This is from the book Eretz Yisroel in the Parsha:
Each year we read again the account in the Torah of the sale of Yosef. We recall that Reuven suggested that Yosef be thrown into a pit, and that is suggestion was acceped. The Torah says, "the pit was empty - there was no water in it." Rashi explains: The pit contained no water, but it did contain snakes and scorptions.
Such a pit was more than merely dangerous. The halacha states that whoever sees a man in a pit where there are snamkes and scorpions may testify that the man is dead. On the basis on such testimony, the man's wife may remarry. This gives us some pictures of the gravity of Yosef's situation.
Shortly thereafter, on the advice on Yehuda, Yosef was pulled out of the pit, and sold to merchants through whose hands he eventually ended up in Egypt. As we know, he subsequently reacher the heights of fame, fortune, and prestige in the Pharaoh's palace.
It would seem to us that Reuven's idea was a murderous one, while Yehuda's was the one that saved Yosef's live. And yet the Torah praises Reuven for his worthy intention - to save Yosef from his brothers' hands.
The gemara even goes a step further, saying that Yehuda is deserving of no praise at all for his part: "Whoever blessed Yehuda...merely blasphemes" (Sanhedrin 6).
Rav Chaim Volozhiner explains the paradox:
A man, says Rav Chaim, is safer in a pit filled with scoropins and snakes in the Land of Israel, than in the opulent palaces of a foreign land. Safer, in apparent danger in Eretz Yisroel, than in circumstances which appear physically secure in chutz laAretz.
Here is another quote from Rav Chaim's Sarei HaMe'ah:
"When a Jew is in his Land, his situation is more secure, even if he is surrounded by snakes and scorpions...In the Diaspora, however, even if a Jew is occasionally privileged to rise to greatness, nonetheless, he is closer to death than to Life."
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