17 Dec VAYEISHEV: EXACT MEASUREMENTS OF PUNISHMENT

G-d Measures Out
Punishment —
Exactly
The Torah tells us
that when Yosef’s
brothers were about
to sell him, they lifted their eyes and saw
a caravan of Ishmaelites carrying spices
to Egypt [Bereishis 37:25]. Rash”i points
out that the reason the Torah went out of
its way to tell us the nature of their cargo
was to inform us of the reward that G-d
prepares for the righteous. Normally, the
Ishmaelites would be trafficking in foul
smelling commodities, like oil. Why did
these Ishmaelites have spices? In order
that Yosef need not suffer on the long trip
down to Egypt, G-d saw to it that this
particular caravan would be carrying
spices.
The sefer Zichron Meir raises a simple
question on this line of reasoning. After
all, where was Yosef headed? Yosef was
not going on a vacation or a pleasure trip.

Perhaps when on a pleasure trip, one can
say that “half the fun is getting there”.
However, Yosef was going through a
major life crisis. Yosef was on his way
into slavery! He was on his way to prison!
This is not a trip he would be enjoying at
any rate. What is the point of going to jail
in a “fancy car”?
The answer — and this is sometimes hard
for us to accept — is that when G-d
decides that a person deserves a
punishment, that punishment is measured
down to the dimension of a hair’s breadth.
The punishment that a person receives —
if he is a righteous person — will be to the
millimeter and to the millisecond of what
he needs. He will have no more suffering
and no more discomfort than the Master
of the World specifically ordains.
A person might have very unfortunate
suffering. He might even think that in
such a situation, “What difference is
there, if he has one more minor ache or
pain?” However, that is not the way G-d
works.
For whatever
reason, Yosef had to
go down to Egypt
and he had to be
sold as a slave. He
had to be thrown
into jail. This was all
terrible. But it was
precisely measured
out. Travelling in a
smelly oil caravan
was not part of
Yosef’s decreed
punishment. Therefore, Yosef traveled
pleasantly.
The Talmud tells us [Chullin 7b] that a
person does not even bang his finger
unless it is so decreed from Above.
In next week’s parsha, the Torah tells us
that Yosef was ‘rushed’ out of the pit
[41:14]. What does that mean? Today,
when a person is released from prison, he
can often remain there for what seems

like an eternity until all the paperwork is
completed. However, once Yosef’s time
came to leave the pit ‘they hurried him
out from the pit’ — not a second longer.
Sometimes it is difficult for us to imagine
how a righteous person warrants such
terrible suffering. We do not understand
it. But the comforting fact is that nothing
is just chance. We see from this Rash”i
that G-d loves even the righteous person
who is destined to suffer.