This Week's Parasha Is a Great Illustration of How Human And

Shabbat December 21, 2019, Vayeshev Torah Reading, Genesis 37:1 – 40:23 This week’s parasha is a great illustration of how human and flawed the families of our patriarchs and matriarchs are, with all manner of familiar – and familial – strife. In last week’s reading Jacob and Esau reconcile after years of enmity and estrangement, enmity that was caused by parental preference. Yet Jacob hasn’t learned the lesson of that estrangement and he repeats the same error in his parenting of his own children. He favors Joseph of all of his sons, sowing resentment in Joseph’s brothers. Jacob gives Joseph a special gift as evidence of his special regard, a ketonet passim. We don’t really know what it is. Ketonet is a coat or tunic, but passim appears only in this story and in one other place in the Tanakh, where it also part of the phrase ketonet passim. From context it’s clear that it is a rare and special garment. Rashi said it was made of a particularly fine wool. It’s the Septuagint translation that makes it a coat of many colors (and, of course, it’s Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber who made it a Technicolor dreamcoat). This favor enrages the brothers at least as much as Joseph’s dreams, in which he rules over them. The brothers plot to kill Joseph, although in a last minute change of heart they sell him to a passing caravan. But they keep the ketonet passim, tearing it and smearing blood on it to deceive their father into believing that Joseph was killed by a beast. It is eerily reminiscent of how Jacob used clothing and subterfuge to deceive his own father. Families who don’t confront their dark side often do repeat dysfunction from generation to generation. The Joseph story is interrupted by events occurring with the family of Judah, the son of Jacob for whom Judaism is named. His family dynamics have all the dysfunctional glory of an ancient Israelite version of the Jerry Springer show. Judah has three sons: Er, Onan, and Shelah. Er, the eldest, marries a woman named Tamar and then is killed by G-d because of an unspecified sin, leaving no heir. The remedy for his childlessness is yibum. The widow, Tamar, must marry her dead husband’s brother and the first child she conceives will be deemed the child of her first husband. Onan, not wanting to sire a child that would be his brother’s, “spills his seed.” This action incurs G-d’s wrath and Onan is also punished by death. Although the term “onanism” is generally used to mean masturbation, it sounds like what he did was withdrawal, or coitus interruptus. Traditionally Onan’s sin has been viewed as “spilling seed” – external ejaculation. Rashi said that the same sin was what got Er killed. In context, though, it sounds more like his sin was not in failing to view every sperm as sacred, but rather in not being willing to give his brother Er a (homophonic) heir. In any event, Judah tells Tamar that Shelah is too young to marry and she should return to her father’s home until Shelah grows up, although Judah does not really intend to risk another son through marriage to her. According to the Talmud, if a woman is married to a man and he dies and she then marries his brother, who also dies, she is deemed an isha katlanit – a deadly woman – and does not marry the third brother or anyone else. Presumably this rule was not yet in force and Tamar decides if she is not given a third husband, she will take matters into her own hands. Dressed as a prostitute, she encounters Judah on a journey and has sex with him, demanding a goat as payment. Since her father-in-law doesn’t have any goats in his wallet, she takes personal items of his as collateral. She becomes pregnant with twins and is about to be executed for her sin by being burnt alive. She brings out the items belonging to Judah and says that they belong to the father of her unborn children. He then cops to having driven her to this action by denying her his son, and says she is more righteous than he is. Interestingly, in spite of her somewhat checkered sexual history, Tamar is praised by the sages for refusing to shame Judah by publicly announcing that he had had sex with her, and had done so believing her to be a prostitute. It is from her willingness to be burned to death that they conclude that it is better to walk into a fiery furnace than to shame someone. The last section of Vayeshev returns to Joseph. He is taken to Egypt and sold to Potiphar, a wealthy man and one of Pharaoh’s officers. The rather clueless boy of the earlier part of the parasha, who doesn’t seem to know that telling his brothers his dreams of ruling over them could lead to enmity, is replaced in this week’s reading with a smart and skillful manager. Joseph’s new master quickly puts him in charge of everything, al beito v’chol yesh lo ¬– over his house and everything he had. Potiphar’s holdings increase under Joseph’s able management. The text tells us that G-d was with Joseph and that is why he and his master prospered. It also tells us that Joseph was particularly good-looking. Too good-looking for his own good, it appears. Potiphar’s unnamed wife lusts after the Hebrew slave and tries to get him to have sex with her, but he refuses. When she gets him alone in the house with her she grabs him by the garment and tries to undress him, but he refuses and runs away. According to the Talmud (Sotah 36b) he was tempted to give in, but a vision of his father appeared and told him to resist her advances. In any event, he runs away but leaves an article of clothing behind and Potiphar’s wife tells her husband that Joseph tried to rape her and ran away when she called for help. Thus, Potiphar’s unnamed wife becomes the prototype for that staple of rape culture: the scorned woman who gets her revenge on a man by accusing him of rape. Although demonstrably rare in real life, the trope of the evil woman who falsely accuses an innocent man of rape thrives in fiction of all kinds, from To Kill a Mockingbird to The Graduate to Gone Girl. The assumption that women victims are lying is a strong factor in the low prosecution and conviction rates for rape. Potiphar’s wife is believed and Joseph is thrown into prison. However, the same highly effective management skills that had him running Potiphar’s estate soon have him managing the prison as a “trustie.” In that capacity he meets Pharaoh’s cup bearer and baker, who have both been imprisoned for unspecified transgressions. Each of them has a dream and they tell their dreams to Joseph. Based on the dreams, he predicts that the baker will be executed and the cup bearer restored to his position. He proves to be right. Joseph asks the cup bearer to put in a good word for him when he is let out of prison. Clearly asking for a favor from the baker would get him nowhere! Unfortunately for Joseph, the cup bearer forgets all about the Hebrew slave who told him the meaning of his dream. It won’t be until Pharaoh has a puzzling dream of his own, two years later, that the cup bearer remembers he once knew a guy who was good with dreams. Haftarah Amos 2:6-3:8 Amos, a prophet of the Eighth Century BCE, wrote the book from which this week’s haftarah is taken. Although he was from the Southern Kingdom, Amos prophesied in the Northern Kingdom, during the reign of Jeroboam II. As is true of many of the prophets, he castigated the Israelites for their sins. Unlike some prophets, though, his focus was not on idolatry. Rather, Amos is mostly concerned with interpersonal injustice and income inequality. He calls out the wealthy for taking fines from the poor and then spending the money on luxuries. He tells the rich that G-d will punish them for their evil ways and that they are being warned now, so they can repent. The focus on social justice and economic fairness makes this a haftarah with very contemporary resonance. The connection with the parasha comes from the line “they have sold for silver those whose cause was just.” The rabbis saw that as an allusion to the selling of Joseph by his brothers. .

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