Yesterday we discussed how the sin of the spies , when they came back with libelous reports on Eretz Yisrael, parallels the sin of the sale of Yosef by his brothers. W e will explain this further , but first we have to understand how the brothers, ten great Sadi kim , c ould sell their brother . Imagine the greatest rabbis of our time , whom everyone gets blessings from, getting together to sell the eleventh Rosh Yeshiva! Impossible ! But the Seforno tells us in Bereshit (37, 25) that the brother s considered Yosef a Rodef /a danger to the Jewish people. How so? Looking back at history, Avraham had a son, Yishmael, who was distanced. Yitzhak also had a son- Essav, who was distanced. Now, Yaakov was seemingly choosing Yosef as his continuation and distancing the brothers. And Yosef was speaking Lashon Hara about them. The y therefore deemed Yosef a threat to the Jewish people. Furthermore, Yaakov Avinu was teaching Yosef the teachings of Shem V’Ever - these were special teachings with a tradition that it is what would be needed to survive Galut . They knew that the Jewish people would to go down to Mitzrayim. Not Esav, because he would not be a continuation - only Yaakov. But to the brothers, it now seemed that only Yosef would be going down to Egypt, because only he was being taught the special teachings of Shem V’Ever ( which Yaakov Avinu was taught when he was going to his Galut , when Esav was chasing him). The facts seemed to lean towards their theory - that Yosef was indeed a threat to them. In actuality , however , Rabbi Y aakov Kamenetsky explains that Yo sef was taught these teachings because only Yosef would be in Egypt , alone without his brothers and his family. Only he would need that special learning. On the other hand , the brothers would come to an existing Yeshiva set up by Yehuda . Nobody knew the facts, including Yaakov (o therwise , he would have known that Yosef was alive) but God orchestrated th ings in a way that Yosef got the teachings that he was supposed to get. The brothers were really imagining the story that Yosef was a threat to the Jewish people , but based on the fact s that they seemed to have , they were right. This repeated itself with the sin of the spies. Yehoshua was Moshe Rabbenu‘s trusted student, and Moshe prayed that God should save him from the plot of the spies. Simply , this means that he was afraid that Yehoshua would get caught up in their web , with the libelous report. But the question is, why would Moshe Rabbenu only pray for his one student , why not pray for everybody? Th e Hida explains , based on a Rishon, that Moshe wasn’t afraid that Yehoshua would join the spies, he was afraid that the spies would kill Yehoshua! Why? Because it was the same story repeating itself. Yehoshua was a threat. They knew that Moshe Rabbenu was going to die , and that Yehoshua was going to take over. They thought, “ Of course Yehoshua wants to go to Israel, even though it’s dangerous for us, because he wants to be the leader. Therefore he is a threat to the Jewish people. ” Yehoshua’s life was in danger, from the same kind of story - a misunderstanding . They did not have a whole story. So again, history repeat ed itself. And this will continue until we get the lesson that we don’t have the whole story.