05 Dec PARSHAS 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
“Lincoln Town 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.