The chapter opens with the somewhat strange statement that Judah leaves his brothers, meets up with Hirah the Adulamite, and there, in Adulam, finds himself a wife of Canaanite stock. He thereby violates God’s warning to the patriarchs to avoid Canaanite women (, ). Judah’s wife bears him three sons. He marries off his first son, Er, to Tamar. No information is provided about her lineage. Er dies because he was “displeasing to the Lord” (v. 7).

Judah’s second son, Onan, marries Er’s widow Tamar, according to the rules of levirate marriage, which require a family member, usually a brother, to produce an heir for the deceased. But Onan spills his seed. Since he knew that a child with Tamar would not be his, he decided not to sire a child. God kills him off, too. The third son, Shelah, is now in line to marry Tamar. It is not clear how old he is, but Judah tells Tamar she will have to wait for Shelah to grow up (v. 11).

The next verse reports that, after a long period of time, Judah’s wife died. It then continues with the words, vayinahem Yehudah. The translators understand these words as saying that Judah was “comforted” following his wife’s death, which is the standard interpretation of the Hebrew root N.H.M. But the word vayinahem almost certainly has two meanings in this context. The same grammatical form of this verb appears in many other places in the Bible (e.g., , ) where it means “to regret.” If so, the phrase vayinahem Yehudah in this chapter, very pertinently, also means that Judah regretted making a promise to Tamar to marry her off to Shelah. He clearly does not want to risk the life of his third and only living son. It is his inaction on this matter that triggers the rest of the story.

Judah joins his old friend Hirah the Adulamite, at Timnah, for a sheep shearing. It sounds as if he is looking for a new wife because, as the opening verse of the chapter stated, he found his first wife when “hanging out” with Hirah.

At this point the text reverts to Tamar, who had returned to her father’s home. Verse 13 says that “it was reported to her that her father-in-law had gone up to Timnah for a sheep-shearing.” Both traditional and modern commentators skip over this seemingly simple verse. I find that it calls out for interpretation. My question is not who told Tamar that her father-in-law had gone to a sheep-shearing, but rather why people provided her with this information. The verse seems to suggest that there was general sympathy on the part of the local community for her plight. There she was, twice widowed, promised to the third son, but not permitted to perform levirate marriage with him even though he was now an adult. The townspeople, therefore, are likely to be suggesting to her that she take her fate into her own hands, that she clarify her ambiguous marital status. Note that they refer to Judah not by name but as her father-in-law, an ironic appellation since he clearly was not fulfilling his role of father-in-law for her.

The next verse (v. 14) relates that Tamar decided to play the prostitute. She predicted that her widowed father-in-law, when going to a sheep-shearing with his old friend, would likely choose to enhance his experience by visiting a prostitute. She also knew that once she bore a child with Judah as the father, her ties to his family would dissolve and she could then marry whomever she pleased (or perhaps remain with Judah).

By veiling herself, even though prostitutes in the ancient world did not usually do so, she is able to offer her services to Judah without his discovering her identity. After having sex with her, he promises to send her a kid in payment. She wisely asks him for collateral, knowing this would allow her later to expose him. He gives her his seal, cord, and staff.

Again, townspeople play a role. Judah sends a kid with Hirah to pay the “prostitute,” but the people tell Hirah that there was no prostitute at that location. Judah becomes worried about his own reputation.

Three months pass, which is exactly the time it takes for a pregnancy to begin to “show.” Just as the narrator reported earlier that Rebecca’s fetuses “struggled within her” (), which is a way of saying that pronounced fetal movement is a sign of a twin pregnancy, here, too, the narrator’s “three months” indicates knowledge of the details of pregnancy. Also true is that twin pregnancies, like those of Rebecca and Tamar (as will be reported in v. 27), “show” more than singleton pregnancies.

The people play a role a third time, announcing Tamar’s pregnancy and casting aspersions on her for having played the harlot. As The Oxford Study Bible points out, her misdemeanor was not prostitution but adultery, since she had not yet dissolved her bond to Judah’s family. Judah decrees that she be burnt at the stake. Tamar, in a very dramatic move, as she is being taken out to be executed, sends Judah back his seal, cord and staff. She says aloud, apparently to those gathered to watch the awful scene, “Whose staff and seal and cord are these?” Judah admits to being the father of the unborn child(ren) and acknowledges that Tamar is “right,” meaning he should have married her off to his son Shelah. The verse (v. 26) goes on to say that Judah no longer slept with her. As also noted by The Oxford Study Bible, he may have eventually married her off to Shelah because Shelah names his first son Er (1 Chron. 4:21), thus implying that he had entered a levirate marriage with Tamar to produce an heir for his deceased, childless brother. Tamar gives birth to twins, a blessing in and of itself. The younger twin, Perez, is a progenitor of King David (). In this way the narrator endorses Tamar’s shrewd strategy.

The role played by the townspeople in this episode, like that of a Greek chorus, is significant. They, and not the male characters, move the story along. They tell Tamar that Judah was on his way to a sheep-shearing, suggesting it is time for her to act; they inform Hirah that there was no prostitute at Ena’im, thus making Judah fearful of losing face; they report to Judah that Tamar is pregnant by harlotry, leading him mistakenly to decree to execute her. Moreover, Judah is characterized in this chapter as evasive and hot-headed, whereas Tamar is shown to be clever, levelheaded, and resolute. Given the role played by the “chorus,” the narrator’s knowledge of pregnancy details, the fact that Tamar is portrayed in more positive terms than Judah, that she uses a sex act to right the wrong done to her by him, and that he publicly acknowledges his error of judgment, it seems likely to me that this story’s narrator is female.

As we read the Torah, and as we observe the events of our own lives, it is worth our while to ask who is really creating the narrative. We may find that, aside from the famed protagonists and antagonists, the voices of less prominent people can be just as critical in driving the stories that shape our world.

This commentary was originally published in 2018.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The best way to bring folks together is to give them a real good enemy.
The Wizard of Oz in Wicked (2024)

Joseph’s brothers resent him so much they can’t even stand the sight of him: וַיִּשְׂנְאוּ אֹתוֹ וְלֹא יָכְלוּ דַּבְּרוֹ לְשָׁלֹם (Gen 37:4)—they hated him so much they could not dabro leshalom. The commentators disagree on the meaning of dabro leshalom, whether it means the brothers could not speak peaceably to him or couldn’t even greet him with a simple “hello.” Seforno argues that while the brothers had to talk to Joseph about issues of family business, they did not speak to him about private matters, rendering them more like distant acquaintances than brothers. Either way, the picture is clear: Joseph is hated with a simmering vengeance.

True, he is grandiose and clueless; he entertains “megalomaniacal aspirations” (Steinsaltz on Genesis 37:8) in which the entire family—parents included—bows down to him. Worse still, he is his father’s favorite. But do these dynamics explain why he ends up at the bottom of a pit barely escaping a brotherly execution? Couldn’t the brothers have gone on grumbling to each other and moved on with their day?

It turns out that the brothers’ hatred runs far deeper than mere grumbling. When Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers and their flocks near Shechem, the brothers spot his approaching figure on the horizon. That mere distant sight is enough to ignite their murderous rage. Before Joseph can even reach them, before he can utter a single arrogant word, they’re already plotting his death. As the text tells us, vayitnaklu oto lahamito—they conspired to kill him (Gen. 37:18).

Although this ancient family drama may seem remote, similar group dynamics play out in modern settings, including in my own work as a Clinical Pastoral Educator. Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) takes place in small psychodynamic-like groups where students training to become chaplains meet regularly to examine case materials, discuss personal challenges, and foster professional and spiritual growth. The training model exists in a unique space between education and therapy. While the small group format allows for deep learning and reflection, it can also stir up complex dynamics and emotional turbulence when participants come together. While thankfully none of my students have tried to kill each other, when they are in this small group buckle up. The ride can be a bumpy one.

To make sense of group tensions – whether in training programs or among Joseph’s brothers – we can turn to psychoanalytic group theory. Wilfred Bion, a pioneering psychoanalytic theorist on group dynamics (and WWI tank commander who knew a thing or two about human aggression), shed light on this dynamic. Similar to Freud’s division of ego and id, Bion posited that every group contains two groups: the Work group (W), which focuses on the actual task the group has gathered to accomplish, and the basic assumption group (ba). The latter group operates on an unconscious level; it holds the basic assumption that the group has gathered either to 1. obtain security from a powerful figure (baD—dependency); to 2. fight/flee from an enemy (baFF—fight/flight); or to 3. await a magical solution to emerge from a special relationship or pair within the group (baP—pairing).

Clearly, this particular band of brothers acts as if they have to fight a dreadful, despised enemy; they operate like a basic assumption fight/flight group. It’s not just that they hate Joseph because he is grandiose and self-involved (he is, and they do); rather, Joseph threatens their group cohesion on a deep psychological level. He must be eliminated, or else they will disintegrate. The brothers, however, don’t know this. Groups are often unaware of these underlying currents swirling beneath the surface.

A basic assumption group, then, operates on unconscious emotional drives rather than rational task-focused behavior. You might think you’re meeting with other faculty to decide next year’s undergraduate curriculum, or that you’re sitting down to a nice family dinner, or that you’ve gathered together to herd your father’s flock in Shechem, but on the basic assumption level, you’re likely doing something altogether different.

Back to our parashah: וַיִּֽתְנַכְּל֥וּ אֹת֖וֹ לַהֲמִיתֽוֹ—the brothers conspired to kill Joseph. Thankfully, it’s different in training groups; yet while people don’t throw their group-mates into a pit, they find other ways to “kill” them. They ignore them, talk over them repeatedly during discussions, shoot down their ideas before they’re fully expressed, or exclude them from informal gatherings and side conversations.

The Ohev Yisrael, Rabbi Avraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apt, an 18th-century predecessor of Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, understood something profound about group dynamics that psychoanalytic thinkers would later articulate differently. From Rashi’s commentary that אֹתו (oto) means אליו (elav), “with him,” he writes:

Rashi is hinting at an ancient secret here . . . When Joseph approached his brothers and they plotted in their thoughts to kill him, it would have been impossible for them to actually complete the deed, God forbid, without [connecting to] the spiritual quality of Joseph the Righteous. [The brothers] did not have the ability to approach him and take him to kill him, to bring their thoughts from potential into actual deed. (Ohev Yisrael, Vayeshev 4:2)

In other words, to harm someone, you paradoxically need to connect with them first. The brothers needed to somehow spiritually connect with Joseph’s essence to even be capable of executing the plot against him—there’s a paradoxical intimacy required even in their violence. They can’t really kill him any more than they can kill a part of themselves, and one could argue that even if they did, that which he represented inside them could not be killed.

As a group facilitator, my job is to intervene in order to bring the Work and basic assumption group(s) into contact; the more the basic assumption, i.e. the unconscious group, is manipulated, the less it obstructs the work group.[1] Similarly, the parashah ultimately teaches us that consciousness of our aggressive impulses is the first step in transforming them. Just as the brothers needed consciousness to transform their murderous impulses, groups need awareness of their basic assumptions to function effectively. In chaplaincy training groups, in staff meetings, in family systems, and in any group setting, acknowledging the natural human tendency toward aggressive exclusion can help us pause before acting on these impulses. We don’t have to resolve it; we only need to acknowledge it.

Joseph’s story, though it begins with violent rejection, eventually leads to reconciliation and growth—but only after all parties develop greater self-awareness and emotional maturity through their various trials and tribulations. The work of collective healing, like the work of group development, requires us to hold both the reality of our aggressive impulses and the possibility of their transformation through consciousness and compassion. Both are our human inheritance.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l). 

[1] Bion, W.R. (1961). Experiences in Groups and Other Papers. London: Tavistock. p. 135.

Judah has three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah. Judah arranges the marriage of his eldest to a woman named Tamar, about whom no other details are provided. Is she Israelite or Canaanite? What is she like? The text does not tell us. What we do learn is that Er displeases God, and so God causes him to die. Judah then instructs Onan to marry Tamar and bear offspring that will be attributed to his deceased brother, apparently a case of yibum (levirate marriage). But Onan does not like this idea, and so he deliberately prevents Tamar from becoming pregnant. Of course, this displeases God, and so Onan dies as well.

At this point, Judah tells his daughter-in-law to remain in her father’s house until Shelah is old enough to get married. But the Torah also gives us a glimpse into his thoughts, and we learn that Judah thinks Tamar is the cause of his sons’ deaths and does not truly intend to wed the two. Tamar is left in limbo until one day, she takes matters into her own hands. Judah’s wife has died, and Tamar learns where Judah will be at a particular time. She disguises her face with a veil and poses as a prostitute at the entrance to a place called Enaim, and Judah takes the bait. Tamar cleverly requests a few of Judah’s possessions as collateral, until he will send a goat to pay her. But instead of collecting payment, she holds on to these possessions. Three months later, when it becomes clear that Tamar is pregnant and Judah hears this news, he assumes the worst about her and demands that she be burned to death. This is when Tamar produces the items he had given her, at which point Judah realizes exactly what has happened, and also perceives her pure motivations. Judah then famously pronounces, צדקה ממני—she is more in the right than I.

At the end of this story, Tamar gives birth to twins, Peretz and Zerah. We can connect this notice with a genealogy at the end of the book of Ruth, which draws a direct line from Tamar and Judah’s son Peretz to the future king David.

What are we to make of Tamar, a woman of ambiguous origins, who poses as a prostitute and tricks her father-in-law into sleeping with her in order to preserve his lineage?

I suggest that we consider Tamar in the broader context of the imahot—the matriarchs, who are classically understood as including Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, though we can also note the invisible mothers who stand alongside them—Hagar, Bilhah, and Zilpah. As a mother in Genesis, and direct ancestor of the future king of Israel, to what extent might Tamar belong to this club?

At first glance, there are some important differences between Tamar and the classic canon of matriarchs. For one thing, unlike Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, Tamar does not seem to be related to the ancestral family; instead, her lineage is not clear. There are no patriarchal negotiations over her marriage, like we see with Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah, and no fairy tale meeting at a well. She does not speak to or invoke the name of God (at least, not in the biblical text itself, although the midrash adds prayer to her story). Tamar gets pregnant immediately, without needing to pray to God and without a reference to God opening her womb.

And yet, Tamar may not suffer from infertility, but she is prevented from becoming pregnant through divine intervention, in the form of God killing her husbands and through the intervention of men. Like the matriarchs who engage surrogates to try and have children unconventionally, Tamar takes initiative and creatively devises a plan to bear children in an unconventional way.

While Tamar does not meet her husband or a matchmaker at a well, she does encounter Judah at a place called Enaim, which may be translated as “two springs,” i.e., sources of water. 

We can also note that Judah encounters Tamar immediately after he finishes mourning his wife, in Genesis 38:12, where the verse uses the term וַיִּנָּחֶם—“he was consoled”—the same verb used of Isaac’s consolation after the death of his mother upon marrying Rebecca.

The midrash in Genesis Rabbah 85 identifies commonalities between the stories of Tamar and Rebecca: “There were two who covered themselves with a veil, Tamar and Rebecca, and the two also gave birth to twins.” Just as Rebecca covers herself with a veil in the story where she meets her husband Isaac, Tamar covers herself with a veil for her encounter with Judah. And just as Rebecca gives birth to twins—Jacob and Esau—Tamar gives birth to twins, Peretz and Zerah. The midrash explicitly connects Tamar to the matriarch Rebecca.

In the early Jewish text Biblical Antiquities, Tamar appears in the context of a different foundational story, the prelude to the Exodus. When Pharaoh demands that all Israelite male babies be killed, Amram (Moses’s father) is portrayed as the protagonist who encourages the Israelites to disobey him. Amram gives a speech in which he urges the Israelites to be like Tamar:

“For when our wives conceive, they will not be recognized as pregnant until three months have passed, as also our mother Tamar did. For her intent was not fornication but being unwilling to separate from the sons of Israel she reflected and said, ‘It is better for me to die for having intercourse with my father-in-law, than to have intercourse with Gentiles.’ And she hid the fruit of her womb until the third month …And her intent saved her of all danger. Now therefore let us also do the same.”

Because Tamar acted with courage and with honorable intentions, God saved her. Amram urges the people not to despair, but to be like Tamar. Amram calls her “our mother Tamar”—in Hebrew, we would say תמר אמנו—and emphasizes her maternal role and her devotion to perpetuating the Israelites, despite the danger involved.

While this text certainly embellishes on the Torah itself, I propose that we consider the way that Genesis Rabbah and Biblical Antiquities frame Tamar: as Rebecca-like, as “our mother,” as a model of bravery and commitment to B’nei Yisrael. Tamar is in many respects unlike the matriarchs of Genesis, yet we can grant her a place among them. In doing so, we may also expand our idea of who is central to our story, and who our role models ought to be.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

To recap, Yehudah, Yosef’s older brother, leaves his family and marries the daughter of Shua, a Canaanite. Together they have three sons Er, Onan, and Shelah. Yehudah finds a wife for his eldest son, Er, but God deems that Er is “displeasing” and takes his life. In accordance with the biblical law known as levirate marriage Yehudah’s next oldest son is obligated to marry Tamar, and their children will be considered Er’s, thus redeeming his legacy. However, Onan purposely spills his seed to avoid having a child that would not be considered his. God finds this displeasing as well and takes his life. Tamar is now entitled to marry Shelah, but Yehudah misleads Tamar. Instead of arranging their marriage he casts her away, leaving her in limbo.

While on its face deeply troubling, levirate marriage could be interpreted as a mechanism to protect a woman from being alone in the event of losing a husband. However, instead of looking out for Tamar’s needs, Yehudah scapegoats her for the loss of his two sons. Later, after Yehudah has lost his own wife, he encounters a veiled Tamar and mistakes her for a sex worker. Tamar, who has still not been wed to an unmarried Shelah, sees an opportunity. She agrees to sleep with Yehudah but requests he leave his seal, cord, and staff as a pledge that he will eventually send a payment. When Yehudah’s friend seeks her out to redeem his belongings, she is nowhere to be found.

Three months later, when Tamar reappears visibly pregnant, Yehudah is enraged assuming that she has had a child outside of his family. Oblivious to his own hypocrisy, he calls for her death. As she is being brought to her punishment, she understatedly reports to Yehudah that she is having a child by the man who owns this seal, cord, and staff. In this moment, recognizing his belongings, Yehudah understands what has taken place: Tamar is pregnant with his child. He declares that Tamar is more in the right than he is himself, and she is not to be punished. The chapter concludes with a report that Tamar gives birth to twins, Peretz and Zerah.

When learning this text with my teacher Dr. Amy Kalmanofsky she asked me the following questions:

Who looks good?

Who looks powerful?

Whose interests are being served?

In my initial reading my answer was something along the lines of, “I’m not sure anyone looks good, and Yehudah is holding all the power in service of his own interests.” However, an evaluation of this chapter in the context of the rest of the parashah and of the Tanakh at large allows us to explore drastically different answers to these questions.

While this narrative interrupts the Yosef story, it is also the middle of Yehudah’s own story. Yehudah has just led the charge among his brothers in selling Yosef into slavery. Next week in Parashat Vayiggash we will witness the fullness of Yehudah’s teshuvah and growth when he offers himself as a slave in place of his brother Binyamin.

Understanding the ways that Yehudah will evolve, we can evaluate chapter 38 with a fresh set of eyes. In verse one Yehudah “goes down” to Canaan. Dr. Kalmanofsky asks, will Tamar play a role in lifting him up? At first glance, it appears that in donning a veil, Tamar, perhaps justifiably, deceives her father-in-law. However, perhaps Tamar in fact wants to be seen! Not only does she speak to Yehudah directly, but she does so while standing at Petah Einaim “the entrance of Enaim” a phrase that literally means “opening of the eyes.” Tamar merely wants Yehudah to do right by her, to see her, but he is still too weak to understand how to take care of his own family.

When Tamar presents Yehudah’s belongings, forcing him to confront his actions, she does not do so in a way that exposes or embarrasses him. Instead Yehudah “recognizes” his belongings (Gen. 38:26). This is the same language as when Jacob “recognizes” the tunic that Yehudah and his brothers have bloodied to deceive their father into believing that Yosef has been killed. The intertextuality demonstrates that Yehudah is finally recognizing his own sin and is in a position to take accountability. At this moment Tamar looks good, Tamar looks powerful. She holds Yehuda accountable in a way that does not pit her interests against his but rather serves both of their interests.

That Tamar’s act is one that is recognized as righteous and holy is evidenced later in the book of Ruth. Ruth, another woman who takes her fate into her own hands by manipulating the rites of levirate marriage, gives birth to Obed, the grandfather of King David. David’s lineage on his mother’s side traces all the way back to Peretz, the son of Tamar. In her commentary on the book of Ruth the biblical scholar Irmtraud Fischer writes that, “two women, Naomi and Ruth, built up the House of David . . . the book of Ruth composes [our] people’s history as �ɴdz����’s history!” In commenting on Tamar, Dr. Kalmanofsky argues that the story of Tamar can be read as David’s birth narrative, though admittedly several generations removed.       

Tamar’s story is undoubtedly challenging. She is objectified, cast off, and nearly sentenced to death. However, she also is intentional and powerful. Her persistence is rewarded in the eyes of our tradition by linking her to arguably one of Tanakh’s most central characters: King David. While Bereishit 38 serves as an all too familiar reminder of toxic patriarchy found in both our sacred texts and our contemporary world, Tamar’s story can also be inspiring, and a reminder that feminist Bible scholarship can bring deep, meaningful, and theological healing.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

Axelrod-type questions reverberated in my mind as I reviewed this week’s parashah, with its focus on Joseph’s early life. We learn that Jacob loved Joseph best and adorned him with a special tunic; we study the dreams Joseph shared with his brothers. We learn about the growing hatred Joseph’s brothers felt for him, and the disastrous consequences of their festering fury.

But we don’t get to interview Joseph and probe the impact of his childhood on him; we need to tease out those clues with limited data. In the preceding parashah, Rachel dies giving birth to Joseph’s brother Benjamin. Joseph grew up as a motherless child. Perhaps giving him an ornamental garment was Jacob’s awkward way of overcompensating for this void. But this special treatment made Joseph ripe for bullying. The next verse tells us that it bred the animosity of his brothers, who hated him so much that they could not speak a friendly word to him. 

After the dreams Joseph shared, ones that further exacerbated his brothers’ hatred, Jacob sent Joseph to his brothers who were pasturing their flock at Shechem. Was Jacob clumsily trying to improve brotherly ties? Was he blind to their growing hatred, unwittingly sending Joseph into the arms of those who wished him dead?  

There is a glaring silence from Joseph: after agreeing to visit his brothers, as per his father’s request, we don’t hear from Joseph again until he refuses Potiphar’s wife’s sexual overture. Yet how terrified and despairing Joseph must have felt in the pit and then with the Ishmaelites and Midianites! He was isolated from everything he knew, left only with the painful certainty that his brothers preferred him dead. Rather than seeing Joseph as a spoiled, immature child with delusions of grandiosity, I see a lonely child who had experienced numerous adverse experiences.

Given his vulnerable state of mind, one would expect Joseph to choose the behavior most likely to ensure his survival; thus in the situation with Potiphar’s wife, he would accept her overture. Some commentators go so far as to cast Joseph as the instigator in the story. Noting the Bible’s mention of Joseph’s good looks (39:6), they conclude that he came into the house (39:11) looking for a rendezvous. Rashi, citing Midrash Tanchuma (Vayeshev 8), imagines that as Joseph became comfortable in Potiphar’s house, he began to eat, drink, and curl his hair, prompting God to unleash a seductress against him as punishment.

In Joseph’s refusal—against all odds—we see the beginnings of his emerging autonomy. Some commentators note the rare cantillation shalshelet that accompanies the word “refused”, וַיְמָאֵ֓ן (39:8). Rabbeinu Bahya (Bahya ben Asher, 13–14th century Spain) believes that this cantillation offers a window into Joseph’s intentions, “for from the cantillations in the Torah, we learn what isn’t written, like people’s body language through which we can discern their heart’s intention.”

The zigzag look and sound of the cantillation depicts the mental gymnastics that Joseph went through to resist the damaging patterns of his past and chart a new, healthier future. While Joseph didn’t have the benefit of a good therapist, God served as the catalyst for his change of heart. The Torah tells us that Joseph came to understand that such behavior was immoral and a sin against God (39.10).

Insight into Joseph’s past makes this action and indeed all his adult achievements remarkable, for Joseph displayed the resilience not only to survive a painful childhood but also to assume a role that would ensure the survival of the Egyptians, and, ultimately, of the Jewish people. We can only imagine that when Joseph’s brothers appeared before him in Egypt, the pain and hurt that had been buried for so long resurfaced. Not surprisingly, Joseph initially spoke harshly to them (42:7). But Joseph ultimately engaged lovingly and generously with the brothers who had betrayed him. And by saving their lives, he ensured that God’s promises to his father could someday be fulfilled.

We rarely know the pain that people around us carry. The Joseph story teaches us that if we are to draw lessons and inspiration from others, we must attune ourselves to the many factors—both apparent and hidden—that made them who they are. Only through understanding others’ humanity can we truly appreciate their stories of growth and draw upon them as catalysts for our own.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).   

One wonders what purpose this episode serves. Rashbam and others suggest that the Torah intends to praise Joseph for assiduously seeking his brothers in accordance with Jacob’s wishes despite his own knowledge of his brothers’ hostility toward him. Read this way, the inclusion of the anonymous supplier of information is simply a device to highlight Joseph’s fidelity to his father’s request in the face of obstacles that might have deterred a lesser human being.

However, the Midrash (Tanhuma, Vayeshev 2:3) identifies the anonymous informant as the angel Gabriel; behind this identification lies the assumption that Joseph’s encounter with his informant is not coincidental but rather divinely ordained. God sends a celestial messenger to ensure that Joseph finds his brothers; his consequent descent to Egypt is a vital part of the divine plan to lead Jacob’s descendants into enslavement there as had been foreordained.

The Midrash puts it as follows: “[Joseph’s descent to Egypt] can be compared to the case of a cow that refuses to be led to the slaughterhouse. What did they do? They led her calf in front of her and she followed against her will.” (Tanhuma (Buber ed.), Vayeshev 15:3) So too it is Jacob’s love for Joseph that compels Joseph to journey to Egypt and slavery. One is reminded of Banquo’s dark observation in Macbeth: “The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray us in deepest consequence.” (I.iii)

The above exegeses notwithstanding, I wish to propose an alternative reading: The man was in fact a mere mortal. Just as Joseph was divinely directed to his encounter with him, the man himself was an instrument in God’s hands, placed in the right location and time to be able to lead Joseph to his brothers.

Adopting, for argument’s sake, this interpretation, let us imagine what goes through the mind of this man as he walks away from his encounter with Joseph. No doubt he is pleased to have helped a fellow human being; and indeed from a human perspective this is unquestionably the case. Yet when we view this incident from the perspective of subsequent events, it is clear that, however unintentionally, he has pointed Joseph in the direction of disaster. This dissonant juxtaposition of good intent and evil consequence is a reminder of man’s inability to decipher the relationship of his actions to God’s master plan. The words that Isaiah prophesies in God’s name remind us of the gulf that separates human and divine perception: “For my plans are not your plans, nor are my ways your ways” (Isa. 56:8).

However, despite the words of Isaiah, man is periodically tempted to believe not only that he can anticipate God’s designs, but that through human action these designs can be frustrated. The rabbinic gloss to Isaiah’s prophetic declaration to the ill Hezekiah, “You are going to die, you will not live” (2 Kings 20:1 and Isa. 38:1), cautions against falling prey to this illusory notion. The Rabbis account for the apparent redundancy in Isaiah’s words by interpreting them as “you will die—in this world; you will not live—in the next world.” The reason for this is that Hezekiah has failed to fulfill the commandment to be fruitful and multiply. Hezekiah defends himself, saying that through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he had seen that his offspring were destined to be evil—as indeed his son Menasseh was. Isaiah rebukes him in reply, saying, “What concern of yours are God’s secrets? Your obligation is to do what God has commanded, and God will then do as He sees fit” (BT Berakhot 10a).

In this rabbinic narrative, Hezekiah refrains from fulfilling a mitzvah in an attempt to forestall his divinely decreed fate. Isaiah observes that in so doing Hezekiah trespasses the boundary separating human obligation from divine reckoning. The human role is to carry out God’s commandments; the resulting consequences are part of a larger scheme that transcends both our control and our understanding.

There is an important corollary to this axiom. Just as one cannot forestall the possible negative consequences of a good deed, one cannot anticipate the magnitude of the good that may result from a seemingly insignificant act. “Be as careful to observe a light precept as you are to observe a weighty one,” says Rabbi Judah the Patriarch, “for you do not know the recompense of reward for each precept” (M. Avot 2:1). Therefore one must fight the inclination not to perform a mitzvah that seems to be of little consequence. The temptation to do so may reflect one’s disdain for the seeming pettiness of the mitzvah itself; alternatively, one may feel that engagement with “light precepts” feeds one’s own sense of insubstantiality.

I once had reason to meditate on the truth and relevance of this teaching while attending the wedding of a friend’s son. At one point during the dancing I stood at the outer periphery of several large concentric circles of men and boys who were singing and dancing with great joy. I had already danced a great deal myself and I needed some respite. At that moment I felt entirely irrelevant to the celebration and it seemed to me that I might as well return to my table with the hope that my salad plate had not been whisked away by an overzealous waiter.

All of a sudden the words of Rabbi Judah the Patriarch flashed through my mind: “for you do not know the recompense of reward for each precept.” I realized that my thinking was skewed; in a way it was a form of hubris. It was not for me to calibrate the degree to which my presence or absence increased or decreased the intensity of the rejoicing. My obligation was to gladden the hearts of the bride and groom in whatever way I could. That meant, at the very least, being part of the entourage of celebrants, whether or not the bride and groom, or anyone else for that matter, were aware of my presence.

This realization led to two others. The first was that if the Torah thought my presence significant enough to demand it of me, then I needed to take the obligation more seriously. True, I was too tired to dance; could I not at least clap, or in some other way actively join in the celebration? Indeed I could, and I began to clap and sing.

The second was that participation in the festivity was as important for my own spiritual well-being as it was for the fulfillment of my obligation to the bride and groom. Participation gave meaning to those moments of my life; it transformed me from a spectator to a partner in the important work of bringing joy to two people and their families at this important juncture in their lives. It connected me to everyone else who was rejoicing; each in his or her own way was engaged in the same holy task, and together we produced an expression of joy that surpassed the individual acts of which it was composed.

Our lives are full of mitzvah opportunities if we but have eyes to see them. Greeting a stranger, tempering a criticism so that it does not sting, or complimenting someone on a new haircut, each small act helps tip the cosmic scales toward the side of goodness and merit; each one binds us closer to God and to our fellow human beings; and each one is an instrument for making meaning in our own lives. No, we do not know the ultimate consequences of our actions; as mortals, it is enough that we do mitzvot in the hope and belief that each mitzvah brings another in its wake.

This commentary was first published in 5769. The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

The chapter opens with the somewhat strange statement that Judah leaves his brothers, meets up with Hirah the Adulamite, and there, in Adulam, finds himself a wife of Canaanite stock. He thereby violates God’s warning to the patriarchs to avoid Canaanite women (Gen. 24:3, 28:1). Judah’s wife bears him three sons. He marries off his first son, Er, to Tamar. No information is provided about her lineage. Er dies because he was “displeasing to the Lord” (v. 7).

Judah’s second son, Onan, marries Er’s widow Tamar, according to the rules of levirate marriage, which require a family member, usually a brother, to produce an heir for the deceased. But Onan spills his seed. Since he knew that a child with Tamar would not be his, he decided not to sire a child. God kills him off, too. The third son, Shelah, is now in line to marry Tamar. It is not clear how old he is, but Judah tells Tamar she will have to wait for Shelah to grow up (v. 11).

The next verse reports that, after a long period of time, Judah’s wife died. It then continues with the words, vayinahem Yehudah. The translators understand these words as saying that Judah was “comforted” following his wife’s death, which is the standard interpretation of the Hebrew root N.H.M. But the word vayinahem almost certainly has two meanings in this context. The same grammatical form of this verb appears in many other places in the Bible (e.g., Gen. 6:6, Exod. 14:14) where it means “to regret.” If so, the phrase vayinahem Yehudah in this chapter, very pertinently, also means that Judah regretted making a promise to Tamar to marry her off to Shelah. He clearly does not want to risk the life of his third and only living son. It is his inaction on this matter that triggers the rest of the story.

Judah joins his old friend Hirah the Adulamite, at Timnah, for a sheep shearing. It sounds as if he is looking for a new wife because, as the opening verse of the chapter stated, he found his first wife when “hanging out” with Hirah.

At this point the text reverts to Tamar, who had returned to her father’s home. Verse 13 says that “it was reported to her that her father-in-law had gone up to Timnah for a sheep-shearing.” Both traditional and modern commentators skip over this seemingly simple verse. I find that it calls out for interpretation. My question is not who told Tamar that her father-in-law had gone to a sheep-shearing, but rather why people provided her with this information. The verse seems to suggest that there was general sympathy on the part of the local community for her plight. There she was, twice widowed, promised to the third son, but not permitted to perform levirate marriage with him even though he was now an adult. The townspeople, therefore, are likely to be suggesting to her that she take her fate into her own hands, that she clarify her ambiguous marital status. Note that they refer to Judah not by name but as her father-in-law, an ironic appellation since he clearly was not fulfilling his role of father-in-law for her.

The next verse (v. 14) relates that Tamar decided to play the prostitute. She predicted that her widowed father-in-law, when going to a sheep-shearing with his old friend, would likely choose to enhance his experience by visiting a prostitute. She also knew that once she bore a child with Judah as the father, her ties to his family would dissolve and she could then marry whomever she pleased (or perhaps remain with Judah).

By veiling herself, even though prostitutes in the ancient world did not usually do so, she is able to offer her services to Judah without his discovering her identity. After having sex with her, he promises to send her a kid in payment. She wisely asks him for collateral, knowing this would allow her later to expose him. He gives her his seal, cord, and staff.

Again, townspeople play a role. Judah sends a kid with Hirah to pay the “prostitute,” but the people tell Hirah that there was no prostitute at that location. Judah becomes worried about his own reputation.

Three months pass, which is exactly the time it takes for a pregnancy to begin to “show.” Just as the narrator reported earlier that Rebecca’s fetuses “struggled within her” (Gen. 25:22), which is a way of saying that pronounced fetal movement is a sign of a twin pregnancy, here, too, the narrator’s “three months” indicates knowledge of the details of pregnancy. Also true is that twin pregnancies, like those of Rebecca and Tamar (as will be reported in v. 27), “show” more than singleton pregnancies.

The people play a role a third time, announcing Tamar’s pregnancy and casting aspersions on her for having played the harlot. As The Oxford Study Bible points out, her misdemeanor was not prostitution but adultery, since she had not yet dissolved her bond to Judah’s family. Judah decrees that she be burnt at the stake. Tamar, in a very dramatic move, as she is being taken out to be executed, sends Judah back his seal, cord and staff. She says aloud, apparently to those gathered to watch the awful scene, “Whose staff and seal and cord are these?” Judah admits to being the father of the unborn child(ren) and acknowledges that Tamar is “right,” meaning he should have married her off to his son Shelah. The verse (v. 26) goes on to say that Judah no longer slept with her. As also noted by The Oxford Study Bible, he may have eventually married her off to Shelah because Shelah names his first son Er (1 Chron. 4:21), thus implying that he had entered a levirate marriage with Tamar to produce an heir for his deceased, childless brother. Tamar gives birth to twins, a blessing in and of itself. The younger twin, Perez, is a progenitor of King David (Ruth 4:18–22). In this way the narrator endorses Tamar’s shrewd strategy.

The role played by the townspeople in this episode, like that of a Greek chorus, is significant. They, and not the male characters, move the story along. They tell Tamar that Judah was on his way to a sheep-shearing, suggesting it is time for her to act; they inform Hirah that there was no prostitute at Ena’im, thus making Judah fearful of losing face; they report to Judah that Tamar is pregnant by harlotry, leading him mistakenly to decree to execute her. Moreover, Judah is characterized in this chapter as evasive and hot-headed, whereas Tamar is shown to be clever, levelheaded, and resolute. Given the role played by the “chorus,” the narrator’s knowledge of pregnancy details, the fact that Tamar is portrayed in more positive terms than Judah, that she uses a sex act to right the wrong done to her by him, and that he publicly acknowledges his error of judgment, it seems likely to me that this story’s narrator is female.

As we read the Torah, and as we observe the events of our own lives, it is worth our while to ask who is really creating the narrative. We may find that, aside from the famed protagonists and antagonists, the voices of less prominent people can be just as critical in driving the stories that shape our world.

Professor Hauptman is currently working on a project on legal anecdotes in the Talmuds, demonstrating how non-rabbis, especially women, may have made significant changes to the law. She is also the mother of twins.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).

This week’s parashah crystallizes the dysfunctional family dynamics that are evident throughout the book of Genesis—the fraught father-son relationships, the painful intergenerational wounds of favoritism, the anger and resentment between siblings, and, deep down, the simple desire to be loved. Although we may cringe at the violence of the brothers toward Yosef, the narrative of Vayeshev also opens our hearts to the pain these sons felt at their father’s rejection—his greatest love reserved for Yosef:   וְיִשְׂרָאֵל אָהַב אֶת יוֹסֵף מִכָּל בָּנָיו (“Yisrael [i.e., Ya’akov] loved Yosef most of all his sons”) (Gen. 37:3). 

The wound of this rejection, the longing to be loved, is further represented by the motif of the garment, the beged, in its various forms—most powerfully perhaps in the ketonet pasim, the coat of colors that Yosef wears. That is the site of the brothers’ grief-inducing dissimulation as they present their favored brother’s blood-stained cloak to their father, tricking him into the conclusion that his son has been killed and devoured by a wild animal: וַיֹּאמֶר כְּתֹנֶת בְּנִי חַיָּה רָעָה אֲכָלָתְהוּ טָרֹף טֹרַף יוֹסֵף (“He [Ya’akov] said: ‘It is my son’s cloak; a wild animal has eaten him! Yosef has been torn apart!’”) (37:33). The garment is the instrument of deception (begidah) elsewhere in the parashah as well—in the veil of Tamar (which she uses to disguise herself in seducing Yehudah, 38:14–19), in the clothing of Yosef in the lying hands of Potiphar’s wife, left behind in his flight from her advances (39:11–18). Beged and begidah, garment and deception.

In symmetry, the garments of both Ya’akov and Reuven are highlighted in the dramatic expression of grief, the tearing of clothing as a gesture of mourning. In the case of Reuven, we may also observe the portrayal of compassion—he returns to the pit, planning to rescue his brother who, alas, has already been sold by the others into slavery: וַיָּשָׁב רְאוּבֵן אֶל הַבּוֹר וְהִנֵּה אֵין יוֹסֵף בַּבּוֹר וַיִּקְרַע אֶת בְּגָדָיו (“Reuven returned to the pit, and behold Yosef was not in the pit, and he ripped his garments”) (Gen. 37:29). Reuven’s return, וַיָּשָׁב רְאוּבֵן, communicates the ideal of compassion; metaphorically, we may read it as the need to enter the place of the empty pit in the world, to lift up those among us who may have fallen into the dark places of suffering and hopelessness.

Yosef’s absence both underscores Reuven’s despair at his failed attempt to save his brother, and, at a more figurative level of meaning, may be said to symbolize the parched and empty sense of spiritual alienation—the thirst felt in the absence of the living waters of Divinity. Yosef’s name is thus read creatively as an allusion to the overflow of divine abundance (hosafah/Yosef); the surplus of Divine Presence and vitality is the “Yosef-dimension” of existence, whereas the pit empty of water represents a state of being in which the life-giving energies of God are absent—leaving the human being in a disoriented condition of extreme spiritual thirst. As it was said a few verses earlier, when Yosef was first cast into the pit: וְהַבּוֹר רֵק אֵין בּוֹ מָיִם (“The pit was empty, it contained no water”) (v. 24).

If Vayeshev teaches us profound lessons about the fragility of love, about family, deception, and vulnerability, it also may be read (as it has been by generations of spiritual masters) as wisdom about the soul’s yearning for Divine Presence, about the intersecting threads of hardship, struggle, and the devotional quest. The figure of Yosef may be understood as a paradigm for the cry of prayer, the wail from the depths of suffering, of being lost in the world; Yosef represents the struggle to rise from the sunken place of despair, the dark place of Mitzrayim (Egypt)—both as a struggle through adversity, but also as the life-process of redeeming hidden divine light from even the most coarse and constraining elements of materiality and mundane existence. The pit into which Yosef is cast by his jealous brothers is akin in this reading to the painful and narrow place of Egypt, the metzarim of Mitzrayim. וַיַּעֲלֵנִי מִבּוֹר שָׁאוֹן (“He lifted me out of the miry pit”), sings the Psalmist (Ps. 40:3). It is that same hope expressed in this Psalm (‘קַוֹּה קִוִּיתִי ה [“I put my hope in YHVH”] [v. 2]) that is embodied in the figure of Yosef.

According to Rabbi Menahem Nahum of Chernobyl, a late eighteenth-century Hasidic master, this was the reason the Torah speaks about Yosef’s descent into Egypt. It is to teach us that in creating the world, God placed a luminous divine spark—a portion of the transcendent Divine essence, חלק א-לוהי ממעל, into the darkness of matter, into the seemingly profane realms of ordinary existence. Here too we observe a play on the name of Yosef: an extra abundance of light is drawn from the darkness of materiality, and the figure of Yosef represents an addition, tosefet (Yosef/hosafah/tosefet)—an extra measure of divine light that may bring the promise of redemption, illuminating the eyes and opening the heart to God. The primordial light was hidden within the darkness so that we too might find our way back to Divinity even when we feel we are in the darkest of places. Like the traces of a pathway out of the woods, the fragments of divine light may lead us from the forest of darkness—that we are lost, and yet may be found once again.

Thus are the lessons of Vayeshev and Hanukkah intertwined: in these, the darkest hours of the year, the flames are lit to remind us of the wonder and beauty that is still possible, the hope that may warm us even on the coldest and most bleak of winter nights—of the divine נסים ונפלאות, the miracles and wonders that may yet lie hidden. It is a time of התחדשות, of renewal, of not letting our spiritual vitality become stale and uninspired. Let us instead strive to be always like Yosef, the youth (נער), which the late nineteenth-century Sefat Emet reads as representing the energy of התעוררות, awakening—an interpretive play on the similar sounds of these two Hebrew words.

In all the passing moments that have the potential to fall into the pit of routine, boredom, and superficiality, may we be blessed with the sparkle of childhood wonder, with an awareness of Creation renewed. Spirit of the world, open our hearts to hope and to gratitude for our many blessings; fill us with the passion to be ever-awake to the sacred mystery and sublime gift of this all-too-fleeting human life.

The publication and distribution of the 91�첥 Commentary are made possible by a generous grant from Rita Dee (��”l) and Harold Hassenfeld (��”l).