In the second aliyah Yosef's brothers go off to tend to their father's flock in Shechem. Yakov sends Yosef to see how the brothers and the flock are doing. They see him approaching and plot to kill him, but Reuvain suggests that they don't kill him, and instead throw him into a pit. Reuvain's plan was to secretly rescue Yosef from the pit, but in the end he never really gets a chance to rescue him.