The Sedra of vayeishev begins with the Mitzva of "Don lekaf zechus", Judge people favourably. In Verse two, we are told that Joseph brought a bad report of the brothers to his father. Rashi explains what the bad report was. He accused them of immorality, eating part of a live animal, and of speaking in a derogatory manner of their half-brothers the sons of the maidservants, Bilhoh and Zilpoh. The report was therefore about the sons of Leah. Rashi explains that Joseph was punished in accordance with the principle that G-d punishes measure for measure. For the accusation of immorality, Potiphar's wife accused him of immorality, for the accusation of speaking in a derogatory manner about the sons of the promoted maidservants and indeed calling them slaves, he himself was sold as a slave, and for the accusation of eating from the limb of a live animal his coat was taken from him and dipped into the blood of an animal. It was then displayed to their father suggesting that Joseph had been eaten.

The Rabbis point out, that Joseph was the greatest Talmid Chochom of the family and all the wisdom that had been gathered in Jacob's lifetime had been passed to him. The verse which says "And he shepherded "es Echov im hatzon the flock with his brothers, is translated by the Alshich as "And he shepherded his brothers the flock! He was the most learned and wise of them all. Joseph was in charge of the family while they were out of Jacob's supervision. What then what did he do wrong in reporting what he honestly believed the brothers had done to their father.

The answer is that he was not "don lekaf zechus", he did not give them the benefit of the doubt. Immediately after this episode Jacob makes Joseph the famous garment which aroused the jealousy of his brothers. The Alshich points out that the garment we are talking about was a vest (undershirt) . When they take it from him while he is in the pit, the verse reports they took it from on him, the only garment directly in contact with him is a vest or undershirt. Rashi says it was made of fine wool. Still in this token the brothers believe that Joseph has poisoned their father against them. They see and believe that his motives in reporting them to Jacob was in order to promote himself at their expense. The real motive of course in this gift was to salute Joseph in his role as the greatest Rabbi of the family, but the brothers too fail in "don lekaf zechus", giving the benefit of the doubt. They can only conclude from the gift of the vest that Joseph succeeded in his destructive task of poisoning their father against them.

The Talmud tells an interesting story of how far one should go to give someone the benefit of the doubt.

A beggar came to the mansion of a millionaire and asked him for the price of a drink and a piece of bread. The man stood in the doorway wearing the most beautiful clothes, surrounded by marble and gold fittings. The Millionaire replied that he had no money, and the beggar left. A year later the same beggar returned and found the same man again and repeated his request for a few pennies for some food. This time the man gave generously and explained that he had been unable to help the year before because moments before the beggars arrival he had decided to donate all of his worldly possessions to the Temple in Jerusalem. In Jewish law such a declaration indeed removes ownership of your possessions, and when the man claimed to have nothing and no money, he was telling the truth.

But were we to imagine ourselves as that beggar, seeing this man surrounded by all this wealth and replying that he was penniless, would we have thought him to be truthful or to be a liar? The Talmud explains that this is the degree to which one should go to assume that somebody's motives are correct and not corrupt.

The brothers failed with regard to their estimation of Joseph's motives, Joseph failed in his estimation with regard to his brothers' motives. The lesson for us is to try and apply the same standards when we see others doing things which we are convinced must be wrong. And if we are lucky we can hope that they will accord the same right when they judge us.