Reuven's Teshuvah and Yosef's Disappearance

1The Midrash says: “‘The boy is gone, and I, where shall I go?’ [Bereishis 37:30]: with the incident of Bilhah.” This is puzzling: what does Yosef's disappearance have to do with Bilhah? We can explain it by the Midrash on “Reuven returned to the pit” [Bereishis 37:29]: Where had he been? Busy with his sackcloth and his fasting over the sin of the Bilhah incident [Bereishis Rabbah 84:19]. In truth, in every act of teshuvah a person must look and examine carefully whether, Heaven forbid, some trace of sin might grow out of his very teshuvah. For “around Him it storms (nis'arah) greatly” [Tehillim 50:3], and Chazal expound that the Holy One, blessed be He, is exacting with the tzaddikim to a hair's breadth (se'arah) (Bava Kamma 50a). When Reuven came back to the pit and saw that the boy was gone, his thoughts began to wander. Perhaps, had he been with them, he would have taken Yosef out of the pit as soon as they left and returned him to his father, and Yosef would be alive. So it was through his teshuvah that Yosef had been torn apart, and through it he had caused all that followed. So it arose in his heart, as is the way of tzaddikim. He therefore understood that his teshuvah was not complete and acceptable, since such a sin had grown out of it. That is why he said, “Where shall I go” with the incident of Bilhah. Consider this carefully.

2To soften this further, we can say that it was from the Bilhah incident itself that this grew, since that sin was what compelled him to his sackcloth and fasting. Consider this carefully. (From the author's handwritten manuscript.)