Yosef's dreams

I just want to do a short post on the parsha, even though I havent had so much time unfortunately to do a better post with more research.

The daas zekeinim asks the question:  why did yosef tell his dreams to his brothers - didn't he realize that it would just increase the enmity and resentment towards him?

Rashi writes that when yosef met the malach gavriel while searching for his brothers, the malach warned him that the shevatim had left behind all feelings of brotherhood towards yosef - so why did yosef almost knowingly go meet them to face his demise?

The daas zekeinim answers that yosef felt that he was bound to tell over his dreams midin "navi shekovesh nevuaso chayav misah" - a prophet is not allowed to conceal his prophecy.

Similarly, we can say that yosef went to his brothers knowing that the outcome would not necessarily be pretty, because he was bound by kibud av to fulfill the command of his father.

I think thats a powerful lesson about the binding nature of truth despite any possible negative consequences.

I saw another answer to the daas zekeinim's question in the maharal.  The maharal writes that since kol hachalomos holchin achar hapeh, (dreams are subject to interpetations), yosef told his dreams to his brothers so that they should interpret them as false dreams and hence they would not come true.

If thats true, then the irony of the story is astounding.  If the brothers had been dan yosef likaf zechus and understood his intentions, they could have interpreted the dream as false and it never would have happened.  Instead, they just got mad at yosef and hated him, sold him down to mitzraim, and ended up being responsible for the dreams coming true.

A few lessons:  We get a new perspective on yosef that he davka wanted his dreams to not come true because they would hurt his brothers, even if they would benefit himself.  We always have to think about personal gain vs communal benefit.  Perhaps even more interestingly, Yosef gets criticized a lot for not being dan his brothers likaf zechus, but we see here that the problem went both ways - it takes 2 to fight (and that gets us back to the previous post).

Good shabbos!