Gen. 37:1 - 40:23
PrĂ©cis: The story of Joseph begins with the words, “And Jacob dwelt (vayeshev) in the land of his father’s travels.” We learn that Joseph is Jacob’s favorite son. Joseph receives the famous coat of many colors, and dreams strange dreams and relates them to his brothers and father, creating additional concern (jealousy) on their part. The sons conspire to do away with Joseph, but before he dies, they sell him into slavery. Jacob is devastated when the sons present evidence of Joseph’s “death.”
We then have an intervening story about Judah. He marries off his first son to Tamar. The son soon dies, and, the next son is married to the widow (“levirate marriage.”) The second son (Onan) dies, and Judah is loath to offer the third son. The widow dresses as a harlot, seduces Judah, becomes pregnant, and reveals herself to Judah as a woman wronged. He acknowledges her as a rightful daughter.
The scene shifts back to Joseph, who is now a servant in the household of Potiphar, an Egyptian official. Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce Joseph but he refuses her advances. She accuses him nonetheless of attempted rape, and Joseph is tossed into prison. There, he meets jailed servants of Pharaoh, for whom he interprets dreams successfully. When the chief butler is restored to his post, he promises to “remember” Joseph, but the parasha ends with the words, “but he forgot him.”
Gen. 37:32-33 “…. We found this. Is this your son’s tunic or not? He recognized it, and said, ‘My son’s tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!’”
Joseph’s brothers present “evidence” of his death, which Jacob accepts. They never tell their father the truth. Rachel Farbiarz reminds us (MyJewishLearning.com, 12/9/14) that midrash says that there actually was one person who was aware of their conspiracy of silence: their grandfather, Isaac. Isaac had been the object of trickery in the matter of the blessings between Jacob and Esau, and he could spot the deception (even though he was aged and blind).
What is the purpose of this midrash? Farbiarz suggests that Isaac remained silent because of the trauma of the Akedah. He would not break his silence, and he assumed it to be the “will of God” because he felt that the violence done to him by his father was also God’s will. The midrash may teach us that those who suffer at the hands of others are loath to air their grievances, and fail to support others who suffer.
On the other hand, the midrash can be looked at in an entirely different way. Isaac’s silence caused real harm to his son Jacob, who grieved for decades over the assumed death of his beloved son. Silence in the face of knowledge of wrong-doing is wrong. It is not "accepting God’s will," nor the will of a political leader. It is cowardice.
