The pasuk says, “Yaakov raised his eyes and saw, and behold, Eisav was coming, and with him, four hundred men – so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two handmaids. He put the handmaids and their children first, and Leah and her children later, and Rachel and Yosef last.” (Bereshis 33:1-2). Eisav is approaching Yaakov. Yaakov splits the camps. He positions the handmaidens and their sons first, followed by Leah and her children, followed in the rear by Rochel and Yosef. It would seem that the most expendable members of his entourage were placed first and the most cherished were placed in the back.
The Vilna Maggid asks the following question: Next parsha contains the famous story of Yaakov showing favoritism towards Yosef by giving him a kesones pa ssim. This led to Yosef’s brothers becoming jealous of him, and it ultimately led to the entire Galus Mitzrayim (Egyptian Exile). The Gemara learns out from this incident that a father should never show favoritism towards any of his children.
The Vilna Maggid asked, why were the brothers jealous when Yosef received his kesones passim but they were apparently not jealous when he was placed last in the family configuration to best protect him from Eisav and his approaching army? No one said, “Hey, what am I – chopped liver?” “What am I – cannon fodder?” We don’t see them objecting to this here. This would appear to be a much bigger deal. A person can live just fine without a kesones pa ssim. However, the configuration when they met Eisav was potentially a matter of life and death!
The Vilna Maggid gives three answers to this question. For my purposes today, I am only going to mention one of these answers: The brothers understood that since Rochel, the prime wife of Yaakov, only had one child, it was necessary to afford maximum protection to an “only son.” Similarly, in the Israeli Army today, an “only son” is not placed in a combat unit. This is a long-practiced and well-understood plan of action. The brothers were not going to protest Yaakov’s urge to protect an “only son.”
However, the situation “next week” in Parshas Vayeshev is a different story. There was no excuse for Yaakov to single out Yosef and dress him in a special garment that he felt only this son and not his other sons deserved to wear. This is the answer of the Vilna Maggid.
I saw that the sefer Me’Orei Ohr raises the same question and offers a different answer. He says as follows: Yaakov Avinu had just come back from Lavan, where he had his eleven children. He knew that the environment in the house of Lavan was spiritually toxic. Yaakov did everything in his power to make sure that his children would not be influenced by Lavan’s home. That was his goal in life – to create the “Shivtei K-ah” (Tribes of the Almighty) – and he would do everything under the sun to inoculate them not to be influenced by their grandfather, Lavan.
Now Yaakov meets Eisav with his four hundred men. Yaakov does not know what is going to happen. He does not know whether Eisav is going to insist that they stay together. Yaakov realized that his children were all facing potential danger because he was going from a toxic environment to another environment that was also hostile to them. He feared that the twenty years he invested in creating the “Shivtei K-ah” and protecting them may all go down the drain.
At this point, the other shvatim were already older children. However, Yosef was still a little child, perhaps four or five years old. Most of Yaakov’s sons were already teenagers, who already knew how to take care of themselves. Yosef was a little kid. “What is going to be with my poor little Yossele? Yossele doesn’t know any better. He is a kindergarten baby.”
That is why Yaakov put Yosef last – to protect him. He was not being protected from being killed. Regarding the physical danger, Yaakov relied on his promise from Hashem that “I will be with You wherever you go.” (Bereshis 25:21). However, regarding “ruchniyus” (spirituality), Hashem does not make any promises. “All is in the hands of Heaven – except for fear of Heaven” (Berachos 33b). Ruchniyus is up to us. Yaakov felt that he needed to protect his little Yosef from the spiritual dangers that contact with Eisav and his army might present. As a little child, Yosef was most vulnerable to being spiritually contaminated by outside influences. Therefore, the other sheva tim had no problem with their youngest brother being placed at the back of the camp.
