Vayeshev
Gen. 37:1 - 40:23
Précis: 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.”
When Joseph refuses Potiphar’s wife, she grabs an article of his clothing, which is used as “evidence” of rape. The Hebrew word for the clothing is “beged” and has the Hebrew root of bet-gimel-dalet. Another word with this root is “begidah,” usually translated as “treachery” or “deception.” What is the connection between clothing and deception?
Here, clothing was used as false evidence. If we take this a (modern) step forward, we see that truth also can be concealed by ignorance and hatred.
In Israel and around the world, the so-called “main-stream media” as well as countless “influencers” in social media have quickly turned from the inhumane, animalistic attacks of Hamas on Israelis into tirades against Israel and Jews everywhere. The deception is found not only in outrageous statements condoning the genocide of Israelis and Jews everywhere (a self-acknowledged aspect of the Hamas agenda), but also by the canard of equating Zionism with colonialism and oppression. At its core, antisemitism (more accurately called “Jew-hatred”) is based on millennia of lies, holding Jews and our state to a double-standard.
The term “intersectionality” has gained a foothold, particularly on college campuses. Intersectionality stands for the proposition that the world is divided into the oppressed and the oppressors, and that those who are oppressed must unite to fight against the oppressors. Jews conveniently fall int the camp of “oppressors” because of a deep-seeded antisemitic rationale This week, we saw Congressional testimony by the heads of MIT, Harvard, and Penn who refused to state that calls for genocide against Jews were not prohibited in their universities. Just imagine their reaction if we substitute “Black” or “transgender” for the word “Jew.” This is another example of the double standard at the core of Jew-hatred.
As Senator Schumer recently so eloquently pointed out, Jews have been among the oppressed for thousands of years, and continue to be oppressed today.
When evidence is revealed (including videos shot by Hamas terrorists themselves) of the use of rape and torture against Jewish women, where are the voices who defend (non-Jewish) women around the world? I guess Jewish women who have been raped, sexually violated, and butchered don’t fall into the category of the “oppressed.”
Truth in the Joseph story was hidden by deception. Today, the truth about Israel and Jews everywhere is being hidden by an ignorance of history and by Jew-hatred. We cannot remain quiet. Like Joseph, we will ultimately prevail.
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