Parashas Vayeishev 5773

Much confusion surrounds the selling of Yosef to Egypt. While his brothers first notice a caravan of Yishmaelim coming from Gilad (Beraishis 37:25), Yosef is sold to these Yishmaelim (37:28), and it was from Yishmaelim that Potifar buys him in Egypt (39:1), somehow it was M’danim who sold Yosef to Potifar (37:36), and Midyanim who “passed by” right before he is sold to the Yishmaelim (37:28). If they are the same people, why are they referred to in different ways, and if they are not the same, who actually bought and sold Yosef?

 Rashi (37:28) explains that the Midyanim are not the same group as the Yishmaelim, and the Torah is telling us that Yosef was sold several times; the brothers sell him to the Yishmaelim, who sell him to the Midyanim (or M’danim according to Yalkut Shimoni, one of the Midrashic sources for this explanation), who finally sell him in Egypt. However, this still leaves us with several problems.

 First of all, if the point of the story is how Yosef gets to Egypt, does it matter who brought him down? Why does the Torah have to let us know that there were several parties involved? Also, Rashi (37:25) tells us that the Torah describes the cargo carried by the Yishmaelim (pleasant-smelling spices) in order to show us that Yosef’s trip was made more bearable than it would have been had it been the regular foul-smelling goods that caravans usually carry. However, if the Yishmaelim sold Yosef to the Midyanim, who made the long journey to Egypt, then the cargo of the Yishmaelim is irrelevant. And if it was the M’danim who sold Yosef to Egypt, why are we later told that Potifar bought him from the Yishmaelim?

 Who are the M’danim and the Midyanim? After Sarah died, Avraham married Keturah (25:1), who, Rashi explains, was Hagar (Yishmael’s mother). Two of their sons (25:2) were M’dan and Midyan, and before Avraham passed away he sent them “eastward, to the Eastern Land” (25:6). This was near Padan Aram, which is described as “the Land of the Eastern People” (29:1). Yishmael’s descendants lived nearby as well, as they “dwelled on the face of all of [their] brothers” (28:18). Since Padan Aram was in what is now Syria (northeast of Israel), this was the general area where these three nations lived. The caravan came from that direction, as Gilad is on the way from Padan Aram to Israel (31:23). It would seem that this caravan, while made up primarily of Yishmaelim (see Ramban), was also comprised of Midyanim and M’danim. [It is possible that the M’danim lived in Midyan, and were therefore described as “people of Midyan” (37:28), so that only one group besides the Yishmaelim–the M’danim–was in the caravan.] Rashi (37:28) does say that the Midyanim were a separate caravan, but since these individuals were merchants, they likely traveled close to the Yishmaelim in order to take advantage of their travel experience and the business opportunities each of their stops along the way provided. Borrowing additional pieces (or similar ideas) from some of the commentators, we can try to reconstruct what might have occurred.

 Although originally the brothers (sans R’uvein and Binyamin) had decided to let Yosef die in the pit, upon seeing a caravan of Yishmaelim approaching, they decided to sell him to be a slave in Egypt. Before the caravan approached, the merchants who traveled along with it and were scouting out possible business opportunities came upon Yosef and the brothers, and wanted to buy Yosef as a slave. However, since their objective was to make money, there was no guarantee that these merchants would wait until the caravan reached Egypt before selling Yosef (see the glosses of Rabbi Yitzchak Katz, Maharal’s son-in-law, on Pa’anayach Raza). If Yosef was sold locally rather than in Egypt, it would allow him to remain near his family, thereby defeating the purpose of selling him. Therefore, in order to ensure that Yosef would be brought all the way down to Egypt, the brothers structured the deal in a way that Yosef was sold to the Yishmaelim, who would retain ownership until the caravan reached Egypt, whereby the Midyanite merchants would take over and be able to sell him in Egypt. It was the Midyanite merchants who sold Yosef in Egypt, but only after they bought him from the Yishmaelim in Egypt itself. Perhaps because of the role the Yishmaelim had in the sale (see Or Hachayim), and/or because they had to vouch for the validity of the ownership of the Midyanim (see B’raishis Rabbah 86:3), and/or to make sure we knew that it was the Yishmaelim who brought Yosef all the way down to Egypt (on their caravan), not a separate group, when the Yosef narrative resumes, it is the Yishmaelim who are mentioned in regards to the sale.

 This approach explains the verses, and works with Rashi’s assertion (37:28) that the brothers sold Yosef to the Yishmaelim who sold him to the Midyanim who sold him to Potifar. It assumes that the “M’danim” and the “Midyanim” are the same people (at least for this transaction), and also that “Midyanite men who were merchants” (37:28) describes just one group, a group comprised of “men,” i.e. individuals, not part of the caravan; “Midyanim,” not Yishmaelim; who were “merchants” by trade, and therefore the ones who brokered the deal. We are taught about this multi-layered transaction in order to maintain accuracy, as well as to inform us that Yosef was not mistreated along the way, as he wasn’t owned by the Midyanim until they reached Egypt, and the Yishmaelim were only his caretakers, not his masters. He was with them for the entire trip down to Egypt, so their pleasant-smelling cargo was relevant, but they couldn’t do anything to him that would negate the second half of the deal–his being sold to the Midyanim once they reached Egypt.

Nevertheless, earlier (37:3) Rashi had referenced a Midrash stating that the word PaSIM (ibid) was an acronym for those who bought Yosef; Potifar, the merchants (“Socharim”), the Yishmaelim, and the Midyanim. If the Midyanim weren’t the merchants, it is fair to assume that the M’danim were. Based on this, the group that “passed by” the pit Yosef was in (37:28) was comprised of “men,” i.e. individual Yishmaelim who were looking to do some business besides their normal “transportation business” (the caravan), Midyanim, and merchants, i.e. M’danim. Although we can still fit the bulk of the above explanation with this (the brothers structuring the deal so that no businessmen could take ownership of Yosef until they reached Egypt), we would need to understand why it is important for us to know that there were several groups of businessmen who were interested in buying Yosef, with at least two of them, the M’danite merchants and the Midyanim, owning him before he was sold to Potifar.

When explaining why G-d dispersed the nations into separate lands with distinct languages and cultures (11:7-8), the M’or V’Shemesh writes that because the 70 nations would have constant battles with each other, they wouldn’t unite to try and destroy the Jewish people. Perhaps just as G-d arranged for the caravan that brought Yosef to Egypt to be carrying pleasant-smelling cargo, He also made sure that there were several parties in the caravan who would be interested in owning Yosef. The differences between the peoples create a kind of rivalry among them, and owning this 17-year-old attractive slave (with the rights to sell him once they reach Egypt) was important enough that the discussions (and possibly bickering) between them prevented them from treating him harshly.