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Shimon, Levi and Starting Over

By: Rav Yamin Goldsmith

The Gemara in Bava Batra 73b records a number of fascinating stories that happened to Rabbah bar bar Channa. Among them, he records an incident when he and his fellow travelers spent some time on what they thought was an island only to discover otherwise….

זימנא חדא הוה קא אזלינן בספינתא וחזינן ההוא כוורא דיתבא ליה חלתא אגביה וקדח אגמא עילויה סברינן יבשתא היא וסלקינן ואפינן ובשלינן אגביה וכד חם גביה אתהפיך ואי לאו דהוה מקרבא ספינתא הוה טבעינן
Once we were travelling on board a ship and saw a fish whose back was covered with sand out of which grew grass. Thinking it was dry land we went up and baked, and cooked, upon its back. When, however, its back was heated, it turned, and had not the ship been nearby we would have drowned.

When their reality quite literally was upended, Rabbah bar bar Channa had to scramble quickly in order to find safety.

Very often in life we also think we are on solid ground only to find out that our world is turned upside down. Tanach has many examples of lives changing quickly; being on terra firma one moment, and, in the next moment, being forced to scramble and to react (e.g. the death of Sarah Imeinu, the brothers on their return home only to find money - and, later, the goblet, the death of Eli Hacohen, etc.).

Our parsha, at least for two of the brothers, provides an example of this sudden turn of events and the various reactions to such an upheaval.

As Yaakov assembles his children and grandchildren for his end-of-life brachot, many of the gathered family receive most beautiful brachot. Ephraim and Menashe, for example, are told “בְּךָ יְבָרֵךְ יִשְׂרָאֵל”; Reuven is blessed “רְאוּבֵן בְּכֹרִי אַתָּה, כֹּחִי וְרֵאשִׁית אוֹנִי”. The blessings to Yehuda are even more detailed:
אַתָּה יוֹדוּךָ אַחֶיךָ--יָדְךָ, בְּעֹרֶף אֹיְבֶיךָ; יִשְׁתַּחֲווּ לְךָ, בְּנֵי אָבִיךָ. גּוּר אַרְיֵה יְהוּדָה, מִטֶּרֶף בְּנִי עָלִיתָ

However, for Shimon and Levi, their “island” is overturned as they receive painful rebuke from their father. Referring, according to Rashi, to Shimon and Levi’s concerted efforts to kill Yosef (see Rashi here and to Bereishit 42:24) and their attack on Sh’chem (see Bereishit 34) Yaakov conveys a very negative message to the pair (49:5-7):

שִׁמְעוֹן וְלֵוִי, אַחִים--כְּלֵי חָמָס, מְכֵרֹתֵיהֶם. בְּסֹדָם אַל-תָּבֹא נַפְשִׁי, בִּקְהָלָם אַל-תֵּחַד כְּבֹדִי כִּי בְאַפָּם הָרְגוּ אִישׁ, וּבִרְצֹנָם עִקְּרוּ-שׁוֹר. אָרוּר אַפָּם כִּי עָז, וְעֶבְרָתָם כִּי קָשָׁתָה; אֲחַלְּקֵם בְּיַעֲקֹב, וַאֲפִיצֵם בְּיִשְׂרָאֵל
Shimon and Levi are brothers, a pair; instruments of crime are their weapons. Let my soul not enter their plot; let my honor not unite with their meeting - for they have killed men with anger, maimed a bull with their will. (i.e. Yosef).Cursed be their rage, for it is fierce, and their fury, for it is cruel. I will disperse them in Jacob, scatter them in Israel.

One can only imagine how these brothers - operating as a pair for as long as we can remember - felt after hearing their identical, negative bracha. We would expect them to react similarly, even identically, as they have their whole lives.

But that is not the case.

Shimon and Levi, from that point forward, have different reactions and create for themselves and for their descendants disparate destinies.

Shimon seems to have understood that all is lost and, it seems at face value, to be unable to recover from such a distressing experience. We hear almost nothing from Shimon nor from his tribe after this experience. They do indeed get “dispersed” and “scattered” as their population decreases throughout the 40 years in the desert and, by the time they enter Eretz Yisrael, their land becomes subsumed in the Yehuda’s land. At the end of Torah, when Moshe gives the Sh’vatim his end-of-life brachot in Parshat V’zot Habracha, Shimon does not even receive a bracha at all!

Levi, on the other hand, reacts to the rebuke in the absolute opposite direction. He seems to have used this “overturned island” as mussar to change his life around and to alter his tribe’s destiny. He becomes the progenitor of some the most important leaders in B’nei Yisrael including Moshe, Aharon, Miriam and Pinchas. Shevet Levi would go on to serve in the Mishkan and the Beit Hamikdash. They too, like Shimon, are “dispersed and scattered” around Israel but in a positive way: they receive the 48 Levi cities in order to teach Torah as Moshe foretells (Devarim 33:10):
יוֹרוּ מִשְׁפָּטֶיךָ לְיַעֲקֹב, וְתוֹרָתְךָ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל

The difference between Shimon and Levi’s reaction to crisis is remarkable.

We too have our experiences of “overturning islands,” of encountering sudden changes in our reality that call into question the stability of our lives. The question is not whether crises such as these will occur. The challenge is rather how we react to adversity and hardship. Will we view these challenges as barriers where we surrender and capitulate? Or do we take these encounters as a wakeup call giving us the opportunity to change the direction our lives are taking? The choice is ours.