Image via WikipediaFrom the story of Reuben and Judah seeking for their father to allow Benjamin to return with them to Egypt to buy grain the category of a kablan gaurantee is known.
"When Jacob balked at allowing Benjamin to accompany his brothers down to Egypt, Judah declared: I will guarantee him, from my hand you can demand him." See ArtScroll Schottenstein ed. of BT.
"The fact that Judah said, אערבנו I will guarantee him, presumes that there is an institution of ערבות, guarantorship, upon which Judah modeled his commitment to Jacob." ibid.
It would appear from the language of the Talmud that it is this very "institution of guarantorship" to which Judah made reference in his appeal to Jacob that forms the basis of a קבלנות, a kablan guarantee. Such a guarantee is essentially without condition, where the person who guarantees a loan puts himself entirely in the position of the borrower.
Now the word, קבלנות, a kablan guarantee, is clearly related to the word, קבלה, kabbalah, meaning received tradition, which can also be said to be the meaning of the word, "institution", as used by ArtScroll in the notes quoted above. That is to say, we can understand that it was to the kabbalah or received tradition of the kablan guarantee that Judah appealed in pleading with his father, Jacob, to allow Benjamin to be taken down into Egypt for the buying of grain.
It is most important, then, to clarify that Rueben was the actual "borrower" of Benjamin from Jacob, on behalf of all the brothers, but that Jacob would not "loan" Benjamin until Judah promised to guarantee the "loan" as a kablan guarantor. This is the explanation of Ritva. See ArtScroll ibid.
Let's put what we have found here into the context of the whole of the story of these occurrences as given in B'reshit:
First, G-d sends famine (prefiguring famine of the word of G-d in the last days, Amos 8:11) and Israel suffers from this along with all the world.
Joseph, in the authority of the office of Pharaoh, requires Benjamin to be brought down to him before he will sell Israel grain. (The mystery of the famine is the mystery of "Joseph" being hidden in Egypt already, seeming to be a gentile. The aspect of the word of G-d that Israel needs in order to survive will not be given to them until the mystery of "Joseph" is discovered and solved by the brothers. The resolution of the mystery of "Joseph" depends on the resolution of the mystery of "Benjamin". This is by design of "Joseph" himself.)
In the story, Simeon is being held as "collateral" for Benjamin. Judah becomes guarantor of Benjamin. (Until Judah approaches Joseph as the kablan guarantor of Benjamin without recognizing Joseph but still thinking of him as a gentile who holds the power of life and death over Israel it does not become possible for Joseph to reveal himself to his brothers and therefore for Ephraim and Manasseh to "take hold of" Judah, as in Zechariah 8:23.)
Joseph reveals himself to his brothers. (He reveals that he has served as the kablan guarantor of all Israel from the time that Jacob returned to the land after his servitude with Laban.)
Now we might expect that after this the famine would end and Israel would immediately dwell with affluence in the Land and even that Joseph, with Manasseh and Ephraim, would return to the Land. But instead we see that Joseph's revealing himself to his brothers results in all Israel being exiled into Egypt, albeit into the area of Goshen. Why?
We see that in Joseph's demanding that Benjamin be brought down into Egypt there was more than just a testing of his brothers. When Judah and his brothers recognized Joseph there was a great repentance on the level of knowledge, but there would be a deeper and fuller repentance possible for them on the level of experience. As Joseph experienced exile, so they also would experience exile. Through this experience, ultimately, the cause of the disunity between the brothers in the first place would itself be rectified.
So we see that the famine (of the word of G-d) was the actual beginning of the Egyptian Captivity. And now we can begin to understand the significance of this. For in the last days the brothers will learn that the rectification of their unity is the rectification necessary for the rectification of the testimony of Abraham and Sarah, when they turned to Hagar and brought forth the brother of the promised seed, that is to say, Ishmael, the brother of Isaac.
Now these things were understood by Jacob in his End of Days blessing of the tribes of Israel. From this study on the kablan guarantor we can ask, How is it that Joseph was "owed" Benjamin? And how is it that the captivity of Egypt "repays" Joseph? Asking these questions will lead us to look at the 400/210 years of the Egyptian Captivity in light of the 70 weeks spoken of in the Book of Daniel, which "are determined upon your people and upon your holy city, to finish the transgression, and to make an end of sins, and to make reconciliation for iniquity, and to bring in everlasting righteousness, and to seal up the vision and prophecy, and to anoint the most Holy." Daniel 9:24. This we will do in a latter study, G-d willing.
Here we can observe that from seeing the prophetic "death and resurrection" of Joseph, after the similitude of that of his father, Isaac, Jacob understood that Joseph had been given the (prophetic) position of the firstborn. Furthermore, he saw that this did not take away from the twelve tribes, or Reuben's being the firstborn on the level of the unification of the twelve tribes, but added to (c.f. Yoseph), or saved, the twelve tribes, forming the position of a thirteenth tribe, as it were. And to carry forth this very testimony, Jacob not only gave each of the tribes the appropriate prophetic blessing, he also chose Ephraim as his firstborn. Understand this well.
Accordingly, when Israel came to sin with the golden calf, blemishing the testimony of the firstborn of Israel, it was possible for the tribe of Levi to be placed in the position of the thirteenth tribe of Israel and in the office of the tribe of the firstborn, as it were, for the sake of the rectification of this blemish.
Now in conclusion we may observe that the tradition to which Judah appealed to Jacob to allow him to take Benjamin down into Egypt was the tradition of the one who gave himself as a kablan guarantor for Adam before the creation of Adam, that is to say, Mashiach.
