Halachic Hints

My father noted that this week’s Parasha hints at halachot which are codified by Maimonides [and appear consecutively in his Yad haChazaka]:

And you said to your servants: If your youngest brother does come down with you, you shall not [lo tosifun] see my face any more.                                Genesis 44:23

Ba’al haTurim connects our verses use of the words “lo tosifun” with that in Deuteronomy [17:16], which presents the prohibition of a king purchasing too many horses: “Only he shall not multiply horses for himself, nor cause the people to return to Egypt for the purpose of acquiring a multitude of horses, as the Lord has said to you ‘You shall not return [lo tosifun] that way any more.’”

The common use of the words “lo tosifun” implies that the prohibition of returning to Egypt is to “see my face,” that is to see Pharaoh and his servants as masters, as they were before the exodus and thus hints at a halachic point: it is permissible to return to Egypt for the purpose of conquest, as Maimonides states in Laws of Kings and Their Wars [5:9-10].

And there I will sustain you, for there are yet five years of famine, lest you come to poverty, you and your household and all that you have. Genesis 45:11

Knowing that his father would be reluctant to leave the Holy Land, Joseph reminds his father that under the prevailing circumstances, it is permissible for him to leave Israel, as Maimonides presents the halacha:

One may never leave Israel, except to study Torah, marry a woman or to be saved from the gentiles, but even in such cases, one must return to the Land. One may not reside outside the Land, unless famine is so strong there that a dinar worth of wheat sells for two dinars. [Laws of Kings and Their Wars 5:11-12]