Shoftim: 5782 - Rabbi Shimon Zonnenfeld with a wonderful insight on the parsha of the eglah arufah, and the allusion that Yosef sent his father wagons (agolos) which brought about "and the spirit of Yaakov their father was revived." Delivered at the conclusion of the shiur of…

00:02 On a related point, concerning the eglah arufah: it says that the elders must declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood.” Would anyone imagine that the elders shed the blood? Of course not. Why, then, must they say, “Our hands did not shed this blood”? As Rashi explains there, they are declaring that they did not deny him food or an escort, and so on—things whose absence could have led to his death. When the brothers came to Yaakov and told him, “Yosef is still alive,” it says, “His heart went numb, for he did not believe them.” Yaakov Avinu did not believe them. But then, “He saw the wagons that Yosef had sent”—and suddenly he believed. Rashi explains what “he saw the wagons” means. What did they add that made him believe? Yosef had told them, “Give my father a sign: when we parted, the last subject we studied was the eglah arufah.” The explanation is that Yaakov Avinu was concerned that even if Yosef was alive, after so many years in Egypt, the depravity of the land, what kind of Yosef was he now? Who knew what had become of him? Perhaps he had strayed from the path. So what would it mean that he was alive? When he saw the wagons, they reminded him of the passage about the eglah arufah. Yaakov Avinu then understood that Yosef still stood firm in his righteousness. In other words, if Yosef still held on to this idea—that when a person fails to prevent something bad, it is as though he did it himself, and he must declare, “Our hands did not shed this blood”—then Yosef was not only alive physically; he had also remained righteous. That is why Yaakov believed.