And Joseph said unto them: “Fear not for am I in the place of God? And as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save the lives of many people. Now, therefore, fear not, I will sustain you and your little ones.” And he comforted them and spoke kindly to them. (Gen. 50:19-21)
According to Seforno’s interpretation, Joseph reassures his brethren that he will not take retributive measures because, in selling him into slavery, they had acted merely as agents of God, albeit unwittingly, in contributing to the realization of the divine purpose. With similar logic, Joseph (Gen. 45:8) had previously absolved his brothers of all guilt for their ill-intentioned deeds.
One may, however, seriously question the propriety of excusing an immoral act on the grounds that it happened to be instrumental in bringing about a desirable end. Can we truly say that the end justifies the means to such an extent that all is well simply because it ends well? Shouldn’t the actions of the brothers be condemned, even though their viciousness happened to be a necessary link in a chain of events leading to the redemption of our people?
It is noteworthy that our classical literature does not look upon the beneficial results of the sale of Joseph as extenuating circumstances mitigating the guilt of the brothers. Instead, the crime is denounced time and again in harshest terms. Rabbi Meir Simchah of Dvinsk in his Meshekh Chakhmah (Lev. 16:30) goes so far as to treat the offense on a par with the worship of the golden calf - the other cardinal sin of Israel. To appreciate Joseph’s attitude towards the offenses of his brothers, we must bear in mind that he based much of his own behavior not upon ordinary standards of propriety but rather upon what he believed to be dictated by his divinely ordained mission. It was the conciousness of the unique role he was destined to play that colored all his actions. The dreams of his early youth had to be fulfilled, no matter how great a price they would exact in terms of moral values, because they represented to him his God-given manifest destiny. It is only in this light, as Nachmanides suggests, that we can account for the weird behavior of a son who with all his love and devotion to an old father does not make even the slightest effort to allay his worries and anxieties. How could he be so cruel that having reached of such an eminent position in Egypt, he would not even share the happy news with a father who, as he was fully aware, was grief-stricken over the fate of his long-lost son? It was due to Joseph’s obsession with the necessity of having his early dreams literally come true that, instead of visiting his father in the land of Canaan, he insisted that his father uproot himself in his advanced years and visit him in Egypt. (Compare also Adereth Eliyahu ad. Gen. 42:9)
The behavior pattern of Joseph is typical of orientations which evaluate the moral propriety of actions in terms of their contribution towards the ultimate attainment of an overriding supreme goal. If the effectiveness of a given means towards the realization of a predetermined ultimate end becomes the sole criterion, one naturally rides roughshod over all other values. If there is a fixed and predetermined historic goal to be pursued, one cannot allow oneself the luxury of being sidetracked by considerations that may impede one’s progress on the road towards the fulfillment of one’s (or mankind’s) manifest destiny. For this reason doctrinaire systems of thought that are committed to “inevitable” historic goals often tend to display such disdain for moral values such as concern for the dignity of the individual, integrity, truth, etc.
One can, therefore, appreciate why (according to Pesachim 56a) Jacob was thwarted in his attempt to reveal to his sons the “end of days.” Our experience with various pseudo-Messianic movements indicate how readily important religious values are discarded and even perverted once definite and specific plans to fulfill Messianic purposes stand in the forefront of the human consciousness. While undoubtedly eschatological goals and Messianic visions represent important strands in the religious consciousness of the Jew, they do not directly affect the norms governing our behavior. The mitzvah is a value in itself, independent of any consideration as to its effectiveness in ushering in the Kingdom of God. The Talmud (Berakhot l0a) censures King Chizkiyahu for his failure to beget children even though he refrained from the performance of this mitzvah only because as the result of some supernatural intuition (ruach hakodesh). [It was revealed to him that his descendants would turn out to be reshaim (wicked individuals).] Viewed from the perspective of the Talmud, the intrinsic worthwhileness of an act does not depend upon the net effect of its consequences, but solely upon its conformity to the standards of normative precepts.
Notwithstanding its happy ending and dramatic appeal, the story of Joseph cannot serve as our model of proper conduct. Our standards of evaluation must be geared not to an ultimate historic destiny but to the immediate situation at hand. We must not become so swept away by utopian objectives as to ignore the moral or religious propriety of the means we select. Our function is not to justify the means by the end, but rather sanctify the means and pray it will turn out to be an effective instrument for the attainment of a worthwhile end.
Dr. Walter S. Wurzburger is rabbi of Congregation Shaaray Tefila in Far Rockaway and visiting associate professor of philosophy at Yeshiva University.
YAVNEH STUDIES IN PARASHAT HASHAVUA, edited by Joel B. Wolowelsky, was a 1969-72 project of YAVNEH: THE RELIGIOUS JEWISH STUDENTS ASSOCIATION. The bios here are as they were at the time of the original publication. For a history of YAVNEH, see Benny Kraut, The Greening of American Orthodox Judaism: Yavneh in the 1960s (Cincinnti: Hebrew Union College Press, 2011).