נסים לאבותינו‬was established." (The Meshech Chochma notes that this
Abudraham is perhaps another reason for the less-than-twenty ‫ אמות‬rule; for ‫ שלטא ביה עינא‬is
required before making the blessing. To "simply" give thanks for Hashem's intervention ‫חזותא‬
‫ בעלמא‬would be enough i.e. even a distant appreciation of where the miracle took place.)
The Meshech Chochma points out that all of R' Tanchum's statements are extremely
interdependent. Upon returning from his father's burial, Yosef understood that the last twentytwo years of his life were filled with a series of miracles which changed the course of Jewish
history. He was the one who prepared his family for the long exile in Egypt. All the hardships he
endured were necessary to allow the play, as scripted by HKBH, to unfold. But first, in order for
him to get to Egypt, Reuven (unwittingly) had to devise a plan which would spare Yosef's life.
The pit had to be greater than twenty ‫ אמות‬so that it appeared empty. And it was only because
‫ מים אין בו אבל נחשים ועקרבים יש בו‬that Yosef was obligated to recite a ‫ ברכה‬and he therefore
stopped there on his return from Canaan to do so! So too on Chanukah. Clearly the crucial
event was defeating the Greeks and its subsequent impact on our history. But in order to
warrant reciting a blessing, that is where the ‫ פך שמן‬enters the picture, an open miracle that
we commemorate to this day. Perhaps that is why ‫ חז"ל‬tell us that Chanukah is one of our
holidays that ‫לעתיד לבוא‬, will not be suspended. The idea of seeing and appreciating Hashem's
handiwork, both in the mundane and in the miraculous, by thanking Him and when appropriate
blessing Him, is something that on an individual and communal level, must remain a part of our
Jewish DNA and not just a part of our history.
‫לזכר נשמת אבי מורי ר' ישראל מנחם בן שלום ז"ל‬