Yosef, Yehudah, Tamar:The Making of Two Titans and a Fifth Matriarch (Vayeshev)

One can only wonder what Yaakov was thinking when he sent his favorite son Yosef to report on his brothers’ activities as they grazed the family herds far from home. After all he know that Yosef was hated by his brothers. And Yaakov knew very well why.

וַיְקַנְאוּ-בוֹ, אֶחָיו; וְאָבִיו, שָׁמַר אֶת-הַדָּבָר
And his brothers envied him, and his father kept it to himself
(37:11)

Jealousy is the most insidious form of hatred.

Normal hatred has a logic to it. It is objective. “He killed someone I love.”, “He raped my sister.” “He robbed by house”. “He stole my customers.” In such cases hatred can be understood, even condoned.

Jealousy is something else entirely.  It is not over anything that is missing one’s own life, but over what someone else has. It can be all-consuming because it is nearly impossible to assuage. We see it all the time, especially among the wealthy, who never seem to have enough. They are not driven by what they already have, but by ‘the more ‘that someone else has. And there is always someone else who has more. Instead of looking even one rung down the ladder at those who have less than themselves, they look one rung up, envying whoever is perched there, who in turn is doing the same — green with envy over what the person just ahead of them has. And so it goes.

Yaakov loved all his children. He just happened to love Yosef more.

וְיִשְׂרָאֵל, אָהַב אֶת-יוֹסֵף מִכָּל-בָּנָיו-
And Yisrael loved Yosef more than all his sons
(37:3)

Clearly, had Yisrael loved Yosef the way he loved the others they would not have felt anything missing in their lives, at least not in terms of paternal affection. Plus, we can reasonably assume that these jealous brothers were not deprived of maternal affection, something Yosef – orphaned of his mother – did not have. But such is the way of jealousy. It has nothing to do with what one has, but with what someone else has.

And never is the envy greater that when a parent plays favorites. The first recorded example is, of course, Kayin nad Hevel. God, as the father, favors Hevel over Kayin. And we know how that played out. One would think Yaakov would understand this. Surely he had read Parshat Bereishit.

Yaakov’s sons, at least ten of them, envied Yosef for his good looks, for his beautiful coat, for his prophetic delusions of grandeur, and, of course for being a world-class snitcher.

So what was Yaakov thinking when he sent Yosef after his bothers for no other purpose than to come back with evil gossip and bad news?

 וַיָּבֵא יוֹסֵף אֶת-דִּבָּתָם רָעָה, אֶל-אֲבִיהֶם.
And Yosef brought to their father evil reports about them.
(37:2)

And what was Yosef thinking when he hastened to do his father’s bidding?

 וַיֹּאמֶר יִשְׂרָאֵל אֶל-יוֹסֵף, הֲלוֹא אַחֶיךָ רֹעִים בִּשְׁכֶם–לְכָה, וְאֶשְׁלָחֲךָ אֲלֵיהֶם;
וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ, הִנֵּנִי.
And Yisrael told Yosef, your brothers are pasturing in Shekhem; go, I will send you to them, and he (Yosef) said I’m ready
(37:13)

In his juvenile hubris, cloaked in the favor of his father, indulged in his delusions of grandeur, and relishing a good snitch, Yosef may have felt invincible.

In so many ways Yosef is like his father, very immature and need of quite the odyssey before he matures into greatness. Hence, we can assume that Yaakov  – in dispatching Yosef on this expedition – was echoing what his own mother had done with him, shipping him off all by himself to her own treacherous brother in Haran. It would be many years before either one earned his diploma.

Back to the brothers. They were seething with jealousy. And the only real way to extirpate such envy is through murder.  No one was going to buy them coats of many colors.  But at least they could destroy the brother who had one.

Unable to reach a consensus on killing him outright, they did the next best thing. They abandoned him in a pit from which he would be retrieved and marketed as a slave in Egypt. Good riddance

But the mystery is why did they go through the whole ruse of telling Yaakov they found Yosef’s cloak  all drenched in blood? Why didn’t they simply say “we never knew you were sending him, we did not expect him, and he never showed up”? Would that not have been far less messy, leaving far fewer question marks?

Perhaps the key lays in verse 32:

וַיְשַׁלְּחוּ אֶת-כְּתֹנֶת הַפַּסִּים, וַיָּבִיאוּ אֶל-אֲבִיהֶם, וַיֹּאמְרוּ, זֹאת מָצָאנוּ:  הַכֶּר-נָא, הַכְּתֹנֶת בִּנְךָ הִוא–אִם-לֹא.

 This is conventionally translated as:

And they sent the coat of many colors, and they brought it to their father;
and said: ‘We have found this,  do you, or don’t you recognize this
as your son’s coat?’.

But this verse makes no sense. Either they “sent” the coat to Yaakov, or else they “brought” it to him. It cannot be both

I would argue that וַיְשַׁלְּחוּ does not means that they sent the coat to Yaakov. Rather it means they passed it back and forth among themselves like a football or basketball until they brought it to their father. Indeed they hated Yosef so much that his coat became a proxy for their reviled brother. They kicked it around among themselves until they could deliver it to Yaakov.  Their hatred was such that a simple story of disappearance was inadequate for them. They needed a physical object which they could abuse in lieu of the absent Yosef. And the more they abused it the more effective it was to horrify they father.

The making of two titans: Yosef and Yehudah

Yosef was Yaakov’s favorite son, and a leader in his time. But Yehudah was ultimately the leader of Israel. In this parsha we witness the making of these two titans.

Parshat Vayeshev virtually opens with a verse that is at once remarkably parallel and diametrically opposite to the opening verse of Parshat Toledot.

ואלה תולדות יצחק בן אברהם אברהם הוליד את יצחק
This is the story of Yitzhak son of Avraham, Avraham begot Isaac.
(Bereishit 25:!90) 

אלה תולדות יעקב יוסף בן שבע עשרה שנה
This is the story of Yaakov, Yosef was 17 years old …
 (Bereishit 37:2)

In both verses the Patriarch is being framed and defined by another personality. In the case of Yitzhak it is his father Avraham. In the case of Yaakov it is his son Yosef. In effect, Yitzhak is totally overshadowed by his father from whose greatness he derives his own place in history. Yaakov – although a far stronger personality than his own father Yitzhak – ultimately lives and flourishes under the generosity and in the shadow of his son Yosef.

Like his father and grandfather before him, Yaakov plays favorites and appears to have every intention of passing the baton exclusively to one son, namely Yosef. But there is a difference in that both Avraham’s selection of Yitzhak at the expense of Yishmael (and his myriad siblings), and Yitzhak’s (ultimate and somewhat coerced) preference for Yaakov are dictated by God.  By contrast, Yaakov’s preference for Yosef is pure prejudice. There is no evidence of God’s direction here, and no conceivable justification for this raw bias.

Apparently Yosef’s dreams of grandeur occur in his early childhood rather than in close proximity to the events that lead to his being sold into slavery.  This is evident both from the text and by common sense.

וַיְסַפֵּ֣ר אֶל־אָבִיו֮ וְאֶל־אֶחָיו֒ וַיִּגְעַר־בּ֣וֹ אָבִ֔יו וַיֹּ֣אמֶר ל֔וֹ מָ֛ה הַחֲל֥וֹם הַזֶּ֖ה אֲשֶׁ֣ר חָלָ֑מְתָּ הֲב֣וֹא נָב֗וֹא אֲנִי֙ וְאִמְּךָ֣ וְאַחֶ֔יךָ לְהִשְׁתַּחֲות לְךָ֖ אָֽרְצָה
And he told (the dream) to his father, and to his brothers; and his father growled* and told him: ‘What is this dream that you dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers come to bow down to the ground before you?”
(Bereishit 37:10)

From the verse it is clear that Rachel is still alive at the time, which would have been long before Yosef’s 17^th year.  Hence I suggest that Yaakov’s response was meant in jest rather than as a serious rebuke. And thus, the common translation of וַיִּגְעַר־בּ֣וֹ as ‘and he rebuked him’ is more likely that he growled at Yosef playfully.

As well, it is highly unlikely that Yaakov would dispatch Yosef to spy on his brothers in the immediate aftermath of a dream that provoked such a hostile reaction on the part of his siblings.

And finally, when it says regarding the dream  וְאָבִ֖יו שָׁמַ֥ר אֶת־הַדָּבָֽר “And his father kept the saying in his mind” (37:11) the indication is that a prolonged period of time ensued.

Nevertheless, one has to question Yaakov’s thinking when he sends Yosef alone to report on his brothers’ activities.  After all, why was Yaakov worried about them in the first place? And why did he think Yosef, of all people, was the right candidate for this reconnaissance mission?  What possible good could come from shipping a coddled, spoiled and resplendently attired 17 year old all alone into the wilderness, let alone to check up on a band of hostile older men, even if they were his half brothers?

It could well be that, having acted as both father and mother to Yosef, Yaakov has a conflicted attitude toward his favorite child.  He is to Yosef what both Yitzhak and Rivkah were to himself.  On the one hand he desires to bequeath his mantle to this particular son, and at the same time, he cannot justify this desire as Yosef has yet to demonstrate any characteristics of leadership.

And so, Yaakov, instinctively – or knowingly – ships Yosef out into the wilderness, alone, unarmed, and ill prepared, much as he himself had been dispatched in similar fashion from his own father’s home. In doing so, Yaakov hopes Yosef will become a man, much as he had become a man by confronting the fears and challenges of going unaccompanied into a hostile environment.

And, indeed, this is precisely what occurs. The Yosef we respect and revere, like his father before him, is not a born hero. He has to undergo a transformative series of solo experiences which cumulatively mold him into the leader and exemplar that is “Yosef the Righteous”, fit to rule his brothers and, indeed, even his own father.  Hence the inexplicable appearance of the ”man”:

וַיִּמְצָאֵהוּ אִישׁ, וְהִנֵּה תֹעֶה בַּשָּׂדֶה
And a man found him as he was wandering in the field
(37:15)

This is a striking parallel to Yaakov encountering the “man” with whom he wrestled

 וַיִּוָּתֵר יַעֲקֹב, לְבַדּוֹ; וַיֵּאָבֵק אִישׁ עִמּוֹ, עַד עֲלוֹת הַשָּׁחַר
And Yaakov remained alone; and he wrestled with a man until daybreak.
( 32:25)

These are the defining moments when both Yaakov’s and Yosef’s destinies are actually sealed.

Tamar: The Fifth Matriarch?

Moving on to the fascinating episode of Yehudah and Tamar…

The first thing we notice is that Yehudah takes a Canaanite bride (38:2) – with nary a word of rebuke from his father or mother. As I mentioned earlier, the issue of Canaanite brides appears to have been Rivkah’s ruse to gain Yitzhak’s complicity in shipping Yaakov off to Lavan. In truth, neither she nor Yitzhak had any real objection to local girls, evidence Esav’s marrying several of them without any indication of Yitzhak’s disapproval. Rivkah’s belated histrionics regarding Canaanite brides was intended to remind Yitzhak that his own father had sent away for a bride from Haran, and hence he was tricked into believing that perhaps, indeed, Avraham viewed local girls with disfavor.

The other noticeable anomaly is that Tamar, in posing as a prostitute, veils her face.

Apparently, covering a woman’s face was not a sign of modesty in those times. Rather it was an expression of a woman’s desire to be invisible to a particular man —  Tamar did not want to be seen by Yehudah for obvious reasons.  Rivkah did not wish to be seen by Yitzhak, or perhaps she did not desire to see him;

 וַתֹּאמֶר אֶל-הָעֶבֶד, מִי-הָאִישׁ הַלָּזֶה הַהֹלֵךְ בַּשָּׂדֶה לִקְרָאתֵנוּ, וַיֹּאמֶר הָעֶבֶד, הוּא אֲדֹנִי; וַתִּקַּח הַצָּעִיף, וַתִּתְכָּס
And she said unto the servant: ‘Who is this man who walks toward us in the field?’ And the servant said: ‘It is my master.’ And she took her veil, and covered herself
(24:65)

Clearly, Yehudah took Tamar for a prostitute, “because her face was veiled”.

Could it be that it was covering her face that made it possible for Rivkah to cohabit with Yitzhak just as it was covering her face that made it possible for Tamar to cohabit with Yehudah?

Parenthetically, it is evident that the Tamar-Yehudah liaison was not a one-time occurrence. Surely she did not assume that a single encounter could guaranty the desired results. Hence her requesting three different pawns from Judah, when one would have sufficed per encounter. Scripture as much as tells us that Yehudah, upon realizing the harlot’s identity; “ … ceased to know her further”

וַיַּכֵּר יְהוּדָה, וַיֹּאמֶר צָדְקָה מִמֶּנִּי, כִּי-עַל-כֵּן לֹא-נְתַתִּיהָ, לְשֵׁלָה בְנִי; וְלֹא-יָסַף עוֹד, לְדַעְתָּהּ
And Yehudah recognized (them) and said ‘She has been justified over me, for I have not given her to my son Sehelah; and he did not continue to know (cohabit) with her
(38:26)

This is clear evidence that their cohabitations were somewhat protracted.

In this Parsha, yet again, we see how seemingly insignificant occurrences, and experience that might seem negative at the time, often play a key role in the unfolding of developments of epic if not cosmic importance.  As human beings, we live on a small stage and concern ourselves with the petty daily dramas without realizing – or even considering the possibility – that these momentary setbacks are crucial parts of a far larger production.  Indeed, the Lord works in mysterious ways.

Tamar: The making of Yehudah

Yet the story of Yehudah and Tamar is not simply an ancillary tale in the larger drama of Vayeshev. Indeed it is a critical, even seminal, episode in Jewish history.

While tension and dysfunction are hardly unprecedented in the sagas of the first two Patriarchs, neither is there any evidence of the sort of unanchored mayhem and potential fratricide that we observe in the chronicle of Yaakov. Compared to the madness that seems endemic in Yaakov’s household, the families of Avraham and Yitzhak were models of serenity.

Where did Yaakov go wrong? Or did he? Why was he, alone among the Patriarchs, living in a vortex of conflicting passions and plottings that bordered on fratricide, and stopped barely short of such murder? How could he be so clueless and so incapable of ruling his roost?

Perhaps the answer lays in the fact that Yaakov did not have a Sarah or a Rivkah in his life. The first two Matriarchs were not merely vessels for the bearing of sons. They were strong, smart, proactive, sharp tongued, strategic-minded, and possessed of iron wills.

Were it not for Sarah, Avraham would have been adrift and Jewish history would have been a non-starter. He seems to have been content with Yishmael as his son and heir. Even after the arrival of Yitzhak,he is somewhat ambivalent regarding his parental preferences. It was Sarah who put her foot down, forcing him to evict Hagar and Yishamel; tough measures that met with the Almighty’s approval.

Sarah’s daughter-in-law Rivkah was a smooth, smart, strategically savvy woman who prevented her husband Yitzhak from making the catastrophic mistake of driving his blessings and legacy through Esav.

We can only surmise that these two women were hardly pushovers, even on a day-to-day basis. They exerted a great deal of influence that helped keep their households functional.

There may not have been much romantic love between Avraham and Sarah, or Yitzhak and Rivkah. But it is clear that these women were the gyroscopes that gave stability to their respective marriages, and without doubt determined the course of history.

Yaakov had no such woman in his life. He hated Leah, and his beloved Rachel died too soon to manifest any complimentary stability. Yaakov was left on his own with twelve, mostly unruly boys, a wife he detested and two servant girls, Bilha and Zilpah, who are first upgraded to the status of wives in our parsha ( 37:2).

As a result, the entire mishpacha seems on the verge of meltdown. Yaakov cannot manage alone, and none of his sons seems to offer the kind of galvanizing leadership that would impel his siblings to fall into place.

Our tradition suggests that Yehudah, in this parsha, establishes himself as a true leader through two acts; the first being his ‘saving’ Yosef’s life by arranging his sale into slavery (see above); the second being his rising to the occasion and coming clean when Tamar presents the evidence of his paternity (“She has been more righteous than me…” – Gen 38:26).

And, yet these two examples seem to fall somewhat short of establishing one’s credibility as a leader and as the progenitor of royalty and the Messiah. After all, if one were to run for President of the United States on the basis of having not murdered his brother (merely sold him to a bunch of Arabs) and of having confessed to a sexual peccadillo, not too many voters would be persuaded to cast their ballots in his favor.

Hence I would like to suggest another explanation for Yehudah’s ultimate maturation into the undisputed leader of his brethren, and as the Patriarch of the Davidic/Messianic line. And this explanation can be summed up in one word: “Tamar”.

From the text alone we know absolutely nothing about this woman, other than the fact that Yehudah’s firstborn son Er – from his Canaanite wife – married a girl by the name of Tamar. We are told nothing about her nationality, tribe, color, religion, father, mother, or siblings if she even had any.

And yet, if we observe her conduct and deeds over the course of a long and despairingly lonely widowhood, we witness the blossoming of an incredibly strong woman. What’s more, she emerges ultimately as a woman who, if not divinely inspired with prophecy or the holy spirit (רוח הקודש) has a profound faith and the courage of convictions that are simply staggering.

Widowed relatively young from her childless husband Er, Tamar expects to be wedded in levirate marriage to his brother Onan whose responsibility it is to make sure the deceased brother’s legacy will continue through his surviving sibling.

Onan shirks his responsibility, and is killed by God. The remaining brother Shelah, is very young. Yehudah uses the boy’s youth as an excuse to withhold him from Tamar, who is then consigned to her father’s house in widow’s weeds until Shelah might be old enough to fulfill his levirate obligations.

But this never occurs. For whatever reasons, Yehudah does not allow Shelah to take Tamar (38:14)) who, by now, is no longer in the first blush of womanhood. She has patiently, and chastely spent her years in anticipation of a union that never materializes.

But this is a woman with a mission. She will not go passively into old age without child. More importantly, she clearly has a sense of destiny, and knows that she will have children, and that these children will be the progeny of Yaakov and Yehudah. Her determination is absolute. And thus she organizes her plot to entrap Yehudah who has yet to hit his stride as a mature and focused man.

Her plan is to pose as a veiled prostitute at a crossroad that Yehudah is expected to traverse  (38-16). He would then avail himself of her services which would result in her impregnation. His purse would be empty, therefore necessitating his providing his personal rod and seals as security against subsequent payment (38:17). When word would get out that his now pregnant daughter-in-law violated the norms of widowhood and had indulged in harlotry, he would arrange to have her burned in an honor killing (38:24-25). At the very last moment she would produce the evidence of his paternity and the rest would be history.

And indeed this is how it all works out.

But let us stop for a moment and consider the statistical likelihood of any of these stages working out as planned. The probability of the ultimate denouement being successful seems pitifully close to zero.

Let us begin with her sitting temptingly at the crossroads. It is not every man who happens by who engages a harlot’s services. In fact most simply ignore her offerings. And yet, Tamar counts on the fact that Yehudah will succumb to her charms. Rather a long shot.

Secondly she is counting on the fact that Yehudah will lack the means to pay her. For had Yheudah had his purse with him, Tamar would have met a dreadful end. She would have become pregnant. She would have lacked the evidence of Yehudah’s paternity, and her honor killing would have been a foregone conclusion.

Thirdly, Tamar absolutely believes she will become pregnant from this single (or three time) encounter. Again, the statistical likelihood of a woman who has been abstinent for so many years becoming pregnant from an isolated act is a long shot at best.

And finally, Tamar is counting on Yehudah coming clean when she presents him with the pawns she had taken in lieu of payment. One can easily imagine Yehudah denying any knowledge of her, and claiming his personal effects had been stolen as he consigns her to the flames.

For a woman to build her hopes on such flimsy assumptions proves that we are dealing here with a woman whose sense of destiny and determination are of a caliber that is beyond the reach of most mortals.

Indeed she foreshadows the saga of Ruth. Both are childless non-Israelite widows in quest of levirate marriage and children. Both have a burning desire to be part of the Israelite nation and faith. Both use their sensuality to insinuate themselves into the favor of Yehudah and Boaz respectively. And both become Matriarchs of the royal Davidic/Messianic line that descends from Yehudah.

Which brings us back to the original question, namely what is the relevance of the Yehudah/Tamar story to this week’s parsha? The answer, of course, is everything.

By marrying Tamar, Yehudah brings the much needed and normalizing balance into Yaakov’s family. It is Tamar who succeeds Sarah and Rivkah as a de facto Matriarch. And it is through her that Yehudah ultimately finds the stability that enables him to restore some normality to Jacob’s family, and empowers him to fulfill his true potential as an undisputed primo inter pares, the leader and galvanizer of Yaakov’s sons.