Parashat Vayeshev – Honoring Parents in a Situation of Danger

A gutn Shabbos!

Is a son permitted to honor his father when, in order to do so, he puts himself in danger?

And why was Yosef allowed to go out to Shechem and endanger himself for the sake of honoring his father?

Explanation of the question:
In the parasha it says (Bereishit 37:13): “And Yisrael said to Yosef, ‘Are not your brothers pasturing in Shechem? Come, and I will send you to them.’ And he said to him, ‘Here I am.’” And Rashi writes: “‘Here I am’ is an expression of humility and alacrity. He hurried to fulfill his father’s command, even though he knew that his brothers hated him.”

This is difficult: since he knew that his brothers hated him, why was it permitted for him to place himself in danger in order to fulfill the mitzvah of honoring parents? After all, all mitzvot are set aside because of danger to life, except for idolatry, forbidden relations, and bloodshed. And a person is forbidden to give up his life for the fulfillment of the other mitzvot (except in a case where a non‑Jew seeks to force him to abandon the faith; see all the details in Shulchan Aruch, Yoreh De’ah 157:1).

Many commentators have raised this question and offered various explanations. We will mention here several of them:

A. In the sefer Moshav Zekenim by the Baalei HaTosafot it is explained that Shechem was a dangerous place for the brothers, since they had killed all the inhabitants of the city at the time when Dinah was taken. Yaakov wanted to save them from danger, and for the sake of saving others from clear and present danger a person is permitted to enter into possible danger himself. [This halachic principle is not agreed upon by all authorities.]

B. The Ktav Sofer explains that Yosef relied on his dream that he was destined to rule, and therefore it was clear to him that he would not be endangered by this journey. Based on this he explains the words of the brothers when Yosef was approaching them (Bereishit 37:19–20): “And they said one to another, ‘Behold, this dreamer comes. Now therefore come, let us kill him and cast him into one of the pits, and we will say, A wild beast has devoured him; and we shall see what will become of his dreams.’” That is, the brothers understood that Yosef was coming to them because he relied on his dreams as true, and therefore they said: let us see whether his dreams will be fulfilled and he will be saved from our hands.

C. The Or HaChaim explains that Yaakov did not fear the hatred of the brothers because of what Chazal said (Pesachim 8b): “Those who are on a mission of a mitzvah are not harmed.”
In the sefer Shalal David (Zintzheim) he follows this approach as well, but he raises a difficulty: the Gemara (there in Pesachim) says that in a place where danger is close and common, this principle does not apply. Therefore he adds that Yaakov understood that there was no clear, definite danger here, but only a concern of danger, and it is in such a case that the assurance that “those who are on a mission of a mitzvah are not harmed” applies.

In connection with Chazal’s assurance that “those who are on a mission of a mitzvah are not harmed,” we will append here a wondrous story, told by the protagonist himself, the Gaon Rabbi Heikel Milczki zatzal, one of the great sages of Jerusalem.

Rabbi Leib Chasman zatzal had a yeshiva in the town of Stutchin, with three hundred students. Then World War I broke out, and great chaos descended upon all aspects of life: the economy and commerce were ruined, public services collapsed, and the yeshiva suffered the same fate. All of its students had to leave and return home, and many Jewish families in Stutchin also took up the wanderer’s staff and moved elsewhere. Only three bachurim remained in the yeshiva, and one of them was the young Heikel Milczki.

Because of the war, army units were constantly on the move, and it happened that a large camp of Russian soldiers encamped near Stutchin. On the eve of one Yom Kippur, as Reb Heikel was walking along one of the streets of the town, a soldier in uniform approached him and whispered in his ear: “I see you are a yeshiva bachur, and I can rely on you.” And he said: “I am a Jew, and with me there are another seventeen Jewish soldiers serving in the nearby army camp. Last night I heard that tomorrow, in the very midst of Yom Kippur, the entire camp is to move to a different location.” Tears stood in the soldier’s eyes as he added: “You certainly understand how many difficulties and dangers we endure every day, and how much we all long to leave the army. But now that we have learned that on this holy day we must march with the camp and will not be able to pray and fulfill the mitzvot of the day, we have decided that we can no longer bear it. It therefore occurred to us that, in the tumult of the camp’s preparations for departure, we can hide somewhere in the town, and the next morning, when all the companies are occupied with moving out, they will not notice that we are missing, and we will be able to desert and flee.” “And what can I do?” asked Heikel. “We need you to find us a safe place to hide,” the soldier answered, “and we also need civilian clothes. Only in that way will we be able to go out into the street without it immediately being obvious that we are deserters.”

Heikel decided to help him and directed him to an abandoned synagogue that stood next to the Jewish cemetery at the edge of town. He told him: “The women’s gallery in the synagogue is neglected and full of piles of dust; go up there and hide. Of course, do not come all together—each one of you should come alone in a way that does not arouse attention. I will bring you civilian clothes there, and then you will be able to go out safely.”
The young Heikel immediately set out to act: he went around the town from house to house—one person gave him a suit, another a hat. In this way he ran about the whole day and did not even manage to eat the pre‑fast meal, until he had gathered all the clothes that were needed.

The soldiers, for their part, acted with every possible precaution: they came to the place one by one, hid in the women’s gallery, and when Heikel arrived with the bundle of clothes, they all hurried to change into civilian garb. After he had completed his part, Heikel wanted to return to town to pray in the synagogue the Kol Nidrei service. But the soldiers implored him with great emotion: “No, do not leave us; we are afraid to stay here alone.” Heikel’s heart was moved, and he decided to remain with them there. A problem arose, however: they could not light any lamps, so as not to attract attention to the place, and how could one pray in such conditions? Nonetheless, for the sake of the mitzvah of saving lives, he decided that he would recite by heart those parts of the prayers that he remembered. After the prayers he lay down there to sleep together with the deserter soldiers.

In the middle of the night they all awoke in alarm; loud noise and crying filled the town. From listening to the sounds they understood that one of the soldiers, who lived in Stutchin, had chosen not to come with the others to the synagogue, but to hide in his parents’ home. Soldiers from the camp who passed by recognized him and came to look for him in the middle of the night, arrested him, and his sentence was immediately set as death. Heikel and the other soldiers were seized with fear and understood that they would now search for the rest of the fugitives as well, and a mortal danger hovered over them all.

Heikel did not allow fear to paralyze him. He immediately rose and said: “First of all we must cover our tracks, to prevent the possibility of identifying those who are here. Therefore we must get rid of all your uniforms.” The solution that came to his mind was to bury the uniforms in the nearby cemetery, in one of the graves that had already been dug. The soldiers packed the thick uniforms into three large bundles, and Heikel slipped quietly out of the synagogue to the nearby graves; three times he went out to bury them. But as he was finishing the task, and was on his way back for the third time to the women’s gallery, he suddenly heard the sound of approaching horses’ hooves.

Heikel knew well what fierce soldiers these were, and he understood that there was no natural chance of escaping alive from such danger. For a brief moment he looked around and found a small wooded area and tried to hide there. He curled up and pressed himself together as much as he could, and meanwhile he began to recite Vidui (the confession). The soldiers, who had noticed human footprints there, opened a search, and in a short time they reached him. In an instant a shower of bullets swept the whole place; dozens of bullets whistled over his head and from all sides, and only by a miracle did none of them hit him. After the shooting, the Cossacks split up in pairs and searched the area with lanterns, and within a few minutes they found him hiding under a tree.

Here another miracle occurred: instead of shooting him on the spot, the soldiers decided to bring him to the commander. The commander immediately burst out at him with roars: “You are a spy! Who else would wander around such a place at three in the morning? There is no doubt. We will cut you to pieces!”

Heikel, who had not lost his faith, turned to the commander and said: “I must explain to you why I am here.” The commander refused to listen and said: “What stories are you telling me? I already know these Jews with their excuses. I do not want to hear.”

But Heikel continued speaking calmly and said: “Sir, commander, in any case I am in your hands; you can do with me whatever you wish, but I want you first to hear what happened.” The commander relented and listened, and Heikel said: “One of the women of the town lost her child today; the child died. The mother could not control her emotions; her soul was bound up with the child’s soul. She threw herself on the dead body and began to weep with unending sobs. When I saw this, I feared that if she continued in this way she might die from sorrow. I came to the conclusion that we must save this woman, and there is only one way to do so: to remove the child’s body from the house and bring it to burial. But who would be willing, at such a late hour, to take on such a task? And who would even be out on the street at such a time? Therefore I decided to bury the child myself.”

Although Heikel knew that he had no child’s body to show the commander, he thought to himself that in this way he would gain time and open a path for salvation.

The commander refused to believe the story, but Heikel persuaded him that the child was buried in the nearby cemetery and that the commander could easily check the truth of the story. After some back‑and‑forth the commander agreed to go into the cemetery and see the buried child with his own eyes. “Come, show me the child,” the commander said, “but if it turns out that you lied, I will kill you on the spot.” The commander mounted his horse, and Heikel trudged behind him on foot. After a few steps the commander stopped and again threatened: “If you do not prove your story, I will tear you to pieces with the sword in my hand.” They walked a few more steps, and suddenly the commander said: “I see that your words are true. You are a brave soldier and a good man; you endangered your life to care for a broken‑hearted mother. I too have a mother who worries about me. You are free!” The commander immediately called a soldier to take Heikel back to town on horseback. The search for the deserter soldiers ceased, and at midday the townspeople heard that the camp had left the area, and the Jewish soldiers were saved.

Rabbi Heikel relates: “When my teacher and master, the Gaon Rabbi Leib Chasman, came up to the Land of Israel and lodged at the Vershavsky Hotel, I went up to him and, in the course of our conversation, I told him with great emotion about the chain of miracles that I had witnessed: that I was caught only after I no longer had the uniforms in my hands; about the bullets that did not hit me; about the soldiers who did not kill me; about the commander who, by a miracle, was convinced by my story and freed me; and about all the soldiers who escaped alive. Rabbi Leib listened to the entire story, and when I finished, he asked me politely: ‘Heikel, have you finished what you wanted to say?’ ‘Yes,’ I replied. Then Rabbi Leib stretched out both his hands, took my hands, and said in a tone of wonder: ‘Why are you so amazed at your story? Is it not an explicit Gemara: “Those who are on a mission of a mitzvah are not harmed, neither on their way out nor on their way back”?’”