Parshat Vayeshev: Walkthrough
Posted by Jack Kustanowitz on November 24, 2010 | Tags: Vayeshev
Loyalty to the literal text, with a modern voice [All editorializing in brackets]
[We left off last week with a fast-forward of Esav’s family in Edom, outside Canaan.]
Jacob, however, settled down IN his father’s land, Canaan.
[Following the same formula we’ve seen before with Noach, Abraham, and Isaac]: Here is the story of Jacob: Joseph was 17 years old, and he would hang out with his half-brothers (Bilhah and Zilpah’s kids), telling his father everything they did wrong.
(Now Israel [recall, Jacob’s new name] loved Joseph most among all his sons, since he was born when Jacob was already old, and so he made him a striped coat.)
The other sons realized that their father favored Joseph, and they hated him so that they couldn’t even speak civilly to him.
Joseph dreamed a dream and told his brothers, and it just made them hate him even more. He said, “Check out this dream I had – We are collecting sheaves in the field, and my sheaf stood up straight, and your sheaves all turned and bowed to mine.”
His brothers: “Are you going to be king over us?” And they hated him the more so, for what he dreamt and [for that matter] how he told the story.
He dreamed again, and told his brothers as well: “I had another dream, where the sun and moons and 11 stars were bowing down to me.”
He told this one to his father as well as his brothers. Now even his father was angry: “What kind of dream is this? Are you saying that I and your mother and brothers will come to bow down to you?” [Recall that his mother, Rachel, is dead, so this may have struck a nerve with Jacob]
His brothers were jealous; Jacob took note.
His brothers went to Shechem [recall from earlier, this is a conquered city with no one left] to feed the sheep. Israel [Jacob] said, “Hey, aren’t your brothers shepherding in Shechem? Maybe I’ll send you out to them.” Joseph said, “Sure.”
Jacob told him to go check things out and report back, and Joseph headed out from Hebron up to Shechem. He found some guy wandering in the fields, and he asked Joseph what he was looking for. Joseph told him he was looking for his brothers, and the guy told him that he thought he heard them say there were going to Dotan, so off Joseph went, and he found them there.
They saw him from far away, and before he came too close, they plotted to kill him. They said to each other, “Here comes that dreamer. Let’s go kill him, we can throw him in one of the pits and say that a wild beast ate him, and we’ll see what will become of his dreams.”
But Reuven heard and saved him, saying “Let’s not kill him. Instead, throw him into this one pit in the desert but without actually harming him.” (Reuven was planning to save him later and get him home safely to his father).
So when Joseph arrived, they stripped off his striped coat, and threw him into the empty pit. And as they sat to eat, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites [their second cousins] heading south from Gilad towards Egypt carrying merchandise for sale. So Judah turned to his brothers and says, “What do we get out of just killing our brother? Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites, after all, he is our brother.” – and his brothers listened.
Then a group of Midianite traders passed by, and they pulled Joseph out of the pit, selling him to the Ishmaelites for 20 pieces of silver, and the Ishmaelites continued on their way to Egypt with Joseph in tow.
Reuven returns [we don’t know where he went], only to find that Joseph was not in the pit, and he tears his clothes. He then returns to his brothers saying “The boy is gone, and I don’t know what to do.”
They took Joseph’s coat, killed a goat, and dipped the coat in the blood. Then they took the coat to their father, saying “We found this, is it your son’s coat or not?”
Jacob recognized the coat and said, “It is my son’s coat, an evil beast must have eaten him. Joseph must have been torn apart.”
Jacob tore his clothes and mourned his son many days. The whole family came to comfort him, but he refused, saying “I will go to my grave mourning him.”
(Meantime in Egypt, the merchants had sold Joseph to Potiphar, Pharaoh’s Chief Meat Preparer.)
Around this time, Judah moved out for a while, where he made a friend named Hira and met a nice Canaanite girl [remember, this is historically a big taboo in this family]. Judah and the Canaanite woman had a son named Er, followed by Onan and then by Shelah (who was born while his father was out of town).
Judah found his son Er a wife named Tamar. [Note: If Judah is finding a wife for his son, you have to figure we are now at least 15 years or so in the future of the concurrent Joseph story.] God thought Er was bad, so He killed him.
Judah told Onan to perform “yibum”, [an ancient custom where a brother married his deceased brother’s wife in order to keep his brother’s name alive] for his brother Er, to have with Tamar the children that Er never got to have. But Onan knew that the children would not be his [by the terms of yibum, they would be considered Er’s], and so he took steps during relations with Tamar to ensure that she would not get pregnant.
God didn’t like this much either, so He killed him too.
Judah told Tamar to go home for a while until Shelah got old enough to try the yibum thing himself (he was in no rush to get Shelah married to her as well, lest he die like his brothers), so Tamar went home. A while later [so what are we, 20 years in the future of the Joseph story at least?] Judah’s wife dies, and he goes up to Timnah to hang out with his friend Hirah. Tamar finds out, gets dressed to look like a prostitute, and stands on the way to Timna where Judah will happen upon her (since she saw that Shelah had grown up and she had not been given to him).
Judah spotted Tamar and propositioned her.
Tamar: “What will you give me?”
Judah: “I’ll send a goat.”
Tamar: “I’ll need collateral until you send it.”
Judah: “What do you want?”
Tamar: “Give me a few personal items.”
So the deal was closed, Tamar conceived, and headed home where she changed back in her widow’s clothes.
Judah then sent his buddy Hira to bring the goat as payment and get his personal items back, but he couldn’t find her. He even asked the locals where the prostitute was that hung out at that intersection, but they said that there was no prostitute that hung out there.
Hira told Judah that he couldn’t find the woman, and Judah panicked, urging him to look harder.
But in the meantime, three months later Judah finds out that Tamar had gone whoring and gotten pregnant in the process. Judah said, “Bring her out to be burned.” So they find her, and she sends a message to her father-in-law saying, “The father of this child is whoever owns these personal items.” Judah recognized his stuff and said, “She is more righteous than I – all of this is because I did not give her to my son Shelah when he was old enough.” (Once was enough, Judah did not pursue things with her any further.)
When she gave birth, it turns out they were twins. The first came out hand first, and they tied a string around his hand to indicate that he was the firstborn. But then he pulled his hand back, and his brother came out first, so they called him “Peretz”. Then the first boy followed, and they called him “Zerach”.
[Back to the story… Quick recap:] Joseph had been taken down to Egypt, where Potiphar bought him.
God was with Joseph, and he did well for his master. Potiphar noticed, and put him in charge of the house. At which point God blessed his entire house, and Potiphar gave Joseph complete control over everything. (And by the way, Joseph was also very good-looking.)
After all this, Potiphar’s wife was checking out Joseph and said, “Sleep with me.” But Joseph refused, saying “My master has entrusted EVERYTHING to me, given me control of everything except you, since you’re his wife. How could I do such an egregious thing, I would be sinning to God.”
But she pestered him daily, until that one day, when he came to the house to work, but no one else was home. She grabbed his tunic and continued her pestering, and he just left her holding it and fled outside. When she saw how things ended up, she called to the other members of the household, saying, “Look, he brought this Hebrew guy to make fools of us – he came over trying to seduce me and I screamed. And when he heard me scream, he just left his tunic here and fled.” And so she kept the tunic until her husband came home.
She told him the same story – he became furious and put Joseph in the jail where the king’s prisoners were kept.
But God was with Joseph there as well, and He made it so the Chief Prison Guard got to like him. And so the Chief Prison Guard put Joseph in charge of all of the prisoners – whatever Joseph did God made it succeed.
And after all that, the king’s Chief Butler and Chief Baker did something wrong and he put them in the same jail where Joseph was being kept. One night they each had a dream, and in the morning when Joseph came to see them, they were both perturbed.
“Why so glum today?” Joseph asked.
They told him that they had dreamt and had no idea what the dreams meant.
Joseph said that God can interpret dreams, so perhaps they’d like to share with him.
The Chief Butler went first: “There was a vine in front of me, with three bunches of grapes. Pharaoh’s cup was there too, and I squeezed the grapes into his cup and gave it to him.”
Joseph said, “Here’s what it means: The three bunches of grapes represent three days. In three days’ time, Pharaoh will raise up your head and restore you to your former position. Just do me a favor and remember me, tell Pharaoh about me so maybe he’ll get me out of this pit. You see, I was kidnapped from the land of the Hebrews, and even here I haven’t done anything wrong.”
The baker saw that Joseph’s interpretation was good, so he went next: “I had a similar dream – there were three baskets of bread on my head. The top basket had all kinds of baked goods, but the birds were eating them.”
Joseph said, “Here’s what it means: The three baskets of bread represent three days. In three days’ time, Pharaoh will raise up your head TO CHOP IT OFF, hang you from a tree, and the birds will eat your flesh.” [Have a nice day.]
On the third day, it was Pharaoh’s birthday, and so he threw a party. He brought the Chief Butler and the Chief Baker up from jail, but while he restored the Chief Butler to his previous position, he hanged the Chief Baker, exactly as Joseph had interpreted. The Chief Butler, however, completely forgot about Joseph.
[Again the parsha comes full circle. We started with Joseph’s dreams and how they get him in trouble, and we end with more dreams and more interpretations. More dreams and interpretations to come next week.]
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Jack KustanowitzJoined: July 15, 2007 Jack is an Internet professional living in Silver Spring, MD. He is a proud alum of the Frisch School in Paramus, NJ as well as Boston University, where he was active at BU Hillel. Divrei Torah (32) |
