Yosef's brothers went to graze their father's sheep in Shechem. [Yakov] said to Yosef, "Aren't your brothers grazing the sheep in Shechem? Come, let me send you to them." Yosef replied, "Here I am, ready to do your will!"

(Bereishit 37:12-13)

When considering the circumstances of Yosef's sale, many people are bothered by a nagging question. Yakov was aware of the tremendous jealousy which Yosef's brothers harbored towards him for reporting their actions to their father in the past (see Rashi, Bereishit 37:10, s.v. "Vayig'ar Bo"). Why did he not foresee that the brothers might take advantage of this opportunity to give vent to their jealousy? Should his ten strong brothers try to harm him, Yosef would be defenseless! Did Yakov not realize the perils of sending Yosef alone on this mission?

In fact, there is a principle in Torah law (Mishna Berura 603:4), which states that if one sends a friend on a mission and the friend is killed (in a manner unrelated to the mission) during the course of performing the task, then it is appropriate for the sender to repent for his friend's death. The sender is considered culpable to some extent although he merely sent him on an unrelated mission. Certainly in the case at hand, where Yakov sent his son into a situation that he *knew* to be perilous, Yakov should be held responsible for what befell Yosef! How could Yakov have committed such a grave mistake in judgment?

It is noteworthy that when the news of Yosef's supposed death reached Yakov, Yakov responded by saying, "Now I will certainly go to Gehinnom [= purgatory] in my mourning" (Bereishit 37:35). Yakov should have simply said, "I will mourn eternally for my son" -- why did he mix in Gehinnom? (See Rashi ad loc., s.v. "Avel She'ola.) Perhaps we may suggest that Yakov was concerned about the very principle mentioned above. He had sent someone on a dangerous mission, and his emissary was (he thought) killed by a wild animal. According to the above principle, Yakov -- the sender -- still bears guilt for the death. (Pa'aneach Raza and Chizkuni, loc. cit.)

In any event, it remains to be answered; how could Yakov have sent Yosef alone to his brothers when he knew how much they hated him? A closer analysis of the verses may lead us to an answer to this puzzle.

The answer to this question may lie in the fact that the Patriarchs, as we are told in many places, were very conscientious about not taking anything that did not belong to them. They were careful to graze their flocks only on property which belonged to them, or in the wilderness (see Rashi to Bereishit 13:7 and 24:10). It is true that Yakov was living in Hebron at the time, but his own grazing land and the wilderness in the area of Hebron may have become depleted. It may be that Yakov was forced to seek other pastures for his flocks. We know that while Yakov was living in Shechem, he bought the property on which he was encamped (Bereishit 33:19). If so, perhaps that is the reason he sent his sons to graze the flocks in Shechem; there he owned private property. He could allow the animals to graze without any fear of committing theft, and his children would have a home nearby(-Yakov's Shechem homestead).

If Yakov owned land in Shechem, he would certainly not have left it unattended when he moved to Hebron. That would have been an invitation to squatters and a waste of productive land. Clearly, he must have left some of his many servants in Shechem. There Yakov owned property. If this was indeed the case, then when the brothers went to graze in Shechem they would have been grazing in the company of Yakov's servants, who would be with them to help with the flocks. Furthermore, the brothers would have necessarily been accompanied by some of the servants wherever they were grazing the sheep. Only the servants who lived there full-time would have been certain which fields either belonged to Yakov or were ownerless, and which fields belonged to someone else.

Now we can understand why Yakov felt safe sending Yosef to Shechem even though the brothers were filled with animosity towards Yosef. Yakov knew that the brothers would be constantly in the presence of Yakov's servants, who would be able to keep an eye on Yosef. The brothers would be afraid to harm Yosef in the presence of their father's servants lest they report the matter back to Yakov.

This may be what Yakov was hinting at when he said, "*Aren't* your brothers grazing in Shechem?" He did not simply state, "Your brothers are grazing in Shechem," but rather he asked rhetorically, "*Aren't* they grazing in Shechem." In other words, "If they were in the open pastures near Hebron, I would be afraid to send you. Were you to find them there, you would be alone with them, and vulnerable. But since they are grazing in Shechem, they are certain to be accompanied by my servants. My servants will be there to watch over you, and your brothers will be afraid to harm you. Therefore I can send you with confidence to Shechem!"

Rashi tells us (Bereishit 37:12) that the brothers did not go to Shechem only to graze their sheep. They went to "graze themselves" as well -- to eat and drink and enjoy themselves. Thus they did not actually remain with the sheep in Shechem the entire time. In fact, they do not seem to have been with the sheep when Yosef met them. The sheep are not mentioned at all at the time of their meeting. The sheep were presumably left with the servants in Shechem.

When Yakov first sent Yosef on his mission, he told Yosef to check up on "the welfare of his brothers and of the sheep." When Yosef first arrived in Shechem he saw the sheep, but he did not find his brothers. Thus, he felt it necessary to go to look for them. (Although his father had made the introductory remark, "Aren't your brothers grazing in Shechem?" Yosef felt compelled to seek them out even though they had moved from Shechem. A source for this reaction can be found in Gittin 65a, where we are told that if a man tells his friend, "Give this document of divorce to my wife, she can be found in such-and-such a place," the carrier of the document may present the wife with the document *anywhere* that he finds her. The husband only mentioned the location "as a pointer" -- "you'll probably find her here, but you may give her the divorce document elsewhere as well." He did not mean to limit the location of the divorce to that particular place. So too, Yosef felt that his father had mentioned Shechem only as a pointer. Yakov did not mean to limit the search to Shechem alone.)

However, as Rashi tells us (Bereishit 37:14), everything which befell Yosef at this point was predestined. Hashem had already decreed that Yosef would be sold to Egypt, in order to pave the way for the Egyptian Exile (Bereishit 15:13).

Yakov had calculated correctly that in the natural course of events the brothers would have been unable to harm Yosef -- either because of the presence of the servants, or because Yosef would be unable to find them. However, when Yosef went looking for his brothers, he *happened* to meet a man in the field. The man told him that he *happened* to overhear the brothers saying that they were going to Dotan (Bereishit 37:15,17). There was no reason for them to have told this stranger where they were going; he just *happened* to overhear it. As a result of this seemingly chance encounter, Yosef was able to locate his brothers in Dotan. (Rashi, in fact, tells us that the stranger Yosef met was none other than the angel Gavriel. This can either be taken literally, or it can be taken to imply that the man was a tool of Hashem's Providence for bringing about an otherwise unlikely course of events.) Yosef went to Dotan to find his brothers. When he found them, he was all alone -- and that is how he ended up as a slave on a caravan headed towards Egypt.

"A man makes for himself many calculations, but the will of Hashem shall prevail!" (Mishlei 19:21)