ספר בראשית

Genesis 42,12. “he said to them: ‘no but you have come ‎to reveal the weak (exposed) parts of the land.’” ‎‎[In order to understand what follows, the reader must ‎first refer to the concept of the “fallen sparks of the Shechinah” ‎discussed on page 21. Ed.] Joseph, i.e. the ruler of Egypt, ‎aware that if the brothers had intended to elevate him spiritually, ‎they themselves would look very bad by comparison to him ‎seeing that they had been guilty of selling their own brother into ‎slavery, added the adjective ‎ערוה‎, “the shameful aspects of the ‎land of Egypt,” instead of merely saying: “you have come to spy ‎out the land.” This would make even his spiritual elevation more ‎problematic. [The words ‎ערוה‎ and ‎ערלה‎ are closely related, ‎as before the circumcision which enables the body to attain a ‎degree of holiness, the male Jewish body is defined as ‎ערלה‎, ‎‎“totally foreskin,” always seen as a something despicable. ‎Ed.] According to our author, the brothers told the “King ‎of Egypt,” that if he thought that they were able to bring about ‎his spiritual elevation at this stage he was sadly mistaken, as it ‎required the presence of all twelve brothers, as their ‎youngest brother was still in the land of Canaan. They added that ‎even if the youngest brother were to be here, seeing that one of ‎their number had been missing for a long time they would not ‎possess that power until he too were here. [What might ‎have prompted the brothers to think in these terms may have ‎been that they had heard of how this ruler of Egypt had ‎miraculously risen to power, having no former claim to fame. ‎They saw in this an act of G’d, possibly preparatory to this ruler’s ‎achieving further greatness if assisted by the sons of Yaakov. ‎Ed.] This approach sounds more plausible when we ‎consider a statement of our sages that during the 22 years that ‎Yaakov and Joseph were separated, Yaakov never experienced the ‎presence of holy spirit. (Aggadat B’reshit 69) As long as such ‎holy spirit did not rest on one of their number, their power as ‎intermediaries to the celestial domain was blocked. They indicated ‎that as soon as it would be G’d’s will to remedy this temporary ‎‎“spiritual blackout,” they could be of assistance to what they ‎perceived to be the ruler’s desire. [I have “fleshed out”, ‎what the author barely hints at. Ed.]‎