הִנֵּה מַה־טּוֹב וּמַה־נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם־יָחַד׃
How good and how pleasant it is that brothers dwell together. (Psalm 133)
I officially became an Israeli citizen the day after the last election in 2022. Protests against the new government and its actions began soon after. So the majority of my time in Israel has not quite represented the pleasantness of brothers dwelling together. Instead everyone is mad about something and taking a side against something or someone. And it seems to be a global trend. Everyone is upset and everyone is picking a side.
Frustration is a strong emotion. It actually does bring people together. But coming together against something only takes us so far. The challenges facing our world from climate to conflict to economics, require collective action to solve, not splintering into tribes.
As Martin Luther King Jr said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools”.
The book of Genesis can be viewed as a case study of not so successful attempts at living together as brothers. From Cain and Abel, to Isaac and Ishmael, to Jacob and Esau, and finally to Joseph and his brothers, we, again and again, see examples of sibling rivalry leading to conflict, exile, and even death. The story of Joseph and his brothers marks the turning point in Genesis from sibling rivalry to brotherhood and peoplehood.
The national story of Am Israel, the People of Israel, essentially starts with Joseph being sold into slavery in Egypt. This leads to the growth of the people in Egypt, the exodus, and the revelation at Sinai. According to Rashi, the man Joseph encounters in the field, who leads him to his brothers before they sell him, is the angel Gabriel.
Or HaChaim, an 18th century Moroccan rabbi, asks: why did the angel lead him towards danger in the first place? He explains that the angel realized that Joseph’s intention was to find brotherliness, and aided him in that meritorious endeavor.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Brotherhood is the state of being brothers, of being a family, united by deep bonds with a shared future. Brothers, or family members, ideally act for the greater whole. Fools act without thinking, often for selfish reasons.
Joseph is looking for brotherhood, but his brothers can’t get past their hatred for him. As soon as they see him in the distance, they plot to harm him. According to Chizkuni, a 13th century French rabbi, each set of brothers had their own reason for hating Joseph. Yet, despite their differences, they are united by their shared hatred towards him.
But their alliance holds out only as long as they have a common enemy. The story of Joseph being sold in Egypt is followed directly by an account of Joseph’s brother Judah leaving the others. The brothers are not mentioned as a group again until the famine that sends them to Egypt looking for food. According to a midrashThis word is used in two ways, as both a concept and a literature. As a concept, midrash is the expansive interpretation of biblical texts. The term is used to describe the practice of rabbinic interpretation. As a text, it refers to specific collections of interpretations, particularly from the third to ninth centuries in the Land of Israel and Babylonia. Plural: Midrashim
, an early rabbinic commentary, this was 22 years later.
When the brothers come together again, rather than having a shared enemy, they have a shared goal: the survival of their whole family.
When they go down to Egypt, the TorahRefers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Tanakh, also called the Five Books of Moses, Pentateuch or the Hebrew equivalent, Humash. This is also called the Written Torah. The term may also refer to teachings that expound on Jewish tradition. refers to the brothers as the brothers of Joseph, rather than the sons of Jacob. Rashi, an 11th century French rabbi, says that they regretted selling Joseph and made up their minds to act in a brotherly way to him in Egypt, redeeming him at any cost. The midrash Genesis Rabbah even depicts the brothers as searching in Egypt for Joseph before going to buy food. The brothers, like Joseph 22 years earlier, are finally in search of brotherhood as well.
Hatred and anger are powerful tools to unite people. Yet, as we see with Joseph’s brothers, uniting against something can be a fragile and dangerous togetherness. It’s a coming together as fools.
What unites the brothers permanently is their collective survival and the returning of their brother. The sense of the collective, the family, holds them together. Had they not not come together as brothers to procure food in Egypt they would have perished together as fools and the Jewish people would not have been born.
“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Our world holds a range of challenges for us, like climate change, war, and inequality. Each issue has its own causes and solutions, but at the heart of how we meet those challenges is the call to brotherhood. If we see others as family, as part of the collective, we can move forward together, united around our common humanity rather than divided by our small differences.
May we merit to be like Joseph, searching for brotherhood at all costs. May we merit to be like his brothers who finally realize that together we are stronger. And may we merit to share a collective vision, the goal of a just, healthy, peaceful world.
הִנֵּה מַה־טּוֹב וּמַה־נָּעִים שֶׁבֶת אַחִים גַּם־יָחַד׃
How good and how pleasant it is that brothers dwell together.
