VaYeishev (Genesis 37:1 - 40:23)

Joseph met a man. One of the most significant chapters in Jewish history, one of the most fateful events in the evolution of the Jewish nation is a chance meeting with a stranger:

“A man came upon him wandering in the fields.”

The Bible does not tell us who that man was. He has no name and no face. He was just a man. Some commentators would have us believe that he was an angel of God, but when the Bible wants to tell us that a being is an angel, it says that he is an angel – a mal’akh. Abraham greets three men, but the Bible later informs us that they were mal’akhim, a mal’akh calls to him on Mount Moriah, Jacob sees mal’akhim ascending and descending the ladder, not men. A mal’akh blocks Balaam. The Bible does not say that Joseph met a mal’akh, it says he met a man.

Indeed, throughout his life, Joseph never meets an angel, never hears God’s voice, never has an awe-inspiring dream, and never has a mystical experience. His life is quite ordinary. Perhaps the most ordinary encounter in Joseph’s ordinary life is that meeting with a man.

The man tells Joseph where his brothers can be found. Thanks to the man’s directions, Joseph finds his brothers, and he is promptly thrown into a pit and sold into slavery. That ordinary, chance meeting sets off an extraordinary chain of events in Joseph’s ordinary life.

Because of the man, Joseph will be sold into slavery in Egypt and he will rise to rule over Egypt, second only to Pharaoh. Because of the man, Joseph will have the power to resettle his family in Egypt. Because of the man, the Children of Israel will be enslaved by Egypt, redeemed by God, and given the Torah.

Why?

Why does the Bible trace this entire chain of events, the origin of Judaism, back to “a man”? Why couldn’t the man be identified? You would think that the story of the origins and inception of Jewish history would warrant that Joseph meet some heroic personage. It is not surprising that so many commentators wanted that man to be an angel. He had to be an angel. We deserve that he be an angel.

But he was just a man.

And that is the whole point. When we try to identify the man as someone else, someone important, a messenger of God, we miss the point. Over and over again the Bible uses just this strategy to teach some lesson about our lives. Thus the Bible implies that Noah married a descendant of Cain to teach us something about who we are. Ruth is a Moabite, and thus a descendant of Lot and his daughter; Boaz is a descendant of Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar, and so we know something about David and about the less-than-divine ancestry of kings and of the Messiah. Joshua is a descendant of Joseph and Osnat daughter of Potiphera. Jeremiah is a descendant of Joshua and Rahab of Jericho. Greatness is not a matter of genes and family pedigree. Great events are not necessarily set into motion by momentous beginnings, mythic heroes or perfect ancestors.

And so, Joseph’s odyssey begins with a chance meeting with an unknown, unnamed stranger. That is the whole point.

We meet somebody. We smile and say have a nice day. If we’re Canadian, we say have a really nice day. We meet somebody and we shrug and say hi. Years ago, I was sitting with a friend in a diner in New York. My friend was a psychologist, and he wanted to teach me a lesson in how to win friends and influence people. He said: “watch me make the waitress’s day.”

Our grumpy waitress walked up, and said, “wuddle id be?” My friend looked at her hand, reached for it, saying, “may I?” He then looked up at the waitress and said: “What a lovely ring! I t must be very special.” You would have thought she had just won the New York State Lottery. My friend made her day. And he made his point.

That waitress probably felt good all day. She was probably nicer to her kids that evening than she had been in weeks. I bet they got a special dinner. Maybe she took them out for pizza.

That is the lesson that the Bible is teaching us by not naming the man that Joseph met. He was just anybody, and he didn’t do anything special, and yet he affected the course of history.

Some of our encounters are as benign as that of Joseph’s meeting with the man, but many are far more complex. We meet someone and make her happy, we meet someone and make him sad. We don’t necessarily give much thought to the effect we may have upon others by simple things like a smile, a firm handshake or acknowledging that we care. But those little things that we often take for granted can change a person’s day. Changing a person’s day can change that person’s life. As we learn from the encounter between Joseph and the man, changing someone’s life can change history.

Sometimes, each of us is that man; maybe more often than we imagine. We don’t know when, just as he did not know the effect of his helpful directions to Joseph. It is something we should bear in mind in our interaction with others. It is something we should consider before we make an angry remark or a cutting, hurtful reply. We never know when we might be that man, perhaps never, but we might be better people if we assume that we are that man always.

Avinoam Sharon

VaYishlah (Genesis 32:4-36:43)

The way we read a text tells a lot about us. The way we read the story of Shechem and Dinah says everything about how we view women, and how we view violence toward women.

The Bible describes the rape of Dinah in five words that defy translation:

vayikah otah, vayishkav ‘otah, vaye’aneha

Those five words tell the whole story, and are the key to understanding the Biblical view of violence against women, and for analyzing our own perceptions.

The new Jewish Publication Society translation translates in context, in an attempt to convey the essential meaning of the phrase in modern, idiomatic English. The attempt to make the Bible sound like the Wall Street Journal is probably why I consider the new JPS translations to be one of the worst translations ever foisted upon the public.

Be that as it may, the JPS’s rendering is: “took her and lay with her by force.”

That translation captures neither the semantic violence of the Hebrew, nor the exceptional syntax. Shechem did not “lay with” Dinah. When the Bible uses the word shahav (lay) the next word is usually ‘im (with). But the description of the rape of Dinah does not employ the word ‘im. In fact, this is the only instance in the Bible where the word shahav is followed by et – vayishkav otah. The word “lay” is not followed here by “with.” The act is not performed “with” Dinah, but “to” her or “at” her.

The phrase “lay with Dinah” is refined. Adding the words “by force” is sterile. If you take away the word “with,” the Hebrew is even more starkly offensive than the equivalent English vulgarism.

As for vaye’aneha, the new JPS seems to have misplaced it entirely.

The Biblical scholar Robert Alter suggests: “took her and lay with her and debased her.” That pretty much follows the old JPS and the Revised Standard Version translations, which used “humbled” rather than “debased.”

I imagine that “degraded” and “humiliated” would also work, and would be equally unsatisfactory.

Technically, vaye’aneha means to humble, disgrace, debase or lower. It is what Sarah did to Hagar when she put her in her place for putting on airs. It is what the Egyptians did to the Israelites by enslaving them. But the term also carries a nuance of “affliction” (JPS, Genesis 29:32), of “suffering” (Alter, Genesis 16:7; 29:32), of torture and of pain. What Shechem did is he grabbed Dinah, he threw her to the ground, and he defiled and shamed her.

Why am I spending so much time trying to convey the nuances, when the message seems pretty clear? Because only by understanding these nuances can we understand what the Bible is saying not just as narrative, but as a statement of values.

And, indeed, that is how even the traditional commentators viewed the story. The rape of Dinah is not presented simply as an historical account. Every word is taken to be an indicator of a Divine message, and has to be weighed and considered.

Rashi and Ibn Ezra and others wonder at why three separate words are needed to describe a rape. Why couldn’t the text simply say that he raped her – vayishkav ‘ota?

Other commentators ask why Dinah is described as Leah’s daughter, and why we are told that she went out of the encampment. All of these commentators are motivated by the same thought. They all share a common presupposition: Dinah must have done something to cause Shechem to attack her. Somehow, the victim was at fault. Therefore, the reason that the text needs three words to describe what could be described in one is that Shechem must have committed some act of violence or degradation that went beyond mere rape. After all, Dinah was asking for it, so the rape itself could not have caused her distress.

That is, unfortunately, a common belief even today. Women are assaulted because of how they dress, because of how they act, because of their perfume, because of their hair, because of their knees, their ankles, their shoes, their walk, their something, because they must have done something.

According to the papers, if you ask the average teenage boy, or young man, he’ll tell you that a woman who dresses a certain way, or accepts a drink, or goes on a second date, or wears makeup, or any of a hundred other criteria, wants it, is asking for it, is saying yes even if she is screaming no.

Most of the commentators read the text through the preconceptions of the society in which they were raised. Nahmanides, however, seems to be an exception. Nahmanides tries to figure out what the text itself is telling us, and what he finds is quite extraordinary.

The first thing he says – Nahmanides is always very forthright – is that Rashi and Ibn Ezra were wrong. He then explains that the reason the Bible uses more than one word to describe the rape is not to tell us something about Shechem or about Dinah. The purpose is to tell us something about rape.

According to Nahmanides, the purpose is to teach us that no matter what the circumstances, no matter what the intentions or justifications, rape is painful and humiliating to the victim, by definition. There is no good rape, and no friendly rape. No is no.

The second thing that Nahmanides points out is that the Bible never describes Dinah as anything but Jacob and Leah’s daughter. We aren’t told if she was plain or pretty, fair or dark, short or tall. We know absolutely nothing.

The Bible invariably makes some comment about a women’s appearance or her attributes. At some point we expect to be told something about her face, her eyes, her figure, her intelligence, her kindness – something.

We are told absolutely nothing about Dinah.

Why?

Nahmanides provides a simple answer. We are told nothing about Dinah, because the Bible doesn’t want us to suspect that she was raped because of something she did, or said, or wore. We are told nothing about Dinah because Shechem’s assault was prompted by nothing at all on Dinah’s part. Rape doesn’t need a reason, and it doesn’t usually have one. The victim is not guilty.

Shechem is a stereotype of a wife beater and a rapist. Shechem loves Dinah. He tries to convince her of that. He abducts her, holds her prisoner, and whispers sweet nothings in her ear in the hope of convincing her of his love. There are women’s shelters filled with women who are married to men who profess their love after they beat their wives senseless.

Dinah’s brothers are not so easily fooled. They stipulate their conditions. They not only make a demand of Shechem, they ask all of his subjects to show their support and solidarity. Perhaps, faced with the facts and with a painful choice, the people of the city will admonish their leader. Maybe they will tell him that you can’t go around raping and abducting women. They do not. They show enthusiastic support. They become his accomplices.

And then Simeon and Levi take awful retribution. They kill every man in the city of Shechem.

It seems a cruel and disproportionate revenge. Jacob, who until now has said absolutely nothing, is horrified. He reprimands his sons. Modern commentators stand firmly behind Jacob. They find Simeon and Levi’s conduct repugnant to their modern sensibilities.

Maimonides, however, points out that the sin of the people of Shechem was that they knew what their leader had done, and did not judge him. Society is not permitted to stand by in silence.

Tellingly, the Bible gives the last word to Simeon and Levi, not to Jacob. The Bible makes no negative comment upon their behavior. There is no punishment, no mention of sin, and no Divine intervention. Simeon and Levi’s words bring the matter to a close.

What are we to make of that?

I’m not sure, but perhaps the message is this:

A society that allows its leaders to commit rape, a society that condones evil, a society that justifies or rationalizes the exploitation of women, a society that tolerates violence against women, has no right to exist. If our modern sensibilities tell us otherwise, then perhaps we should reexamine our priorities.

Avinoam Sharon

VaYetzei

Laban was not Jacob’s dream of an ideal father-in-law. He was a cheat. He was deceitful. He was an ingrate. He was a terrible, uncaring father who used his daughters as pawns, and treated them like chattel.

That is certainly the way the commentators look at Laban. That is how the Passover Haggadah looks at Laban when it describes him as an Aramean who sought to destroy Jacob. That is what Jacob thought when he told his wives, “your father has tricked me and has switched my wages ten times over.” That is how Rachel and Leah viewed their father when they said: “Do we still have any share in the inheritance of our father’s house? Why, we have been counted by him as strangers, for he has sold us, and he has wholly consumed our money. For whatever wealth God has reclaimed from our father is ours and our children’s.”

Wealth? Switched wages? Maybe we’re not reading the same Bible. As I recall, Jacob showed up with nothing but a walking stick. The Bible doesn’t recount a single instance of Laban switching, changing or altering Jacob’s wages or reneging on their deal. Quite the contrary, the Bible says Jacob robbed Laban blind. Jacob selectively bred the sheep and the goats so that, in the words of the Bible: “the feeble ones went to Laban, and the vigorous one’s to Jacob.”

Not surprisingly, Laban’s sons – Jacob’s brothers-in-law - complain that Jacob has taken everything from their father. The Bible would seem to back them up on that. Indeed, he stole their blessing – their inheritance - as surely as he stole Esau’s.

But still, Laban was no saint. He did switch wives on Jacob. He did make Jacob work fourteen years as the dowry for his wives.

We understand that, ultimately, Jacob has had enough. He takes his family and his flocks and he runs away. Laban follows in hot pursuit. Of course, we know that what he’s really after are the household idols – the teraphim – that Rachel has stolen. But he doesn’t say that. Laban is far to shrewd to state his true concerns outright, so the first thing he does is cry out in righteous indignation: “What have you done, deceiving me, and driving my daughters like captives of the sword? …And you did not let me kiss my sons and daughters!”

Now we know that he is not really worried that his daughters may have been treated like captives. He really isn’t upset that he didn’t get to kiss the grandkids good bye. He wants his idols.

Right?

Wrong.

When it’s all over, after all of Jacob’s protestations, accusations and justifications, Laban replies: “The daughters are my daughters, and the sons are my sons, and the flocks are my flocks, and all that you see is mine.”

And then he concludes with parting words that should hit us like a smack in the face: “May the Lord look out between you and me when we are out of each other’s sight. Should you harass my daughters, and should you take wives besides my daughters, though no one else be present, see, God is witness between you and me!”

Those are strong words from an uncaring father. Strong words from a manipulative scoundrel who treated his daughters like property. Laban warns his son-in-law in no uncertain terms that he had better treat his daughters right. He threatens Jacob. He says I’ll be watching you. And even if you are far away and out of my sight, and I can’t come to my daughters’ aid, God will be watching you. These are not the words of an uncaring scoundrel. These are the words of a father who loves his daughters dearly, and who is sincerely worried about their future.

Perhaps we should reexamine everything we’ve read, and everything we’ve thought.

Jacob shows up without a penny to his name. Laban sees a young man with potential, a man from his own clan, his sister’s son – a good match for his daughters. This penniless young fellow is even courting one of his daughters. Unfortunately, there is one stumbling block – the groom-to-be has no prospects. So, Laban sets on a plan. He takes Jacob into the family business. He makes Jacob rich at his own expense. He does this because it means that his daughters will have a good husband who will be able to provide for them. And it means that Laban will have the joy of seeing his daughters with him for another twenty years. He will be able to protect them and guarantee their safety and their future. He will see his grandchildren grow up. He sacrifices everything to that plan.

Of course, Rachel and Leah and Jacob don’t see it that way. Children never see their parents clearly. Rachel and Leah see their father as manipulative and out for his own interests. For Jacob, Laban is a father-in-law who is denying him his freedom and his independence. That is how they interpret what they see and feel.

Laban, of course, sees things differently, right to the end. He is just trying to do the best he can to protect and provide for his children. He can’t understand why they don’t appreciate that.

The text is neutral. It is open to either interpretation. Just like our own lives. Often, our children don’t understand us. We don’t understand them. Just as we didn’t understand our parents and they didn’t understand us. We thought our parents were ruining our lives, we think our children are ungrateful for all that we try to do for them. It makes no sense. But it’s easier to see why it is so when you have the perspective of three thousand five hundred years, or so. Looking back, we can see both sides.

It is often said that when we grow up we become our own parents. It would seem that ultimately, we become our ancestors, as well. The challenge is to take that understanding and implement it in our own lives. The challenge is to recognize that part of us that is Laban, that part of us that is Jacob, that part that is Rachel and that part that is Leah. The challenge is to take the lessons of the Bible, and realize them in ourselves. Ultimately, the challenge is to accept that the past is not just history; it is who we are today.

Avinoam Sharon