Why Yosef Risked Being Alone with His Brothers

1The Midrash on this parshah says (Bereishis Rabbah 93:9), on “Remove everyone from before me” [Bereishis 45:1]: “R' Chama bar Chanina said: Yosef did not act properly. Had one of them kicked him, he would have died at once. R' Shmuel bar Nachman said: He acted fittingly and properly. He knew his brothers' righteousness, and said, Heaven forbid! My brothers are not suspected of bloodshed.” At first glance, R' Chama bar Chanina's view is hard to understand. Did Yosef not recognize his brothers' righteousness?

2But perhaps it was like this. When the tribes of Israel, the twelve tribes of Hashem, gathered together then, the unification above was completed in full. As is known about the unification of the Divine attributes, when the lights strike against one another, the light of chessed, kindness, comes out from between them and spreads through the world. As the Midrash says (Bereishis Rabbah 84:17) on “They sat down to eat bread” [Bereishis 37:25]: “The sin of the tribes is remembered forever, yet it is a hope for the world. ‘They sat down to eat bread’: through this, Hashem feeds bread to all who come into the world.” So Yosef had to consider that “God has made one opposite the other” [Koheles 7:14], and the sitra achara, the side of impurity, would gain strength to match, Heaven forbid. He had to fear that one of his brothers might give up his own standing and kick him, so that the unification would not be complete, and the sitra achara and the accusers would not gain so much strength to match it, Heaven forbid. But in truth, “One is she, My dove, My perfect one... maidens saw her and acclaimed her; queens and concubines, and they praised her” [Shir HaShirim 6:9].