Women’s role in society – Has our Halachic attitude towards women shifted over the years?

1. Maybe he held kivrei tzadikim eino mitamei and held he was a tzaddik.

2. Maybe he wanted to be buried in his chelek of eretz Yisroel (menashe or Efraim’s chelek).

2b. On that note, the lashon of the yerushalmi is nachalasi, implying the residents of eretz yisroel have a right to be buried there more than the outsiders. At this point in time all Yidden were in mitzrayim so he was entitled to go the same as they were.

3. It was kodem matan Torah so tehara wasn’t as necessary to be preserved.

4. It may be different to send a body to eretz Yisroel and if the whole family is moving to eretz Yisroel and brings body with them. Otherwise they’d need to leave eretz Yisroel to visit his kever.

5. He didn’t have a proper burial in mitzrayim anyway so maybe kevuras Yisroel is more important than the inyan of minimizing tuma in eretz yisroel.

5b. Similarly maybe he felt that his body not being worshiped as an avodeh Zara in mitzrayim was more important than bringing more tumah to E’’Y.

6. I want to point out that the Talmud bavli was written by people in chutz laaretz who potentially cared more about kevurah in EY than polluting EY with tuma and the Talmud Yerushalmi was in EY where they would all get kevurah in EY and didn’t want ‘outsiders’ polluting EY with additional tuma, so therefore they enacted this takana. Yosef was coming from a chutz laaretz standpoint.

6b. But the riddle was asking how can the Talmud yerushalmi learn Yosef’s request? Maybe they argued on him. We see the brothers and yosef had plenty of machlokes on Halachos (the things he told Yaakov Avinu that he thought were wrong but they believed were correct – that’s part of why they didn’t like him).

7. The purpose of the takana not to bring bodies to EY was because there were too many. At that point in time the whole klal yisroel was moving to EY so for many years after there couldn’t possibly be other requests for people living in chutz laaretz to be buried in EY.

8. Maybe his bones disintegrated enough in the Nile that they no longer were large enough to give off tuma

8b. If his body was in a box in the Nile maybe the box was made in a way to be it’s own ohel or keili and not give off tuma.

9. Maybe he wanted to be buried in the chatzi shevet Menashe outside of EY.

10. His father Yaakov had the same request so he was following his precedent. Not such a raya though because Yaakov lived in EY most of his life and also Yaakov was going to be buried in the Meoras Hamachpeila which had other bodies in it anyway so was full of tuma (definitely from Eisavs head) and no further people would be buried in meoras hamachpeila anyway.

11. Maybe he wanted to be buried next to his mother, rochel in the meoras hamachpeila which already was tamei and no one else would be buried next to rochel imeinu anyway.

12. The premise of the question is that the other brothers (and presumably Yaakov avinu) had more of a right to be buried in EY because they lived there most of their life as opposed to Yosef who lived happily in mitzrayim most of his life. Note that Yosef lived in EY and was forcibly sent to mitzrayim. Challenging that premise:

A. Since he was forced away maybe he should be included in the same bucket as the brothers who lived there.

B. Especially considering the brothers were the ones who forced him to leave. If they are entitled to be bright back then he should also as well.

C. Maybe once a resident of EY always a resident of EY, or at least if born there then you consider that country your country of origin or citizenship your whole life.

D. The brothers also had the potential opportunity to go back to EY after Yosef died before anyone was enslaved and they didn’t either.

Kol Tuv,