Torah reading: Genesis chapters 37 to 40.
Haftarah reading: Amos 2:6 to 3:8.
This paraha begins the story of Joseph, a novella within the Bible that starts with chapter 37 and continues to the end of Genesis. At the beginning of the parasha, we read that 17 year old Joseph is a spoiled brat - favored by his dad and going out of his way to earn the enmity of his brothers:
Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them.
Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a robe of many colors for him.
When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him.
Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers, they hated him all the more. 6 He said to them, “Listen to this dream I had:
We were binding sheaves of grain out in the field when suddenly my sheaf rose and stood upright, while your sheaves gathered around mine and bowed down to it.”
His brothers said to him, “Do you intend to reign over us? Will you actually rule us?” And they hated him all the more because of his dream and what he had said.
Genesis 37: 2-8. But why was Joseph so obnoxious? And why did his father favor him over his brothers? And, apart from his weird dreams, why did his brothers hate him so much?
In Genesis Rabbah, part of the Talmudic literature from the Fourth and Fifth centuries, in chapter 84, we read that Joseph was spoiled; his dad gave him everything he asked for. He asked his dad for a coat of many colors, and he got it. Because his dad gave him everything he demanded and favored him over his brothers, Joseph assumed he was superior to his brothers, and even superior to his father.
Moreover, Joseph was very vain, obsessed about his appearance. He used special brushes to comb and curl his hair and makeup to color his eyes. He wore high heels so he would look taller and older for his age. And Joseph made up stories about his brothers and told them to his father. He lied to his father, falsely claiming that his brothers were eating unkosher meat. (I know, the kosher laws came later - but the rabbis didn't let details like that to get in the way when they were telling a story to explain the text.)
But why did Jacob favor this bratty boy over his other sons (not to mention one daughter)? Again, Genesis Rabbah chapter 84, quotes Rabbi Judah as saying that Jacob favored Joseph because they looked so much alike.
After the brothers sold Joseph into slavery in Egypt, Potiphar purchased him, took a liking to him and put Joseph in charge of his home. Then came the attempted seduction by Mrs. Potiphar. From the Talmud Sotah 36b, quoting Genesis 38:11 that no one was in the house but Joseph and Mrs. Potiphar:
Is it possible that there was no man in a huge house like that of this wicked [Potiphar]! — It was taught in the School of Rabbi Ishmael: That day was their feast-day, and they had all gone to their idolatrous temple; but she had pretended to be ill because she thought, I shall not have an opportunity like today for Joseph to associate with me. And she caught him by his garment, saying ["Lie with me"]. At that moment his father's image came and appeared to him through the window and said: ' Joseph, your brothers will have their names inscribed upon the stones of the ephod and yours among theirs; is it your wish to have your name expunged from among theirs and be called an associate of whores?' . . . Immediately his bow became strong. Rabbi Johanan said in the name of Rabbi Meir: [This means] that his passion subsided. And the arms of his hands were made active — he stuck his hands in the ground so that his lust came out from between his finger-nails.
But how did Jacob's image appear to Joseph just before he was to commit adultery with Mrs. Potipher? His dad was very much alive.
Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik read the Talmud's text - "his father's image came and appeared to him through the window" - to mean that Joseph looked into the glass window, saw his own reflection in glass, and imagined his own reflection to be the image of his dad. After all, we learned in Genesis Rabbah - above - that Joseph looked like his dad, so when Joseph saw his own image, he thought he was seeing his father's. (I'll leave it to the Egyptologists here to tell me whether Egypt had glass at this point in its ancient history - remember, Rabbis Johanan and Meir were from the Second Century).
So what is the moral here? Parents need to show equal love to each of their children, and not favor one over another. Genesis is the story of lousy parenting: Abraham favored Isaac over Ismael, Isaac favored Esau while his wife Rebecca favored Jacob, and Jacob favored Joseph. As far as their parenting skills go, they were not role models. But the story of Joseph tells us that even spoiled brats can turn out all right.
And a final word about the Haftarah - for those who keep track of Biblical passages to tell the right wing Christian fundamentalists that society has a duty to help the poor:
This is what the Lord says:
For three sins of Israel,
even for four, I will not relent.
They sell the innocent for silver,
and the needy for a pair of sandals.
They trample on the heads of the poor
as on the dust of the ground
and deny justice to the oppressed.
Amos 2: 6-7.
Shabbat Shalom