One of the greatest lessons in the Torah is hidden in the Targum Onkelos in this week's parsha. It’s a lesson that echoes the Jewish people's destiny and essence.
The pasuk says וישנאו אותו ולא יכלו דברו לשלום the brothers hated Yosef and could not speak to him in peace. The Torah seems to be vindicating the brothers from any responsibility towards Yosef; if after all they were not able to speak to him in peace, it didn’t seem to be within what Rav Desler would call נקודות הבחירה, the point of choice. However, it’s not so simple. The Targum adds one small word בעי, which means want. They didn’t want to speak to him in peace. That’s pretty scary, the Torah says they couldn’t, and Onkelos says they could have, but didn’t want to. Which one is it? Obviously, Onkelos is not arguing with the Torah, since his translation is handed down from Har Sinai as the Gemara in Megillah states. But if so, why doesn’t the Torah write that they didn’t want to?
I suggest an idea based on something I heard from my Rebbi many years ago when learning the stories of Tanach. The Navi will write what is being previewed by the people. So, for example, when the incident of David Hamelech Bas Sheva took place, the Navi describes what David did according to what it looked like to the people. Perhaps one of the lessons is that one needs to think twice before doing something that will seem wrong to the people, albeit that the person himself knows that they are doing what’s permitted.
Similarly, in our parsha, the Torah describes what was being perceived by the onlookers, and I would add that it’s not just the outsiders it was also by the brothers. The brothers convinced themselves that they couldn't speak to Yosef in peace, and therefore the Torah writes it in such a manner. This is a powerful lesson for us, too. How many times do we decide or live with a decision that we made years ago about our ability to change, or restart, or learn anew, and end up losing out on eternity?
The Chofetz Chaim encourages us to seclude ourselves at least once a month and take inventory of what we are doing, and what we might do differently, in order to reach goals that we never thought that we could reach
The Chashmonaim lived with this premise. If they had looked at the stark reality that was in front of them, they would have concluded that there was no hope that they could defeat the Greek army. How could they reignite the light of the Jewish nation? Nevertheless, they didn’t say “we can't;” they said “if Hashem is sending us this challenge then we can. We will not make the same mistake as the shevatim.”
