פרשה: ויגש · עלייה: שביעי (מלכות)

ולחם אין…כי כבד הרעב מאד, there was no bread…because the famine was very severe, etc. The Torah informs us of the psychology of hunger. During a famine people have a tendency to eat inordinate amounts of food thus causing their reserves of food to be depleted prematurely. The author describes a personal experience of famine in the country he lived in where a person ate ten times the amount of food he would eat normally and still felt hungry.

וילקט יוסף את כל הכסף, Joseph collected all the silver (money), etc. The reason the Torah uses the expression לקט, gleaned, for the manner in which Joseph collected the money, is to tell us that after Joseph had collected there was absolutely no money left anywhere.

ולמה נמות….כי אפס כסף, "why should we die …for there is no more money?" The people complained that Joseph had proved unwilling to accept any payment other than money in return for grain. They argued that they were not destitute, they could pay him with other chattels; why should they die merely because they could not pay cash? This is why Joseph replied that he was willing to accept their cattle in payment only "if indeed there is no more money." Joseph's reason for all this was to impoverish the Egyptians so that his brothers would not be in an economically inferior position vis-a-vis the Egyptians. Joseph was very clever not to accept any payment other than money as long as there was cash around. As long as the Egyptians still had their livestock they would have to provide fodder for their animals; presumably one effect of the famine was the absence of grazing land. The Egyptians therefore had to feed their livestock with barley. This in turn led to the money supply becoming completely exhausted within a year. As a result of Joseph's strategy the brothers who arrived during the second year of the famine were wealthy compared to the average Egyptian at that time.

The Egyptians may also have meant to convey to Joseph that they did have money but that they had no cash flow at that time. They were unable to collect their receivables. This was not something unusual as many people invested their money in enterprises in foreign countries, sending money on ships which were meant to import goods. Their argument therefore was: "why should we die since we have the necessary liquid assets and are only unable temporarily to collect that money?" Accordingly, Joseph told them that if they really did have money in the form of receivables he was willing to accept their livestock as payment for food in the meantime. The livestock served as collateral for the cash the Egyptians would owe him. As soon as they would collect their receivables he expected them to turn over the money to him.

לא נכחד מאדוני, "we will not hide the fact from my lord, etc." The expression "we will not hide" presents a difficulty. What was the point of speaking of hiding something which was bound to be revealed if indeed it existed? On the other hand, if they were to claim that their livestock and money had not been exhausted they had to deliver it! Why would they say that they would not conceal the existence of money or livestock? Besides, what is the meaning of the words כי אם? Furthermore, they had told Joseph already at the end of the previous year that their money supply was exhausted? Why did the Egytians say to Joseph: "and the livestock is all gone to you, sir?"

Perhaps what the Egyptians meant was: "we really have no more money, we are not hiding it, the money is truly exhausted." They did not want Joseph to suspect them of pretending to be destitute, asking for a handout. They added that as far as the livestock was concerned there was not even a need to tell Joseph they had none left, seeing Joseph had bought it all and it could not be hidden even if they tried. As a result the only thing they had left were their very bodies.

According to the alternative meaning of the words אפס כסף, that their cash receivables were not collectible at that time, the verse does not need any explanation at all. They told Joseph that when they argued previously that they had receivables but that those could not be collected at that time, that had been a lie, and they would not deny that they had lied in order to get Joseph to accept their livestock in payment for the grain. The fact was that at this time all their assets other than their bodies had been exhausted. This is the reason that whereas the first time around the Torah speaks about אפס כסף, i.e an absence of money, they now spoke about תם הכסף, that the money had been completely exhausted.

When they said: ומקנה הבהמה אל אדוני, "and the livestock is all gone to you, sir," they referred to the livestock they had pledged in lieu of the cash they had not had available at the time they made their recent grain purchases. As of now, this livestock belonged to Joseph absolutely. This is why they added the word אדוני.

הן קניתי אתבם היום. "Look, I have bought you today, etc." The reason Joseph added the word היום, and the fact that it does not appear after the report that Joseph had bought their land, is to tell us that the method of acquisition was that each individual was acquired by the method known in Jewish law as משיכה, i.e. drawing the object being purchased a short distance towards the purchaser, as customary when one purchases slaves (Kidushin 22). Joseph did this en masse by transferring whole populations from city to city. Since one cannot acquire land by moving it, the word היום was interposed between these different kinds of purchases Joseph made.

The Torah also wanted to clarify something else here. We have the principle (Pessachim 88) that when one acquires a slave one automatically acquires everything this slave owned at the same time. There was no need to mention the acquisition of these Egyptians' lands separately. Since it is possible that Joseph did not acquire these Egyptians in the manner one usually acquires slaves, but that they became his (Pharaoh's) slaves only to the extent that they had to continue to farm the lands they had farmed previously and pay a portion of their harvest to Pharaoh, the Torah distinguished between the acquisition of the people on the one hand and that of their lands on the other hand. In practice, these Egyptians became hired hands who were not free to leave their employment. As a result Joseph had to acquire the land separately. This is why the Torah wrote in verse 20 that "Joseph acquired all the lands on behalf of Pharaoh as each of the Egyptians sold his land, etc." This would enable Pharaoh to bring in other labourers to work these fields, whereas he was not able to force the Egyptians who had previously owned those fields to farm them as he did not own those farmers bodily. When Joseph said: "I have acquired you," he meant that he had acquired them as hired hands, as distinct from their lands which he had acquired outright.

חמישית לפרעה, one fifth for Pharaoh, etc. Joseph was astute enough to say that Pharaoh would collect the first 20% of any seed. Even if, as a result, the remaining 80% would be only sufficient for the farmer to plant and to break even, Pharaoh would not agree to collect less than his 20%. On the other hand, the farmers would be at liberty to collect the overage whether there be a lot or a little.

The reason Joseph mentioned separately that it would be "to eat for your children," instead of including the children when he had said that the 80% would be "for you and your households to consume" was, that the portions required by the children would be greater than that of their parents.

והיינו עבדים לפרעה, "and we shall remain slaves to Pharaoh." They were careful to describe themselves as Pharaoh's slaves, not as Joseph's.

They also referred to something I mentioned earlier, that Pharaoh had acquired them only as hired labourers, people obligated to work these particular lands. By saying: והיינו עבדים לפרעה, they offered their bodies to Pharaoh also so that Pharaoh owned them outright from then on. Perhaps this is the reason why the new Pharaoh in Exodus 1,9 described the Jewish people as the "nation, the children of Israel," meaning that he could not in good conscience describe them as his slaves as they had never lost their status as a free people.

וישב ישראל בארץ מצרים, Israel dwelled in the land of Egypt, etc. Why did the Torah add that the land of Goshen is in the land of Egypt? Do we not know this already? Besides, what is the connection between the Jewish people multiplying and their dwelling in the land of Egypt?

The Torah evidently wishes to remind us of the fulfilment of G'd's prophecy to Jacob in 46,3 that while in Egypt he would develop into a great nation, that the reason he and his family had to descend to Egypt was to liberate the stray holy souls that were entrapped amongst the Egyptians and their pagan practices. This is why the Torah emphasises that Israel dwelled in the land of Egypt, a morally thoroughly depraved society. The Torah adds that Israel lived in the land of Goshen to hint that the origin of that word is הגשה, approach, i.e. that all those scattered souls we have previously described were attracted to and collected in Goshen because of the presence there of a branch of sanctity as represented by Jacob/lsrael. The entire paragraph refers to the fledgling nation Israel in the singular to emphasise the unity of purpose that characterised that society at that time. When the Torah adds ויאחזו בה, "they were possessed by it," this refers to their lofty ideal as a developing holy nation. The reason they were extraordinarily fruitful and multiplied was the fact that they were possessed by lofty ideals not because they happened to find themselves on Egyptian soil. The author suggests reading up the comments of the Maha"rik on Exodus 1,6: "Joseph, all his brothers and that entire generation died."