The Circle of Lies

(2) This, then, is the line of Jacob: At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives Bilhah and Zilpah. And Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father.

(3) ויבא יוסף את דבתם רעה . Joseph told his father that his brothers were eating forbidden food such a limbs removed from live animals, that they were belittling the sons of the maids by calling them "slaves," and that they were suspected of immoral conduct. Everybody wonders how we can reconcile such behavior by the founders of the Jewish nation. If the brothers were not guilty of such conduct, however, why would Joseph report such behavior to his father? Would Joseph have reported such conduct to his father unless the brothers had been guilty of it? The very wording of the Torah: "He brought, ויבא their דבה to their father makes this unlikely. When the דבה is false, the Torah would have written ויוצא דבתם, "he invented gossip about them." At any rate, how could the brothers have been guilty of such gross misconduct?

(4) I have heard about an explanation found in an ancient manuscript: Abraham wrote the ספר יצירה, and handed it over to his son Isaac. Isaac in turn passed it on to Jacob. Jacob passed the book on to those of his sons who were the most deserving. Torah secrets are not supposed to be handed to undeserving people. As a result, only the sons born of Jacob's fully fledged wives were given copies of the book. We find in the Talmud that Abraham created a calf every Friday, by using instructions in the ספר יצירה on how to arrange the various letters in G–d's name in order to accomplish this. Since the brothers had access to that information, they may have done the same thing. Anything which came into being through this method is not subject to the halachot requiring slaughter, removal of blood, etc., before the animal is fit to be consumed. An animal created in such a way may be eaten while "alive." Joseph was not aware of this, hence he thought that what he reported to his father was a misdemeanor by his brothers.

(5) Sanhedrin 65b reports that the Amora Rava created a human being [using the technique discussed in the ספר יצירה, Ed.]. He sent that creature to Rabbi Zeirah who addressed him. The creature did not respond to what Rabbi Zeirah said to it. Thereupon Rabbi Zeirah ordered the creature to turn back into dust (if he was the creature made by one of the scholars). Rabbi Chanina and Rabbi Oshiyah are reported to have studied the ספר יצירה together every Friday, and to have created a three-year-old calf [a calf which appeared as big as a three-year-old, when it is most tasty; compare Rashi on that folio] and to have eaten it. [In that connection the Talmud states that had they wanted to, the scholars could have created a whole world with the help of the ספר יצירה. I presume that the reason the Talmud tells us all this is that it wants to put the relatively minor accomplishments by soothsayers and other so-called magicians which are discussed on that folio into proper perspective. Ed.] There are letters in certain names of G–d, which, if manipulated in the correct manner, enable one to create female creatures, whereas other letters in other names of G–d, when correctly manipulated, produce male creatures. It is quite possible that the brothers used their knowledge of the ספר יצירה to create female creatures (human look-alikes), and that they consorted with these creatures. Joseph arrived at the erroneous conclusion that there was something immoral about the brothers' conduct with those "females." Whenever the brothers were busy using the ספר יצירה, and the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah wanted to join them, they told their half-brothers that they could not, seeing that they were of an inferior status, being the sons of the maids. Such statements by the sons of Leah were not derogatory in nature, since the brothers wanted to protect the secrets of the ספר יצירה from falling into the hands of those for whom the book was not intended. It follows that both the brothers and Joseph were righteous. Whatever Joseph told his father was intended to lead to the brothers improving their ways through being admonished by Jacob. Nonetheless the Torah refers to these reports of Joseph about his brothers as דבה רעה, "reports of evil," because he should have investigated the circumstances before assuming the worst and telling his father about it.

(6) When looking at what happened to Joseph as a result of his well intentioned tale-bearing, we must reflect how much more prone to punishment we must be, when our tale-bearing is not לשם שמים, as was Joseph's.