Vayeshev: We’ll Skip This Next Story
It was in the second or third grade that I began to study Chumash. I remember beginning at the beginning, with Parashat Bereshit. It must have been in third, or perhaps even fourth, grade that we reached this week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23).
Generally, we studied the text carefully, one verse at a time. We translated each phrase into a combination of Yiddish and English. The teacher supplemented each lesson with some of Rashi’s commentary and stimulated our interest by sharing stories from the Midrash. Occasionally, we would skip over a passage, usually one which only contained a long genealogy or list of successive generations.
To this day, I remember when we began reading the highly dramatic story of Yosef and his brothers. We all identified with Yosef, of course, and were frightened and angry when his brothers sold him into slavery. We were shocked to learn that it was Yehuda who suggested that rather than throwing Yosef into a pit ridden with snakes and serpents, from which Yosef could never emerge alive, it would be better to sell him to a caravan of Ishmaelites who were passing by. Yehuda’s influence over his brothers was so strong that they complied, extracted Yosef from the pit, and delivered him into the hands of the Ishmaelites for twenty silver coins. And so, Yosef was taken to Egypt.
We were then brought to tears when the brothers informed their father Yaakov about Yosef’s whereabouts. “They took Yosef’s distinctive robe, slaughtered a goat, and dipped the robe into the blood. They then sent (vayeshalchu) the magnificent robe and brought it to their father saying (vayomru), ‘This is what we found, please recognize (haker na) whether this is your son’s robe or not. He recognized it (vayakira vayomer), ‘This is indeed my son’s robe! A wild beast has devoured him. Yosef has been torn to bits!’ Yaakov tore his garments, placed sackcloth around his waist, and mourned his son for many days. He could not be consoled and kept saying, ‘I will go down to the grave grieving for my son.’” (Genesis 37:31-36, freely translated).
We returned to the classroom the next day, eager to learn of Yosef’s fate, hoping to proceed to chapter 38 and hear the rest of the story. How disappointed we were when the teacher informed us that “we will skip the next story.” He did not tell us why, but quietly, almost ashamedly, notified us that chapter 38 was not about Yosef at all but was about something that would not interest us. Raising his voice a bit, he informed us that we will next learn all about Yosef. He had us open our Chumashim and turn to chapter 39, where we immediately read, “And Yosef descended to Egypt.” From there onward, we learned the rest of his story.
What was the story in chapter 38, and why did we skip it? If indeed it was not about Yosef, then why was the suspenseful narrative of Yosef’s tribulations being interrupted? Years later, I came to know that chapter 38 contained the story of Yehuda and Tamar and that our teacher had decided that we were too young and immature to learn about their relationship. But I’ve remained puzzled for many years questioning why the Torah interrupted the story of Yosef with this digression into the story of Yehuda and Tamar.
Among the many answers offered to this question, I’ve come to favor one approach to most others. It is the approach of an Italian rabbi and famous bible scholar and professor in Israel, Umberto Moshe David Cassuto (1883-1951). He served as chief rabbi of his native Florence, was a professor of Hebrew at the university there, and eventually was appointed chair of Bible studies at Hebrew University, Jerusalem. He was a major opponent of so-called “Higher” biblical criticism and maintained forcefully that we must, in his words, “penetrate to the innermost meaning of the Biblical passages and draw from the texts themselves the answers to our questions. Let us consult the book; let us listen to the verses and hear what they tell us.”
It is here that I must assume that the reader is familiar with the story of Yehuda and Tamar. Otherwise, please read chapter 38 yourselves, in Hebrew preferably, or in a good English translation if necessary. Following Professor Cassuto, I will focus only on the denouement of the story, its final episode, chapter 38, verses 25 and 26 especially.
There, Yehuda, having suspected his pregnant former daughter-in-law Tamar of harlotry, condemns her to death by fire. He does not realize that he himself fathered the child (or twin children) that she carries. She is taken to the site of her execution and “she sends to her father-in-law and says (shalcha … laymor), ‘Please recognize (haker na) to whom this signet ring and threads and staff belong (note: these are the very objects that he gave to her as payment for her intimacy with him, at the time not knowing her identity).’ Yehuda recognizes these objects and says (vayaker Yehuda vayomer), ‘she is more righteous than me!’”
If you’ve been reading this carefully, you have noticed the striking phenomenon of the phrases “and she sent to her father-in-law saying,” “and she said please recognize,” “and Yehuda recognized and said,” in chapter 38, which are almost identical to the phrases “and they sent the robe… and they said,” “please recognize whether this is your son’s robe,” “and he recognized it and said,” in chapter 37.
In an essay Professor Cassuto published in 1929, he wonders, “Can this be mere coincidence? Or do the phrases in chapter 37 serve as background for the frightful sense of bereavement experienced by Yaakov when he is confronted with the image of his favored son torn to pieces by a wild beast. Could Yaakov’s trauma not be seen as Yehuda’s fault? Could not the Judge of the World have punished Yehuda, whose idea it was to sell Yosef into bondage, by having him suffer similar trauma by being confronted by his sinful, albeit unintentional, illicit relationship with his daughter-in-law? Just as Yehuda and his brothers caused Yaakov to tragically “recognize” the death of his beloved son, so was Yehuda destined to “recognize,” to his horror and shame, the objects that were sent to him forcing him to “recognize” and confess his guilt.”
I find Professor Cassuto’s approach ingenious and just one example of the power of “listening to the verses and hearing what they tell us.”
I’d like to conclude with words of Professor Cassuto as he ended his inaugural address when he assumed his position at Hebrew University. It is a prayer as suitable now as it was then in 1939:
“Just as the books of Scripture proved a source of a blessing for our forefathers, may it be so too for us, for our children and our children’s children. May they raise our spirits and embolden our hearts to realize our aspirations and to achieve the aims toward which we have directed our being, the renewal of the people of Israel upon the Land of Israel.”