The Fire Of Embarrassment
By R’ Mordechai Young
There is a story that my Rebbi from Sh’or Yoshuv, Rabbi Steinwurtzel, once told me: Once there was a great talmid chacham living in Borough Park. His name was Rabbi Benzion Lipschitz, and he was learning in yeshiva with another rav. They were embroiled in a heated debate over the words of Torah. A huge crowd surrounded them, watching to see who would claim victory. As time went on, the chashuv rabbanim realized that they were fighting over how a few words were written in a certain sefer. As the epic battle reached its peak, Rav Lipschitz looked up the sefer and the passage under discussion. Rav Lipschitz suddenly closed the sefer and walked away, melting into the dense crowd of talmidim. The spectators of this great Torah battle thought for sure he had lost the argument.
But as the opponent went to look in the sefer, he realized Rav Lipschitz had actually won. But to walk away and not bask in the victory? We learn from this humble act that Rav Lipschitz wasn’t there for the applause or the glory. He was there to learn Torah and reach the emes!
The Midrash Tanchuma states that Yosef asked everyone to leave the room because he wanted to tell his brothers who he was in private, so as not to embarrass them in front of the Mitzrim. By doing this, he put himself in a great danger because the brothers could have killed him and there would be no one to defend him. To Yosef it was simple: He would take the risk of being killed rather than embarrass his brothers in public.
There are many questions one can ask regarding this act. If Yosef was going to speak to his brothers in Hebrew, the Mitzrim would not understand anyway, so why remove them if this was a truly dangerous situation? The Da’as Zekeinim from Baalei Tosafos says that when Yosef said “I am Yosef; is my father still alive?” he spoke in a regular tone and the Mitzrim were actually listening from behind the door. However, when Yosef continued “whom you sold to Egypt” he whispered it so only his brothers would hear. He even more so wanted to protect them, because he didn’t want the Mitzrim thinking that his brothers were some sort of bad brood and dangerous. They would think: If these people are capable of selling their own flesh and blood, how much more they can do to a stranger, and perhaps they shouldn’t be allowed to live in Egypt. The Ohr Hachaim adds that the reason Yosef whispered was because everyone in the palace wanted to know what was happening with the Viceroy of Egypt, so even if they didn’t understand the language, they still would have caught onto the emotions of the situation. That is another reason why Yosef asked everyone to leave the room.
The Gemara teaches that it is better for a person to be put into a burning furnace rather than embarrass another person in public. We see this example from Tamar. Tamar was accused of adultery. Yehuda said she should be burned for this transgression. Tamar knew she was innocent, but she didn’t state it publicly. Instead, she sent signs to Yehuda to admit he’s wrong.
The reason why she didn’t speak up on her own behalf publicly was because this would have embarrassed Yehuda and she was actually ready to go into the fire rather than embarrass him publicly.
Why doesn’t the Gemara teach us the powerful lesson that it is better to go into a furnace rather than embarrass someone publicly from the episode of Yosef? It’s such a powerful moment in the Torah!
Because there are certain differences in each story. With Tamar, it is clearly written that she was ready and willing to die so as not to embarrass another person. In Yosef’s case, it isn’t clearly written in the Torah. This information has to be learned from the Midrash. With Yosef, there is doubt that his brothers would have killed him or not. With Tamar, it is crystal clear that she was ready to die, and the fire was lit before her.
Why didn’t Yosef just reveal himself to one of his brothers, so it would be an even fight if it came to that? Since this is such a powerful and important message requiring that all the brothers hear it simultaneously (since they sold him collectively as a group), they needed to hear the revelation as a group so they would feel the pain of regret as a group.
Imagine how difficult it was for Yosef all those years to know that he was in the right regarding how they sold him. And yet, when the moment finally came to prove himself, he was willing to possibly give it up (if the brothers had killed him) so he should not pain them (his tormentors). We learn from Yosef HaTzaddik that proving you are right is not what Hashem wants from us. Doing the right thing and withholding oneself from the victory dance while saving a person from eternal embarrassment leads to a life of emes. Just like Rav Lipschitz walked away from his moment of “greatness,” so too should we focus on doing what is right and not what brings us satisfaction.
Have a great Shabbos!
R’ Mordechai Young is available as a remedial rebbe and tutor. He can be reached for comments at [email protected].
