By Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin
PIKESVILLE, Maryland — The biblical portion Vayyeshev is the first of four portions that deal with Jacob’s son Joseph. It begins in Genesis 37:1 and ends in 40:23.
In the past, I raised questions that seemed to indicate that Jacob was a very fearful man. Jacob was silent when his daughter Dinah was held by the prince of Shechem, who asked Jacob for permission to marry her. When his sons agreed on the condition that all the men of Shechem circumcise themselves, he was silent. When the men did so and were incapacitated, two of Jacob’s sons killed all the men in Shechem. Why did Jacob become furious and say he feared the allies of Shechem would seek revenge?
The questions do seem to indicate Jacob was fearful. Yet, we must realize that the Bible’s story does not reveal everything that happened. It only tells what is necessary to make the point it wants to make.
Unrevealed information could significantly affect our understanding of what happened. The following are some examples in the story of Dinah.
The Torah generally reveals little or no information about women. We are told that Jacob had a daughter named Dinah, but there is no more about her than what is mentioned in the drama. It does not tell us that Jacob had other daughters. It only reveals this in Genesis 37:35, where it states, “All his sons and all his daughters arose to comfort him (Jacob),” and 46:15, where it states Leah, Jacob’s wife, bore thirty-three children with Jacob among “his sons and daughters.”
This revelation that the Torah leaves out information raises many questions about Dinah and what happened in the episode. Was she different from Jacob’s other daughters? How old was she? Was she a mature woman? Did she have a mind of her own and was uncontrollable and rebellious, a woman that Jacob could no longer control?
Why did she leave Jacob’s camp? (Rashi and others in Midrash Genesis Rabba contend she is responsible for what happened to her. She purposely and foolishly stepped into a dangerous situation.) How and why did she meet the prince of Shechem? The Bible states the prince had sex with her and humbled her. Was she raped or seduced? How was she humbled? Why are we not told what she wanted? Was she only humbled, that is, degraded, in the eyes of the Torah because of how she acted and continued to act? Was she satisfied with what occurred? Did she want to leave Jabob and live with the prince?
Was Jacob silent when he heard of the incident because of understandable human conflicting emotions, his love for his daughter, and his inability to control and help her? Was he furious with his two sons who killed all the men in Shechem because it is unlikely that every one of them was complicit? (Some rabbis assert that the brothers killed all the men because they knew every one of them was involved in what occurred to their sister. How would they know this?) The ancients had laws and people who enforced them. What was the position of the law and police? Was there another way of handling the matter?
These questions should make us realize we lack enough information to decide whether Jacob and Dinah acted reasonably. We should also understand that the same questions could be asked about fables such as Little Red Riding Hood. We could start with the question: Was Little Red an innocent youngster or an adult woman seeking a sexual adventure, was she called “Red” because of her temperament, etc.?
In fables and biblical accounts, we are only told enough to lead us to learn a specific moral or lesson. This practice is as old as storytelling. The lesson in the Dinah episode may be that parents cannot always control and be responsible for their children’s behavior but should do their best to teach them. And if they do all they can, they should not feel guilty when their child goes astray.
In their commentary on Judges 18:30, the rabbis tell us that even the grandson of the great lawgiver Moses became a priest for idol worship: Jonathan, the priest, is identified as the son of Gershom, the son of Moses. Moses was not punished for Jonathan’s deed, nor should Jacob or us.
With these thoughts in mind, was Joseph righteous?
In rabbinic literature, many call him Joseph the Tzadik, Joseph the Righteous. Interestingly, such a title is usually given ironically to people and objects others feel are not righteous. The mystic Ari is called Ari Hakadosh, the Holy Ari. The mystical book Zohar is similarly given the title “Holy.” Yet people like Maimonides, Nachmanides, and Rashi do not need the tile. So, it is with Joseph: Some think he was always righteous, and others disagree.
Some think Joseph misbehaved when he told his brothers he would one day rule over them. Joseph went to seduce his master’s wife when he was enslaved in Egypt, and his master and staff were absent from his house. Some rabbis say he changed his mind only when he had a vision of his father. For about a decade, when Joseph was in a high Egyptian position, he did not contact his father and tell him he was alive. When his brothers came to Egypt for food, he tormented them and even imprisoned one of them for possibly more than a year. He persuaded his father and family to settle in Egypt, despite God saying to Abraham that Canaan, later called Israel, was where he should live. God told Isaac not to leave the land, and the stay of Jacob’s family in Egypt resulted in the Israelites being enslaved.
Some rabbis find ways to excuse his behavior because the story does not reveal all the facts and can be interpreted in contradictory ways.
This is good as long as we realize why we are doing what we are doing and do so with respect for the Torah.
It prompts us to think, decide how we interpret the story, and learn from our decisions.
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Rabbi Dr. Israel Drazin is a retired brigadier general in the U.S. Army Chaplain Corps and the author of more than 50 books.