GEN1532 Even if you must act harshly toward someone, inwardly you must feel love.   … On the words “Yosef recognized his brother,” Rashi cites the Midrash which notes that when they were handed over to his authority, he recognized them as brothers and therefore had compassion for them, despite their lack of compassion when they sold him.   Rabbi Chayim Shmuelevitz comments that we see the greatness of Yosef from his behavior toward his brothers. He did not want to reveal his true identify to them until they realized and admitted their sin.   Or, as the Kli Yokor says, he wanted their difficult experience in Egypt to serve as an atonement for their having wronged him. But though he outwardly acted gruffly toward them, inwardly he felt compassion.   This is true greatness, for as it is written in Mesilas Yeshorim, “revenge is sweeter than honey.”   It is easier for a person to act kindly toward someone who has harmed him, than to outwardly act harshly, yet inwardly feel love.   PLYN 118-9

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GEN1533 See [[GEN662]] Genesis 9:2 fear GREENBERG 80-1

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GEN1534 This is the proper treatment to accord to departing guests Sanhedrin 103b.   AHAVCH 24

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GEN1535 The rabbis [] sensed an attempt to evade responsibility in the remark of the hapless brothers of Joseph [this verse]. “Thus it is written: ‘The foolishness of man perverteth his way; and against the Lord does he fret.’” Often man is himself responsible for the trouble he is in, yet in his blind rage he will try to hang it on God.  Proverbs 19:3; Ta’anit 9a   SPERO 243

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GEN1536 The notion of caring for other Jews is extended further by the concept that every Jew is responsible for every other Jew.   Shevuot 39a.  This means that a Jew feels the pain of every other Jew.   More than just feeling an obligation to help, this idea signifies that a Jew feels another Jew’s pain and makes it his or her own pain.   Thus, the Midrash Leviticus Rabbah 4:6 says that Jews are compared to sheep because when any limb of a sheep hurts, the sheep’s entire body feels the pain … So, too, when any Jew is in pain, other Jews feel it.  Although Yehudi, Jew, originally meant from the tribe of Judah, it has come to mean the person who exhibited the quality of Judah, which was to stand up to his father and Pharaoh and offer himself in order to save his brother Benjamin.   Genesis Rabbah 98:6.   Every Jew feels the responsibility of caring for every other Jew.  AMEMEI 196

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GEN1537 Compassion is a deep emotional feeling arising out of identification with the other that seeks a concrete expression.   Compassion flows between equals or from the more powerful to the less powerful, as we see in the Torah, where it never expresses human feeling for God.   It does, however, apply to a human king caring for subjects [this verse] and to God caring for humanity.   Deuteronomy 13:18 MORINIS 82

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GEN1538 The moral precepts of Judaism demand that we be compassionate to every soul.   Singled out repeatedly as especially needing our compassion are the poor, widows, orphans, and others in need.   The Torah repeatedly hammers away at our obligation to help those who are vulnerable and needy.   The tradition is so insistent that we be living vessels of compassion that the Talmud Beitzah 32b asserts that “anyone who is not compassionate with people is certainly not a descendant of our forefather Abraham.” … Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, for example, notes the connection between the words rachamim [compassion] and rechem [womb] The Penateuch, this verse and draws the conclusion that we should have compassion in our hearts just as a mother has a loving, emotional bond to the child of her womb.  He writes: “Compassion is the feeling of empathy which the pain of one being of itself awakens in another; and the higher and more human the beings are, the more keenly attuned are they to re-echo the note of suffering which, like a voice from heaven, penetrates the heart.   Horeb 17:125  MORINIS 75-6

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GEN1539 See [[DEUT647]] Deuteronomy 13:18 compassion MORINIS 82

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GEN1540 Concerning the subject of lashon hara [evil speech], our Sages, z”l, further mentioned Arachin 15b that if a woman requests from her neighbor a burning coal from [her] hearth, Isaiah 30:14, and she answers “Where are burning coals if not in the house of so-and-so who is always roasting and eating meat?” – this and the like are avak lashon hara [dust of evil speech] [From the context it seems that it is avak lashon hara because it can led to others taking advantage of so-and-so’s wealth.   Cf. Chafetz Chaim, Laws of Lashon Hara 2:2, which says that it is not avak lashon hara unless her inflections and gestures imply negativity.] Further, the pasuk says Proverbs 27:14, “One who blesses his friend in a loud voice early [each] morning – it will be regarded [as] a curse to him.”   Our Sages Arachin 16a interpreted this pasuk as referring to one who praises another with praise that leads to [financial] loss.  For example, a guest goes out to the [main] city square Esther 4:6 and calls out in a loud voice, telling about his good host’s graciousness, how he slaughtered and prepared meat [this verse] for his guest.   When the guest’s words are heard, idle men will gather and go to the host’s house. [i.e., where they will take advantage of his wealth and hospitality].   GATES 435  

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GEN1541 R. Yehudah said in the name of Rav: “Why was Joseph referred to as ‘bones’ in his lifetime Genesis 50:25? Because he did not protest on behalf of his father’s honor.  For his brothers said: ‘Your servant, our father,’ and he said nothing to them” [in protest that they referred to his father Jacob as Joseph’s servant].   Sotah 13a TEMIMAH-GEN 173

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