Page 176 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Brothers and problems

his sheep fed and get rid of his daughter, the old maid Leah—who
some say had pinkeye and acne.
And what happened to Jacob’s brood? Here, no property or
wealth was concerned, but just because Father showed a little more
affection to the youngest boy Joseph, his life was at stake. They were
ready to kill him, but one of the brothers was against the death
penalty because it would have made a bad impression on society, so
he convinced his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery for a shekel. It
turned the old man gray in one day; he could not forget his favorite
son, and he suffered the rest of his life. It would not have affected
him so much if the boy had died at home of a childhood disease, but
to have been eaten up by a leopard or other wild animal is a terrible
tragedy.
In Egypt the same thing happened among the ruling class.
Although it is not detailed in their hieroglyphic language and in
literature, we can be sure there were kings whose sons were jealous,
each one wanting to sit on the high chair. When the Israelites settled
in Palestine after wandering through the desert for forty years, as
soon as David organized the first government, became ruler, married,
and had quite a few sons, what happened was animosity between
Absalom, Adoniyah, Solomon, and the others. Plots and counterplots
and counter-counterplots. The mothers joined in too in the scramble.
Solomon grabbed the kingdom and with his guards protected himself
against his brothers. It happened in Rome to the Romans, in Greece
to the Greeks, and throughout history we find the same thing. In
Denmark we have it documented by Shakespeare in Hamlet, where
one brother poisoned the other brother, Hamlet’s father.
As brothers, Ben and I got along very well, but when brothers are
married, their interest is in their family circle and they become more
distant from each other. In one of the psalms of David, the psalmist,
who probably had his own family trouble, praises with great
expression the phenomenal occurrence of brotherly love in these
words: “Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to
dwell together in unity.” The psalmist talks about dwelling in unity,
but he surely did not have in mind married brothers dwelling
together in one house. It was our great mistake to buy a house and
live together in it. When two women of unequal temperament and
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