VaYeshev
Genesis 37:1-40:23

What does it mean for God to be with you?

What is simple luck and what is divine intervention?

How do we know whether something that happens is good or bad? We know whether we are pleased or upset at the time, but only rarely can we see how events fit into the larger picture. Sometimes the worst experiences turn out to be the most beneficial in unforeseen ways. Sometimes success and comfort turn out to be treacherous. The story of Joseph opens all of these subjects, and suggests that hope is never lost.

As the story of Joseph begins this week (and continues through the end of Genesis, three more parshiyot), we are told several times that God is “with” Joseph, and so whatever harm is done to him turns to good. The story of Joseph portrays God working much more indirectly than with the first three patriarchs. God is in the background, bringing about extraordinary coincidences and dreams that foretell the future. The outcome of the Joseph story is that the whole clan of Jacob is saved from starvation and famine because Joseph just happens to become a high official in Egypt with the prescience to stockpile food. Saved -- only to become slaves for 400 years of miserable oppression. But being enslaved provides and opportunity for us to witness the saving power of God in a most dramatic manifestation, and carry the memory far into the future, as a teaching about freedom, hope, and how much we owe God. So what is good news and what is bad news? It is not always obvious.

As VaYeshev begins, Joseph is already 17 and his brothers hate him passionately. As the first son of Rachel, Jacob’s most beloved wife, he is his father’s favorite, and so resented by the others. He also tattles on them, gets to wear finer clothes, and has dreams of ruling over all of them that he freely shares.

Then Jacob sends Joseph to go to Shechem to see how the brothers are managing with the flocks. A mysterious man appears briefly, giving Joseph directions to find the brothers when he arrives in Shechem and can’t find them. Maimonides interpreted this man as an angel, sent to be sure that Joseph would meet his fate and that God’s plans would develop.

The brothers see Joseph coming, and plot to kill him. They are persuaded to sell him into slavery instead, and send back the Coat of Many Colors smeared in blood to make it appear Joseph was attacked and killed by an animal. So Joseph is off to Egypt.

Then the story of Joseph in interrupted for a chapter (Chapter 39) on a completely different subject. We learn that Judah, Jacob’s fourth son, married a woman and had three sons. The eldest was married to Tamar, but then he died. The second son was asked to step in and give Tamar a child to carry on his brother’s name. He refuses to fulfill this obligation, which displeases God and he dies as well. So Tamar is sent away , told that she must wait for the third son to grow up. But when that son is grown, Judah does not give her to Tamar, fearing he will die, too. Tamar takes matters into her own hands, seduces Judah disguised as a prostitute, and conceives by him from that one encounter. When Judah learns of the trick, he has to admit she was more righteous than he. What is this doing here?

The story parallels some aspects of the Joseph story. There is jealousy among the brothers. There are items sent to identify Judah as the father, similar to Joseph’s bloodied coat being sent to Jacob. But most of all, there is God in the background, subtly bringing about a desired future. Judah is the ancestor of King David. Just as the Joseph story shows how God plants the seeds of later redemption by manipulating events for Joseph to land in charge of Egyptian grain, so here the line of Judah is carried on which will lead to the dynasty of David. In post-Biblical days, Jews developed the belief that a supernatural messiah would one day arise from the line of David and bring an end to the exile of the Jewish people. The Macabees drew on this belief when they felt their defeat of the Syrian Greeks was evidence of a miraculous redemption. Early Christians had the story of the Macabees in mind when they hoped that Jesus could miraculously throw off the enormous power of Rome.

Most Jews today take the idea of a messiah to be a symbol for the potential within all people to work together to save the world and bring about justice and peace. Jews have never accepted the idea that a human being could be God. But Jews have always taught that we are all made in the divine image. When we feel redemption is possible and worth struggling for even again tremendous odds, we might say that is the divine part of our nature at work. The Joseph and Judah stories stoke up the embers of our hope in the future, reminding us that future salvation might be buried in the small acts of righteousness, and even in the confusing and painful events, that make up our lives now. No act of goodness is in vain, and may even have tremendous unforeseen consequences for good. God may reach us only very obliquely, but we can never be sure all is lost. Seeds are being planted that may flower exactly when we are most in need.

- Rabbi Alexis Roberts
© December 2003