On his deathbed, Ya‘aqov delivers prophetic comments concerning his sons: שמעון ולוי אחים כלי חמס מכרתיהם: כו' כי באפמ הרגו איש וברצונם עקרו שור: ארור אפם כי עז עברתם כי קשתה וגו' (“Shim‘on and Levi are brothers, instruments of violence are their swords.… For in their anger they killed a man and in their willfulness they uprooted an ox. Cursed is their anger, for it is strong, their wrath for it is hard….;" XLVIII, 5-7). Rashi tells us that the word ish, “man” refers to Chamor and the men of Shchem whom Shim‘on and Levi killed in rescuing their sister Dina (cf. XXXIV), and that shor refers to his son Yosef, שנקרא שור שנאמר בכור שורו הגר לו (“who is called an ox, as it is said, ‘First-born, his ox is his glory’ [Deuteronomy XXXIII, 17]”).
It seems a bit surprising that Ya‘aqov, the man of truth (Micha VII, 20) should use the word ish to refer to the evildoers of Shchem, whilst calling his great son a shor, an animal, especially in light of the fact that the term ish is often a term of exaltation and greatness when it refers to the Patriarchs, or mal’achim or even ha-Shem Himself (עיי' למשל ירושלמי סנהדרין פ"י ה"א). Granted the midrashic implications of calling Yosef a shor, it still seems to beg explanation why he should be so called in the same verse which calls resha‘im by the term ish.
B.
In order to answer this question, I intend to expand upon something I wrote two years ago concerning this passage. A short summary of the original dvar Torah follows.
The brothers’ attempt, in Ya‘aqov’s words, to “uproot the ox” was the sale of their brother Yosef into Egyptian slavery: וימכרו את יוסף לישמעאלים בעשרים כסף (“and they sold Yosef to the Yishm‘elim for twenty [pieces of] silver”; XXXVII, 28). If we turn to the Talmud, we find that if one says that he owes a sacrificial animal to the Béyth ha-Miqdash, הרי עלי שור יביא הוא ונכסיו מנהת עגל יביא הוא ונכסיו חמש (“‘I owe an ox’, he brings one which, with its libations, is worth a maneh; a calf, he bring one which with its libations is worth five [sla‘im; Rashi]”; מנחות ק"ז: במשנה ). Elsewhere (בכורות נ. ד"ה קולבון לפרוטרוט) Rashi explains that the Talmudic sela is equivalent to four Biblical pieces of silver (called in Talmudic times dinarin or zuzim). We therefore see that the value of a calf, i.e. a young ox, is 4x5 or 20 pieces of silver, in Biblical terms.
If we now turn to the Rambam we find that a young ox is defined as one between the ages of eight days and one year, whilst an ox aged more than three years is called a zaqén, “elderly” (הל' מעשה הקרבנות פ"א הי"א). That is, a young ox or calf was at most about a third the age of an old one.
Concerning human beings, the mishna tells us בן ששים לזקנה, that one enters into the period of old age at sixty. This means, it seems, that a young man is, at most, a third of sixty, or twenty years old. Note that at the time he was sold, Yosef was seventeen years old (XXXVII, 2), less than a third of ziqna, the human equivalent of a young ox.
This, I suggested, was the real sting of Ya‘aqov’s rebuke: וברצונם עקרו שור,; the brothers had sought to “uproot” their brother by selling him casually and disdainfully at the price of a young animal. The men of Shchem, on the other hand, had been sentenced justifiably, both for the assault on Dina, and then for failing to fulfill their duty as bnei Noach to bring the assailant to justice (עיי' רמב"ם הל' מלכים פ"ט ה"ט וי"ג). They had been treated as human beings.
But there is more.
C.
That Shim‘on and Levi rescued Dina is clear and obvious from the Torah’s text. The same Torah tells us that nine of the brothers were complicit in the plot against Yosef. Why, then. Are Shim‘on and Levi singled out?
The Targum Yonathan to XXXVII, 19-20, tells us that Shim‘on was the instigator of the plot. Although I could find no direct reference to this, I suggested that Levi had been Shim‘on’s partner and confidant, the person whom he addressed before the other brothers became involved.
We established above that ish is sometimes used as a term of exaltation and greatness. What, precisely, does it mean in this application?
We can glean a hint from the mishna, which asserts ובמקום שאין אנשים השתדל להיות איש (‘and in a place where there are no men, try to be an ish” אבוץ פ"ב מ"ה), and Rabbi ‘Ovadya mi-Bartenura clarifies exactly what the function of an ish is in this instance: לישב בראש ולהורות הוראות (“to sit at the headissue rulings”). We see, therefore, that such people as Antigonos ish Socho, Yossi ben Yo‘ezer ish Tzreida, Yossi ben Yochanan ish Yerushalayim, and Rabbi El‘azar ish Bartotha (all mentioned in Avoth) were not merely men from those places, but the rabbinical leaders there.
This was precisely the capacity in which Shim‘on and Levi had acted with regard to the men of Shchem; and what does the Torah say in the verse which the Targum Yonathan picks to tell us of their role in the sale of Yosef? יאמרו איש אל אחיו (“And they said, ish to his brother….”).
D.
The Netziv points out, in his Ha‘améq Davar on our passage (ד"ה כי באפם הרגו איש), that anger (for which the generic term in Hevrew is ka‘as) comes in two varieties, af and ‘evra, both of which find mention in our last verse. Af, he tells us, is sudden blast of temper; though terrible things can result, and one must try to control it, nonetheless it is quickly over, quickly satiated, and usually replaced by shame. ‘Evra, he explains, is the nursed grudge, which goes on long after the initial heat of anger is over. בשעה שנשקע כעסו, אך עבתו שמורה על אותו איש לעשות לו רעה בעת מצוא (“at the time when his anger has died down, but his ‘evra is preserved against that man, to do him harm at an opportune time”). This, Ya‘aqov asserts, is what they had done to Yosef.
It remains to be emphasized that Shim‘on and levi, as well as the others, did complete t’shuva for what they had done to Yosef; demonstrating this was, at least in part, the purpose behind the psychodrama in which Yosef engaged with them, described in the last few parashoth.
What concerned Ya‘aqov, however, was the tendency to act in an angry fashion, whether precipitous in a burst of af, or with premeditation, in ‘evra. The sifrei mussar tell us that even this, generally negative, quality has its uses; as the Netziv continues: בקרב חסידי ישראל נדרש כו' אבל מעט מעט יפה (“amongst the pious of Israel [this quality] is necessary… but a very, very small amount is good”).
For this reason, he decreed, the descendants of Shim‘on and Levi should be scattered amongst the other tribes of Israel, that this quality not be concentrated.
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