He said to him, "Go, please, and see if it is well with your brothers"
Yaakov commanded Yosef to go to his brothers, effectively making him into a שליח מצוה – an emissary for a Mitzvah matter. He also told him to return to his grandfather, making him a Mitzvah emissary for the return trip too.
Now, even according to the opinion that Mitzvah emissaries will not suffer any damage, both on their way to perform the Mitzvah and on the way back, Yosef would be safe thanks to his father’s command.
The obvious question remains, and the Ohr Hachaim asks it. Why was Yosef damaged? He was sold into slavery, suffered in jail in Mitzrayim, and eventually all of Klal Yisroel followed him into exile and suffering. Why was the fact that he was an emissary for a Mitzvah insufficient?
The answer, as the Gemara tells us in many other cases, is that Mitzvos only guard against a chance of damage. When the damage is likely, it does not protect. This is the subject of a Sugya in Pesachim. The Beraysa discusses a person who shares a wall with his non-Jewish neighbor. A hole was bored between the two houses and the night of Erev Pesach arrived. Now is the time to search for Chametz, and one has to search the holes in the walls too. The Beraysa says that a person must search as far as he can into the hole, but Plimo disagreed and said that searching in this hole by candlelight at night will cause the gentile next door to suspect him of performing some kind of witchcraft on him. The gentile may then take revenge on the Jew, causing him danger. Therefore, he need not check the hole. The Chachamim disagreed and were not concerned about the gentile’s suspicions, because someone who is occupied with a Mitzvah does not need to concern himself about danger. Plimo believed that this case was more dangerous than others, and when danger is quite likely, one cannot rely on the protection of a Mitzvah.
In our case, the brothers were a danger to Yosef, but the danger was not certain. Just like a gentile who may not notice the Jew searching for Chametz, and he may not be concerned about witchcraft, so too the brothers of Yosef were not suspect of attempted murder.
Why indeed was Yosef kidnapped and sold? Why did the Mitzvah not protect him?
The Ohr Hachaim explains that although it looked like Yosef was suffering, in the end, all worked out well. Yosef was the one who supported his family in Mitzrayim, and if he wouldn’t have been sold, they would all have starved. The end of the story turned out well, and nothing bad happened.
