Yosef told the brothers not to worry that they had sold him; it was for the best that Hashem had sent him to Egypt. Yet Chazal say that ten great sages were killed as punishment for the crime of selling him. Why? Because, explains Rabbenu Bechaya, Yosef never forgave his brothers. This needs explaining; if he realized it was all Hashem’s plan to save them, why didn’t he forgive them?
The answer, it seems, is that forgivingness is difficult to attain, even when we know logically that it’s right to forgive. Some of our sages were known to ask people who asked them forgiveness for a week or two, that they may bring themselves to forgive. Its not so simple!
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