Teaching Chumash | Uri Kestenbaum

Topic: The Man Who Found Yosef (Bereishit, 37:15)

Rashi

The man is actually Gavriel the

Malach. This is the interpretation of
the Tanchuma and we should not
veer from the added information
that Chazal supply us with. In fact,
without this information, the
passuk would be somewhat
extraneous. Why would we need to
know exactly what happened along
the path to Yosefs brothers? By
stating that the man was a Malach
we can see that Hashem was
guiding Yosef to find his brothers.
We see that this encounter was
part of Hashems overarching
decree of sending the Jews down to
Mitzrayim (See Gur Aryeh on
Rashi).

Rashb
am

Ibn
Ezr
a

The Torah describes Yosef losing his way to impress upon us his
righteousness. Even though Yosef knew his brothers were jealous of
him he still pursued them despite getting lost. We need not resort to
explanations that arent congruent with the simple understanding of
the passuk. To interpret a man as the angel Gavriel is a stretch of
the words that seems forced into the passuk rather than working
from the passuk out. We can amply dismiss our issues with the
passuk without resorting to such interpretations.

The man was simply a passerby. We should not move from the simplicity
of the text. We need not concern ourselves with explanations of why the
Torah included one passage or omitted another. This type of
omnisignificance is not the correct way to study Chumash.

Ramb
an

Rad
ak

We see the greatness of Yosef in his pursuit of his brothers despite

getting lost. In addition, Hashem arranged that Yosef should find
someone to lead him along the right path. This is what Chazal mean
when they say the man was an angel. He was an angel in the sense
that he was Heaven-sent. We can interpret the passuk in an intuitive
sense combining simple pshat and derush to arrive at a cohesive
understanding. We neednt ignore Chazals interpretations as
Rashbam does, nor should we welcome the derush literally, as Rashi
does.

After arriving in Shechem and not finding any trace of his brothers,
Yosef went in all directions to see if he could find them, and in the
process he lost his way. We dont need to investigate who or why the
man found him like Rashi, Rashbam and Ramban. The Biblical narrative
is just that a narrative. Not every word has to have a significant
meaning behind it and we may look at the passuk in its raw, natural
sense.

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