In the desert (Parshat Vayeshev)

QUESTION:
The brothers throw Yosef into the pit before deciding to sell him. The Torah tells us that this pit was 'bamidbar' (in the desert). I thought that the brothers were in Shechem, which is nowhere near the desert. Furthermore, if the brothers were shepherding, why would they be in a desert rather than in pasture land?

ANSWER:
Than you for this excellent question. There are many different answers to this question, on different levels of complexity.
Firstly a clarification. The word 'bamidbar' does not mean 'desert' but rather 'wilderness'. There are many proofs of this, which I will not go into now, but we have to understand than when the Israelites spent 40 years in the Sinai, they were actually in a wilderness, not in the desert.
Secondly, even though the brothers went to graze the sheep in Shechem, by the time Yosef came to them they had moved on to Dotan. Rashi explains that they went to Dotan with the intention of killing Yosef, so they no longer needed to remain in pasture land - in fact wilderness was much more appropriate for their intentions.
Now to answer your question. The Ramban (on the pasuk) explains that the brothers threw Yosef into a pit in the wilderness so that he would not be able to cry for help or be found and saved by passers-by. The brothers were convinced that Yosef deserved to be killed, but were reluctant to kill him themselves. Therefore they put him in a situation that would lead to his death. (Look at the Ohr Hachaim and the Parshat Derachim for deeper insights into why they did not want to kill him themselves).
However, the problem with this explanation is that the Torah explicitly tells us that Reuven suggested that the brothers throw Yosef into the pit, rather than kill him directly, in order that he (Reuven) could come back and save him later. The Midrash (Rabba 84; 15) tells us Reuven was rewarded for this. He was the first one to save Yosef, therefore his tribe was the first one mentioned in the list of 'Cities of Refuge' (Devarim 4; 41). Just as he saved his brother, so his descendents would be provide salvation for those who needed refuge. The Torah in Devarim lists the city of refuge from Reuven as 'Betzer which is in the midbar'. Perhaps we can suggest that 'midbar' was part of Reuven's plan to save his brother. By putting him in an 'out of the way' place, Reuven would be able to come back and save him without the other brothers interefering. Whereas the Ramban suggests that he wilderness was a better way to kill Yosef, according to this answer perhaps we can suggest that the wilderness is a better way to save him.
On a deeper level, Yosef was the antidote to Esav. Only after Yosef was born was Ya'akov able to return to confront his brother Esav, and one of the historical roles of Yosef was to fight against Esav (from Yosef's grandson Yehoshua leading the battle against Esav's grandson Amalek, to the Mashiach ben Yosef who will wage was against the kingdom of Esav/ Edom at the end of days). However the antidote often looks the same as the poison. The reason that the brothers wanted to kill Yosef is because they feared that he was going to become another Esav, and try to destroy them.
The Yom Kippur Temple service (as listed in parshat Acharei Mot) kabbalistically represents the distinction between Yisrael and Esav. The two identical goats represent twin brothers who chose opposite paths in life. If we look at what happened to Yosef we find many parallels to what happened to the 'seir l'azazel', the scape goat. The most clear connection is that the brothers dipped Yosef's coat in the blood of a goat after killing him, before showing their father that he had been eaten by a wild animal. Therefore they had to throw him into a pit in the 'midbar', because the whole function of the scape goat was to be sent into the 'midbar' to die.
I hope this answers your question, and gives you some food for thought.
Chanukah Sameach
Rabbi Sedley