This
Dvar Torah is taken from my father’s writings.
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These
are the descendants of Jacob, Joseph at the age of seventeen was a shepherd,
with his brothers and a lad with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, the wives of
his father, and Joseph brought [vayavei] an evil report of them [dibbatam]
to their father. Genesis 37:2
“with
the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah”: Joseph’s brothers held the sons of Bilhah and
Zilpah in contempt, and he befriended them. Rashi
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Given Joseph’s kindness to the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, it
seems surprising that they did not try to rescue him. Perhaps the lesson is
that even those who benefited from Joseph’s reports (“dibba”) to his
father hated him as did the brothers who were the subject of his negative
reports, because they saw him as a gossiper who might bring a negative report
of them as well.
Our verse is the only time in the Bible that the word “dibba”
(generally translated as “slander”) appears with the verb bo (to come),
as opposed to yatzo (to go out), because typically those who speak ill
of others are interested in creating disunity, while Joseph brought the report
to his father in the hope that Jacob would rebuke them and thereby improve his
brothers’ behavior.
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