"An eye for an eye" is arguably the most misunderstood Jewish commandment. Most condemn it as too harsh, some praise it as just, but few cared to actually read it. This commandment applies to the narrow class of situations only rather than to all crimes.
It is indeed odd to imagine that ancient Hebrews diligently pulled out a tooth of someone who kicked out a tooth. Realizing the impracticality of such strictly defined reciprocity, sages reinterpreted it as monetary compensation: a tooth' value for a tooth kicked out. That, too, ran into practical difficulties: what is a tooth's value? Obviously, the value of the last tooth is greater than of the 32nd tooth. A lost tooth doesn't diminish one's "reference value" at slave market. A bruise, which is temporary, doesn't affect one's permanent value at all, and so the sages declared a bruise value to be a price someone would ask to willingly suffer such bruise. That definition, too, is unworkable, as a rich man and a poor one would value the bruise widely differently, thus defying the common legal guidelines. Besides all of that, there is no hint in the Torah that "an eye for an eye" should be understood figuratively, as some sort of compensation.

The difficulty evaporates when we realize that "an eye for an eye" principle only applies to exemplary punishment in the very specific situation. In such rare cases, reciprocal corporal punishment could be feasibly carried out.

The lawgiver makes his intention known by starting the Laws section (Exodus 21) with rules about Hebrew slaves. Now, that's exceedingly strange. Judaism is about laws and justice, and the Laws section is a centerpiece of the Book of Exodus, literally the central (middle) chapter of the scroll. We would expect the laws to start with major themes, such as life and murder. But eleven opening verses of the Laws detail the rights of Hebrew slaves.

Those rights were exceedingly generous even by the nineteenth century C.E. norms, let alone the ancient world's habits. Slavery of Hebrews was limited to six years. Slave girls were to be treated on par with wives.

What's the point? In the opening lines, the Laws immediately shock the reader into the entirely different moral reality. The Hebrews must isolate themselves from the old habits: from barbarity of neighboring tribes, brutality of Egypt, even from the inbuilt human egoism. At this point, Hebrews are commanded to abandon the natural human behavior of exploiting their compatriots to the utmost extent feasible. They are told to care about the most vulnerable members of their society, Hebrew slaves.

It is not that caring of Hebrew slaves is the major civil law, but it relates the major legal principle, "Love your [Hebrew] neighbor as thyself." That principle is not merely a moral piece, but a fully actionable law.

The Laws section then proceeds with common legal issues.

Murder of a man is generally punishable with execution (Exodus 21:12). In case of premeditated murder, there can be no excuses whatsoever (21:14); the intent to murder a fellow Jew undermines the society's very basis.

There is a legal innovation: manslaughter, voluntary or otherwise, is not punishable; the offender can find refuge among Levites and later in specially designated towns. The only criterion is whether the offender waited for his victim to kill. In Jewish law, generally only actions matter rather than intentions. Why this case is different, why one murder is different from another? Even the nicer modern legal system punishes for manslaughter. The reason is to be seen in the opening verses on the treatment of Hebrew slaves. In such a compassionate society, unpremeditated murder must be presumed unintentional, purely an accident which does not call for punishment.

The murderer fled to a place of refuge, but what about his clan or immediate family? In barbarian societies, they would be targeted for vendetta. Jewish law, however, contains no hint of preventing vendetta, suggesting that it was non-existent in the society. Absence of collective (clan-level) or extrajudicial retribution testifies to the Hebrews' high morality and law obedience. The law was not idealistic, but successfully converted the throng into the perfect society.

Contrary to the common misunderstanding of "an eye for an eye," bruises incurred in fights among men are not subject to retribution, but merely compensated. Exodus 21:18-19, "And when [the] men would squabble, and the man will hit his neighbor with stone or fist, and he will not die but lie in bed: If he rise up and walk outside [his house] on a support, then cleansed [from the guilt of murder] will be the one who hit, only gives [for] his idleness and shall treat, treat."

The period of acceptable illness is any. The lawgiver didn't forget specifying the period, as it is explicitly mentioned in the following verse on beating slaves.

A good reason for not treating a fighting injury as a criminal offense is that both sides are guilty: they equally participated in fight. So there is no punishment per se, but merely compensation of lost earnings and medical expenses.

The law is careful to clarify that any squabble suffices to exonerate the offender. There need not be a fight, but merely a squabble.

Now we know the punishment for murder (execution) and any injuries incurred in a squabble (compensation). What about the injuries inflicted without a fight: by surprising one's opponent or where one man is clearly stronger than another? In such situations, murder is a more likely outcome. Or, we may apply a fortiori argument: if the injuries incurred in a squabble (where both men are equally involved) are compensated, then all the more the injuries incurred in a surprise attack should be compensated. Fully conforming to the liberal ideal, Hebrew law discusses only generic situations; in contrast, modern law is concerned with specifics, thus creates a heap of highly specific legislation and, consequently, loopholes.

Next, the law deals with the most tender and valuable members of Hebrew society: pregnant Jewish women. Exodus 21:22, "If [the] men would fight, and hit a pregnant woman, and the fetuses come out, and there will be no harm [to the woman], then he will be fined, fined as the woman's husband imposes on him, and gives as they lay [on him]." Contrary to anti-abortionists' views Hebrew law does not treat fetus as a human being: killing a fetus is punishable with fine only, it is not a criminal offense such as killing a human being.

The fine is not specified here, and whether it is large or small, is a matter of conjecture. On one hand, the law carefully specifies the double and quadruple fines, and therefore leaving this fine unspecified hints at it being insubstantial. On other hand, the law uses strong language: "fined, fined" and "lay on him." My feeling is that the first option is true, and the fine is small, thus not subject to specification; strong language refers to sureness of the fine rather than its amount.

And here the Hebrew criminal law culminates. Exodus 21:23-25: "And if there would be harm [to the woman], then give a soul for a soul, an eye for an eye, etc." The tit-for-tat retaliation is prescribed only for harming pregnant women.

The legal status of women in Hebrew society vastly exceeded the men's. Maiming a man is subject to fine only, but similar harm to woman involves harsh retaliation. The legislator recognized that women are inherently more vulnerable than men and need stronger protection.

The law teaches us that men cannot claim weakness: it is their responsibility to be on par with any attacker, as they will not be awarded any compensation beyond the costs of treatment and idleness. Women are not expected to counter the attackers except by screaming (and surely must not serve in the army). The society, therefore, punishes even the innocent harm to women severely. The law enjoins the women from participating in men's fights: a woman who indecently touches a man involved in brawl with her husband, is punished.

What about the non-pregnant women? Young females are not expected to come close to men; only married women might defend their husbands. Old females were uncommon in antiquity. So the generic case was a pregnant woman.

The legislator makes sure that his intention of protecting the weak is clear by the following verses, "And if a man would strike his slave or concubine in an eye and destroys it, he will set him free for his eye. And if he would kick out a tooth of his slave or concubine, he will set him free for a tooth." How unusual is that, freeing a slave for merely a tooth! In that era and for three millennia afterwards, masters could kill their slaves with impunity.

This rule is a Jewish version of the affirmative action. According to the tradition, the rule does not apply to Hebrew slaves. Thus, Hebrew concubines are treated on par with wives (Exodus 21:7-11). Such a concubine should be set free even if her master/husband diminished her allowance of clothes. As she has her own clothes, she is a subject of property rights, and not a rightless slave. Similarly, Hebrew male slave owns his wife and children (Exodus 21:3), and so is not a slave in the regular sense. Hebrew slaves are set free at the end of six-year periods, so in effect they are temporary laborers rather than slaves.

In the case of foreign slaves, their masters own their bodies, but Hebrew slaves possess property rights: if they own their wives, then all the more they own their own bodies. Any injury done to a Hebrew slave's body should be compensated like to free men.
The legislator here solved a curious puzzle: since foreign slaves are their masters' property, a master cannot compensate his slave for injury like he would compensate a free person. Sort of fining oneself for breaking one's own instrument. That paradox surfaced in Exodus 21:20-21: murder of a slave is a punishable offense, but any other harm is not punishable as slave's body is "his master's silver." Freeing injured slaves is both ethical, instructive (to slave-owners), and the only logical way to enforce justice while respecting the property rights.

Here is the affirmative action: a Hebrew slave is only compensated for his eye or tooth, but foreign slave is released for the similar injury. The master is, in effect, fined by the tooth' cost and the entire slave' cost, respectively. Therefore the fine for harming the rightless, defenseless foreign slave is much larger than for similarly injuring a Hebrew slave.

No system of justice accounts for all the possible circumstances. Murdering a slave is a criminal offense (Exodus 21:20), injuring him permanently is a civil offense (21:26-27), but what about the situation when the slave died a considerable time after the beatings? Being dead, he cannot be released on the account of injuries, as Exodus 21:26-27 prescribes. At the same time, he was not exactly murdered, as he did live for considerable time afterwards; perhaps the blows were not lethal but his treatment was wrong? Even in the modern courts, which have the benefit of autopsy and other types of expert analysis, there is often no clear-cut answer. And so the legislator sighs, "And if he lives for a day or two, he should not be avenged, as he is [his master's] silver."

Note that the great kindness was prescribed not to the weak in general, but only to loyal (wives) or submissive (slaves). Nothing in the Hebrew law implies kindness or even restraint to enemies, but only to subjugated enemies.

The law equates hitting (21:15) and abasing (17) one's parents; both actions are punishable with death. There is no issue about murdering them: such crime is covered by generic rule of executing murderers. The law is a direct consequence of, "You shall respect your father and your mother" in the Ten Commandments. Rabbis effectively abrogated a similar law about unruly child by demanding unrealistically that both father and mother accuse him in the same voice tone. In the law, however, abasing any parent is a capital offense, no other evidence is required. The law does not sentence merely for a heated argument: only the one [continuously] abasing his parents is liable to death. How do we know it is a crime to abase any parent rather than both of them, for it is said, "his father and his mother"? By comparing this law with, "And he who is hitting his father and his mother, shall die by execution" (21:15): obviously, it is a crime to hit any parent rather than both of them.

Why so harsh a punishment? It's not because of primitive paternalistic concerns; such concerns would justify execution for insulting one's father (head of the clan) but not mother. The law is meant to strengthen the society by strengthening family. The law emphasizes family in the modern sense rather than clan. By making it unthinkable to abase mothers, the law forced Hebrews to leap into the mutually respectful society.

Now we see that Jewish law prescribes different levels of retaliation: mild for the offenses between men, harsh tit-for-tat for attacks on women, hyper-compassionate for wounding slaves, and exceedingly cruel for offending parents. What about the other nations? The Torah deals with two classes of the offending nations. One is Amalek: those who harassed the Jews; such nations must be exterminated even in the remotest generations for their past crimes, probably on the presumption that national character doesn't change and children would readily repeat their parents' sins if given an occasion.

The second class is the nations which settled the Promised Land before Jews; such nations would always remember that the land was theirs, will consider the Jews occupiers, and hate us. Unlike Amalek, they should not be wiped out as they committed no crime against Jews, but rightfully defended themselves against aggression. Jews must evict the core inhabitants (Exodus 23:31), destroy their places of worship (23:24), and God will efface them (23:23).

The raw justice mercilessly extirpates the offenders so that law-abiding Jews can live comfortable lives. Jewish criminal law is unforgiving: neither a victim, nor the society can forgive, but the offender must be punished severely. Forgiveness paves the way to repeated crimes.

Leviticus 24:19-20 suggests that Jews originally adhered to across-the-border "an eye for an eye" and that rule was later softened to apply to pregnant women only. Jews, themselves recently slaves in Egypt, hardly acquired Jewish slaves already in the Sinai. The subsequent verses deal with a settled society with houses, pastures, holes on the roads, and so on. Whatever the legislative sequence, at some point Jews were given a law that presumed goodwill among neighbors, protected the weak, and severely punished the wicked.

Jews distinguish between neighbors and others; the latter category includes animals. Ethical norms equally apply to both. Prohibition of murder, for example, equally applies to humans and animals. In that sense, Gentiles are similar to animals: in Judaism, animals are high, not Gentiles are low.

The Bible does not ban polygamy, but condemns it. Prophet Samuel condemns the behavior of kings which includes having many wives, also condemned in Deuteronomy 17:17. Leviticus 18:18 which bans "taking your wife's sister" probably means that all Jewish women are sisters, just like the Jews are sometimes called "your brother." The Tenth Commandment speaks of a wife in singular.* Similarly, Genesis 2:24: “a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” establishes monogamy.
The Torah allows polygamy only in narrow cases. Exodus 21:10 speaks of Jewish concubines. Deuteronomy 21:15-17 speaks of children of the second "hated wife" implying she is divorced. Levirate marriage (Deuteronomy 25:5-10) is a similarly specific case, and it does not even refer to polygamy but one-time sexual intercourse.
The Torah regulates minute aspects of family relations but is silent on treatment of several wives, presuming such case non-existent. Unlike the other nations, Jews in the Land of Israel were monogamous.

The Torah admits and regulates evil rather than unrealistically demands abandoning it. Seemingly barbaric teachings turn surprisingly progressive. Americans and Russians treated slaves worse in the nineteenth century than the Torah has prescribed three thousand years ago. The Tenth Commandment prohibits jealousy in regards to various objects, equating wives with oxen, houses, and donkeys in that regard. That seemingly barbaric piece of sexism is actually extremely progressive. Ox was a matter of pride to ancient men just like their cars today. House retained its role as the major symbol of male status. Hardly any man would speak disparagingly about his car or house, but many speak thus about their wives. The Torah’s listing of wife among the most prized assets elevated the status of females from a familial burden (as many men imagine their wives now) to the achievement a man should be proud of. Medieval poets praised women to the heaven, and frequented syphilis-ridden brothels. The Torah avoids unsustainable romanticizing but introduces a realistic guideline: treat your wife as good as your house.**

* The Tenth Commandment lists other items - house, donkey also in singular. They, however, are mentioned in a different clause from wife: "You will not covet your neighbor's wife; and his slave, and his maid, and his ox, and his donkey, and anything which is your neighbor's." Regarding those other objects, the commandment states that not even one (thus singular) item could be coveted. Wife, unlike other objects, is mentioned in Hebrew in constructus, your-neighbor's-wife, as a unique object with no implication that she is just one of a kind like donkey.

** True, there is an important difference between wife and house: unlike wife, house cannot make your life miserable or divorce you. Though the Torah doesn't directly allow women a right of divorce, they can always behave in such a manner as to make their husbands divorce them. Arguably, however, many women treat their husbands badly just because the husbands are unreasonably soft to them. Quite possibly, treating a wife as a highly praised object unquestionably owned by the husband improves familial relations greatly. In modern terms, that's sexism, but I'm old-fashioned. Moreover, that's exactly how we treat our small children. My guess is that most wives would gladly accept such assuredly high status instead of petty wrangling for dominance with their husbands.

Jewish tradition is adamant that the forefathers observed the law before it was given to Moses on the Sinai. Why, therefore, Jacob's sons slaughtered the people of Schem for raping their sister instead of allowing Schem to marry her, as he pleaded? The background is simple: upon coming back to Canaan, Jacob purchased a field near Schem; Palestinian Arabs call that place Nablus and claim Jews have no business there. Son of the ruler of Schem raped Dina, after which offered to marry her. At that point, Simeon and Levi pretended to accept the marriage, but demanded that the population of Schem circumcise. While the locals were incapacitated after the surgery, Jacob's sons killed them all, enslaved their wives, and took their property.

The immediate problem with Schem's offer to marry Dinah was him keeping her hostage. Schem did not deliver Dinah to her family and then humbly asked to marry her, but kept her in his house, thus making the marriage offer a sham. Accordingly, Jacob's family had every reason to be suspicious of Hamor's offer to live in that land. Just as his son kept Dinah hostage, he could one day lay claim on their possessions. The ruse of circumcision is suspicious: long before then, Abraham was commanded to circumcise before entering the land of Canaan to be like locals, and so were the Hebrews under Joshua. In historical perspective, the tribe of Schem was likely circumcised. Whether abetted by the post-circumcision fever or not, Simeon and Jacob chose to slay the Schemites.
In doing so, they rebelled against the common sense. Ever-fearful Jacob decries them for committing an unspeakable act of brutality which could cause other tribes to fight his clan. Jacobs’ fear is odd because his sons acted within the commonly accepted legal principle of blood revenge: they avenged their sister. Indeed, no Canaanite tribe rose against Jacob on that occasion. Simeon and Levi, however, exceeded the legal limits by killing the entire male population. They also rejected Schem's offer of hospitality. Probably for that reason, the narrative contains a suspicious interpolation: after credibly arguing before his people for welcoming Jacob’s clan, Schem drops a wryly remark, “Shall not their cattle and their substance and all their beasts be ours?” Such an evil intent justified the assault.

But what if Schem didn’t harbor evil intentions? What if held Dinah just because of his brutish nature rather than a deliberate act of kidnapping? That was likely the case.

Jacob's attack on Schem wasn't an act of conquest: immediately after the attack, his clan moved to Beth-El, leaving the large territory of Schem no-man’s land. Simeon and Levi plundered Schem, typically of Hebrews' retributive raids. They deceived Schemites, and the Bible explicitly sanctions military deceit: "For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war." Shimon and Levi acted not without anger, but the Torah praises Pinchas who slew even a Jew engaging in idolatrous sexual rite; contrary to the stance of modern rabbis, Pinchas slew the transgressor on the spot without referring the matter to judges – obvious transgressions need not due process.

Their actions need not comply with legal norms or practicality. Simeon and Levi acted on the higher moral plane, that of revenge. And so their laconic reply to Jacob's lamentations was, "Should one deal with our sister as with a harlot?"

The lesson Simeon and Levi gave us is straightforward: there are cases when neither intentions, nor repentance matter. Society can deal leniently with a lone criminal, even a rapist, by allowing him to marry the victim. In the national matters, we are the one, and the sister is always ours. Like in the NATO charter, an attack on a single Jew is an attack on every Jew.

Israeli Arabs routinely rape Jewish women.

We're not that bad. Jews were never perfect. We had many sects with widely divergent views. Jewish apocrypha like the books found in Qumran is removed from the traditional Judaism farther than Christianity. Rabbinical Judaism wildly departed from priestly Judaism of Sadduceans. Judaism of the Torah was never practiced by all Jewish communities: it is inconceivable that Jews from Israel traveled to Jerusalem on Passover and fifty days after on Shavuot, or that they undertook dangerous travel to the Temple to slaughter every animal and give the priests their portion. The Temple observance was only suitable for Judeans rather than all Jews. Judaism was reinvented many times throughout our history. Judaism of the Temple replaced Judaism of the Tabernacle. Judaism of Judea accommodated refugees streaming from Israel. Ezra and Nehemiah established the Judaism without the Arc and probably without Kohanim. Israelites worshiped at Shiloh all their history with neither Arc, nor the Temple. Maccabees coped with repeatedly desecrated Temple, devoid of divine presence. Mishnaic sages redefined Judaism without realistic hope of rebuilding the Temple or acquiring theocratic jurisdiction. Later rabbis created a ghetto Judaism. That was even before BeShT turned Judaism into a mystical religion resembling you-know-what. Modern Reconstructionism is ugly in its atheism, but something of the sort is unavoidable if Jews want to continue adapting to changing circumstances. Karaites are largely correct, but we cannot go on slaughtering sheep in the twenty-first century; can't slaughter them absent of the Temple, to put it politically correctly.

Jews were never fervently religious. Most of the population didn't join Maccabees, Zealots, or Bar Kochba. Undoubtedly, most villagers paid scant attention to the required Temple observance, too cumbersome for those living farther away. Jews sacrificed at hilltops, transgressed regulations on debt collection and slave release, skipped alimony obligations with rabbinical consent through consecration, intermingled with Greeks, intermarried, and routinely committed plenty of other religious sins. The current situation of Israel populated by atheists, leftists, Arabs, religious crackpots of every hue who exiled their God into synagogues, and a small number of zealots and decent believers, is close to the historical norm for Jewish community in the Land of Israel. Judging by accounts such as Yehuda Halevi's, the ghetto communities also were significantly cosmopolitan and less than fanatical on religious issues. The Diaspora communities of the Roman Empire were sufficiently open to pagans that pagans donated to synagogues, took oaths there, and arbitrated their religious disputes before the rabbis.

The Jews didn't long for statehood. Look at the modern Jews mumbling, "Next year, in Jerusalem!" but staying in New York. Ancient Diaspora Jews lacked Jeremiah's nostalgia for their land, and comfortably settled in Rome and Babylon. They kept sending their half-shekel contribution to the Temple just like the modern American Jews buy Israeli bonds. Dhimmi status in tolerant Muslim societies allowed Jews excellent autonomy, good relations with non-Jewish neighbors, low taxes, and absence of conscription. That's very much what the modern Jews enjoy in America.

Nor are the trials that befell us too unusual. Europeans reduced their Jewish communities to almost nil several times in the recorded history. Treacherous leaders are as common now as they were in the fifteenth century. We tend to idealize the then rabbis but perhaps a millennium from now Jews would admire Ovadia Yosef.

We don't need ourselves, but it seems that God really needs us.

Grown people criticized adolescents throughout the ages as immoral, lazy, money-hungry, etc. The adolescents grew up and similarly criticized their children. Teenagers don’t have our values, but neither had we have those values when were young. Values are a product of extreme indoctrination or long-term personal development. Israeli children are not ardent Zionists like their parents, but what Russian or American Jew was ardent Zionist at the age of fourteen? Titans like Zhabotinsky made some teenagers Jewish zealots, but most people distilled their values later on in life. Children are even more superficial than adults, and go for shiny objects: music stars, glamorous living, etc. Life will soon break their hopes to become new Madonna or for a villa in Beverly Hills, and they will start looking for alternative goals. They will come to the Jewish idea, and do so from much better start up position than their parents. Israeli children lack the Exile mentality, fear, and excuse-me-for-being-alive attitude. They know how to hate. They hate Arabs. Later, they will look to rationalize hatred, and embrace Zionism – not ethnic-blind democracy.

Jewish law establishes death penalty for kidnappers of Jews. The forefathers accepted the yoke of the Law before it was given to all Jews. It is commonly believed that Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery – but they were not punished. It pays to read the Torah closely.

Genesis 37:18-20: “And they [Joseph’s brothers] saw him from a distance, and before he would approach them, they crafted [a plot] for him to die. And they said, each to his brother, Here comes [the] interpreter of dreams. Now, let’s go and cause him to be jabbed into and fallen into one of the trenches, and we will say, Wild animal devoured him, and we will see what will be his dreams.”

Brothers had some reasons to hate Joseph who informed Jacob on them and related arrogant dreams. The word for “trench” possibly relates to havar, astrologist (according to Steinberg, they zone the sky, akin to trenches) akin to Joseph, thus an instance of black humor.

The brothers didn’t intend to kill Joseph, but to retreat with their flocks, leaving him to deal with wild animals. Genesis 37:17 concurs: when Joseph came to see his brothers at Schem, they have already moved to Dotan. Likewise, they intended to retreat further upon his approach.

In Genesis 37:21-22, Reuben pleads with other brothers to drop Joseph into a pit as opposed to leaving him to the animals: “Let us not cause his soul to be smitten!” The brothers followed Reuben’s advice. Now, Joseph sits in a waterless pit, and his brothers are undecided what to do about him.

Genesis 37:26: “And Judah said to his brothers, If we would cause our brother to die and hid his blood, what profit [would that be to us]?” Judah, don’t forget, is a virtuous man: he offered himself into slavery in place of his brother Binyamin who allegedly stole a silver cup (Genesis 44:33). In Genesis 37:26, Judah expresses satisfaction that they did not cause Joseph’s death.

Immediately thereafter, Reuben returns to the pit with the evident intention to remove Joseph – and doesn’t see him. The narration recalls the structure of horror movies: evil intention (to give Joseph to animals, v.20) – thinking it over while the subject is locked (Joseph in a pit, vs.23) – while the characters elaborate their plot, the threat comes close (Ishmaelite caravan passes just before their eyes) – the conspirators recant (v.26) but, unbeknownst to them, it’s already too late (Midianites find Joseph and sell him to Ishmaelites, v.28) - the conspirators come to release their victim, but he is gone (v.29).

Reuben did not come to save Joseph secretly, for upon seeing the empty pit, he returned to his brothers: “The child is not there! And I, where, pray, am I going?” The brutal practical joke on Joseph turns into tragedy.

Instead of revealing Jacob that their behavior indirectly caused Joseph’s death, the brothers imitated his death from the wild animal.
Joseph’s brothers neither tried to kill him, nor sold him into slavery.

[The text supports the understanding that Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery. In Genesis 37:27, Judah says, "Come, let [him] be sold by us to Ishmaelites…" And 37:28: "And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they [the brothers] drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Ishmaelites…" Reading they as brothers is confirmed by 37:36, "Midianites sold him into Egypt…" So Midianites didn't previously sell Joseph to Ishmaelites; Midianites and Ishmaelites are the same people; brothers "sold Joseph to Ishmaelites."
This passage conflicts with Reuven's surprise upon seeing the empty pit. It seems here an editorial that explains Judah's "what profit is it if we slay our brother?"
Twenty shekels the brothers received for Joseph are hugely exaggerated. Only about a thousand years later slaves became that expensive (Hosea 3:2). Thirty shekels for one's ox goring a slave is a high fine, not a cost.
The brothers decided against killing Joseph much earlier, in Genesis 37:21-23 on Reuven's suggestion, so Judah's argument against killing Joseph in 37:27 is superfluous. Also, there's stylistic difference between 37:27 and the surrounding verses, suggesting an editorial.
Some editorials in the Torah do not impinge on its divinity. Even divine texts can be corrupted a bit.]

I was never a fan of haggadic (allegoric) interpretation of the Torah. Look at this week’s chapter, Genesis 45.
In Gen45:14, Yosef weeps on Benyamin’s neck – but the Hebrew for neck, tzavrei, is plural. RaShI, based on a midrash, interprets that as a prophecy of destruction of the two Temples (in the Song of Songs, tzavar, neck, allegorically means the Temple, located at the boundary between Judah and Benyamin). Yosef thus weeps about Benyamin’s two necks (the Temples) which would be destroyed.

RaShI’s view is not congruent with the fact that Yosef has also wept while embracing other brothers. It is not logical to surmise that Yosef’s tears at meeting Benyamin were with hidden meaning, but at meeting other brothers he only wept with straightforward joy.

Figures in the Torah commonly weep when meeting their long-gone relatives. Thus, Esau weeps upon meeting Jacob (Gen33:4).

In Gen45:14, Yosef weeps at Benyamin’s neck (plural in Hebrew), and Benyamin weeps at Yosef’s neck (plural, pausal elongation). RaShI takes Benyamin’s neck (plural) for the two Temples, but cannot find any two objects in Yosef’s land for Benyamin to weep for. RaShI, therefore, has to treat tzavaraiv (Benyamin’s neck) as plural of majesty (semantic singular, “We, Louis XIV…”). RaShI, therefore, arrives at an implausible assertion that in the same phrase one instance of tzavrei is plural, but the second instance of the very same form (possessive suffix added) is singular.

The word tzvr (Hebrew for neck) is often employed in plural while referring to a single person even though context doesn’t call for plural of majesty. Hebrew doesn’t normally employ plural of majesty in the reference to bodily parts. It is plausible that tzvr means not specifically neck, but the upper shoulders area. The letter aleph in tzavar is mater lectionis (consonantal representation of vowel [a]), and suggests the word's very ancient origin. Ancient nouns tend to be a bit vague rather than denoting the objects precisely.

Hebrew word catef, often translated as shoulders, is unlikely to have such meaning. Hebrew normally uses duplicative suffix -aim for paired bodily parts (einaim for eyes). The root ctf has a cognate ctr, “turn around.” The form kamatz-tzere (cAtEf) denotes a result of action, while shoulder refers to a static object and must be a noun. Overall, catef seems to mean side (the result of turning around), usually a backside, and only later acquired the shoulder meaning.

The meaning of tzvr as “upper shoulder area” explains its use both as singular (the narrator mentally concentrates on neck) and plural (he thinks of shoulders). Weeping normally takes place on shoulders rather than neck, thus tzavrei (plural) in the context of weeping. Golden chain, depending on its size, can be worn on neck (singular tzavar) or shoulders (plural tzavrei).
Yosef and Benyamin wept on each other’s shoulders rather than necks.

Another question about the same chapter Genesis 45.
After Joseph ascended to the top of Egyptian society he understandably bore grudge against his brothers who sold him into slavery, but why didn’t he try reestablishing contact with his loved and loving father, Jacob? Joseph’s behavior seems cruel until we understand the Torah’s message here. Jews live as a nation rather than a loose assembly of individuals. The higher a Jew is, the more his behavioral balance must tilted from individualism toward communal responsibilities. Forefathers lived only for the sake of the future generations of Jews. Everything Joseph does only serves as a lesson and illustration for the Jews to come. Joseph, therefore, suppressed his natural urge to meet his father in order to set the scene for their future encounter during the famine – the account tremendously instructive and poignant with meaning.

Jews never had a significant triumph throughout our entire history. Military victories amounted to survival, such as when Egyptian chariots drown in Red Sea, Maccabees defied Antiochus’ attempt to eliminate Judaism, or in the 1967. Jews survived miraculously while other nations perished. Jewish nation lacks riches; in our time, Muslims, not us got oil. Jews subsisted in poverty on the barren hills of Judea, in Rome where Martial and Juvenal made fun of our beggars, and in the Eastern European ghettos. God doesn’t need another arrogant victorious tribe like Romans or vainly rich bastards like the oil Arabs. Jews were promised neither power nor riches, but the status of priestly nation. Jewish wars, therefore, fall into three types: physical survival (with Egypt in 1446 B.C.E. and 1973 C.E.), spiritual survival at the risk to physical existence (Maccabees, bar Kochba – both in response to restrictions imposed on Judaism), and the final messianic war. When Jews turn from the path of Judaism, they are exterminated: corrupt and sectarianized Jews in 70, assimilated Alexandrian Jews in 117, Jews who forgot human dignity and the will to fight – in the twentieth century. Reform “Judaism” spiritually annihilates scores of assimilated Jews. Time and again, the nation is purified and turned back on the track. That’s about all the Jews were promised.

Reformist Judaism is religious leftism. The Reformism follows the basic precept of leftism: that everything can be comprehended and changed at will. Communists changed societies, Reformists – the religion. Societies are complex, religion is subtle, but otherwise the approach of communists and the reformists is similar: destroy the finely tuned system – societal or religious – and build a new one from scratch. Both communists and reformists have little idea of how their dream society or religion would look like, nor did they have clear rules. They build the dream houses through arbitrary, ad hoc moves. No wonder that both failed. Communists created totalitarianism, the opposite of their dream, and reformists arrived at atheism. Humans who redesign societies position themselves as supermen, the ruling caste, and oppress the others. Humans who redesign religion place themselves above God. If the reformists create their version of the divine law, why don’t the flock worship them? Judaism without kosher laws and Sabbath, with the heroic actions of Moses and Maccabees declared ancient barbarism, how different is it from a schoolbook on ethics?

Just like their communist cousins, reformist “rabbis” resort to lies and hatred. They massively misinform the flock about Orthodox and haredi practices, ridicule the observances they have no brains to understand and no guts to follow, and arouse resentment and hatred toward the religious Jews.

The reformist experiment failed. Rav Kahane noted that Christian churches retained more of Judaism than did the reformist temples. Jewish children who passed through reformist Hebrew schools in America despise their Jewish background. Children feel the hollow hypocrisy of reformism. The reformist schools viciously destroy the inborn sense of Jewishness and replace it with empty pronouncements. The degree of assimilation of the graduates of reformist Hebrew schools testifies to their failure.

In the meanwhile, reformism seems to start re-acquiring Jewish observances. With the pass of assimilation wide open for them, many Jews exhibit curiosity about their roots and demand something more substantial than the secular reformist religion. Eager to fill in the consumer demand, many reformist temples supply a more observant version of Judaism.

Orthodox rabbis need to actively reach out to the Jews mislead by the blind reformist guides. Coupled with an active political program of militant Zionism, that outreach could save many Jews from assimilation.

Female rabbis are odd, but not formally prohibited by the Torah. Priests were only male, but rabbinical functions are entirely different, and priestly restrictions do not apply automatically. Torah precludes females from priestly service, but by the same token the Torah prohibits synagogues as any non-Temple houses of worship. One common reason for priestly and rabbinical male-only service is that naturally and unavoidably, the sight of women distracts men. Sufficiently old and modestly dressed women might not, theoretically, be a distraction.

Leftist calls for gender equality are irrelevant. Men and women are different, but not inferior one to another. At the time when nations sold and rented their wives, Jewish women enjoyed marital contract; at the time when drunken husbands routinely beat their wives, Shulhan Aruh mandated that a man could not move a finger against his wife and must spend on her and the children more than on himself. Women can be respected but pray separately; that’s no more a discrimination than women clubs. The prohibition of common prayers is practical, rather than theological. Jews can object to the reformist practice of mixed-gender services on practical grounds, but it doesn’t contradict the Judaism of the Torah.

Female Jewish scholars enjoy the precedent of Beruria. Women can score well in the loose rabbinical argumentation that largely relies on analogue and allegory. Women often teach in secular universities; they aren’t great scholars, but most male rabbis also are not. Women are good at carefully systematizing data which is the cornerstone of Talmudic learning.

Women are generally more compassionate than men, an important trait for heads of congregations. Provided that women dress extremely modestly, pass rigorous exams, and abstain from entering synagogues during niddah, they can be rabbis. Relaxed rules of women admittance in synagogues would undermine reformist claim to monopoly on modern Judaism, and attract many mothers to real Judaism.