Torah Tidbits: Parshat Vayeishev

37:5-11 - Joseph tells his brothers of his dreams that they and their parents will bow down before him...  Is it just me, or is Joseph a fool and/or naive to have told others about his dream?  Even Jacob recognizes this was a bad move:  "and his father rebuked him, and said unto him: 'What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?'"

37:12-13 - Another head-scratcher:  Immediately after Jacob rebukes Joseph for telling of his dream -- a dream that involves his brothers bowing down to him -- Jacob sends Joseph off to Shechem to "see whether it is well with [his] brethren, and well with the flock; and bring...back word."  Why does Jacob do this?  It seems stupid under the circumstances...

37:15 - The mysterious "man" appears again, this time asking Joseph what he is searching for, and telling him that his brothers are in Dotan.  Who is he?  The Kehot interpolated English text says "The angel Gabriel, appearing the guise of a man..." (the bold is the translation of the Hebrew; the plain text, the interpolation), but unlike other times we've see the "man" appear, the Hebrew text says nothing to indicate otherworldliness; it just uses the word ish.  Clearly I have to do more reading about this, but it does make me wonder:  Why use the word ish (man) if mal'ach (angel) is what is meant?  Perhaps that sometimes angels come in recognizable forms while other times they do not?  Hmmm...

37:26-30 - I understand that, in the big picture, Joseph "needs" to go to Egypt for the storyline to make sense, but it puzzles me that later we will read how God kills Onan and, presumably, Er (the text is vague on this), for "spilling their seed," while Joseph's brothers get off scot free for selling their brother into slavery.  Am I missing something here?

38:7-10 - If I follow the Kehot interpolated version, Judah's son Er "was evil in God's eyes" because he spilled his seed rather than impregnate his wife, Tamar, as having children "would mar her beauty."  "He did not regret his act," and therefore God killed hium.  Onan meets a similar fate when he spilled his seed rather than impregnate Tamar after Er is killed.  From the perspective of a couple thousand years ago, I can possibly understand this, but what are we to make of this today?  This is where the prohibition against masturbation comes from, right?  Seems a wee bit over the top in my book.

38:15-18 - And then the plot thickens...  Tamar, still without child from the line of Judah, disguises herself as a prostitute in order to ensnare Judah.  He somehow doesn't realize who she is (!?!?), offers to send her a goat for her services, and at Tamar's request, gives up his ring , cloak and staff as "collateral."  Even if I can look past the sexual issues here that seem so foreign to me, what is the point of putting this story in the Torah?  (Kehot's "Chasidic Insight" is that Tamar's deception was a selfless act done in order to become "the mother of the Davidic dynasty....for the sake of drawing forth the soul of the Messiah."  I guess that's one interpretation!)

38:24-26 - Talk about a double take!  Judah, upon learning that Tamar is pregnant, first says she must die ("'Bring her forth, and let her be burnt'").  Upon learning that he is the father (when she produces the ring, cloak and staff), Judah changes his tune in a hurry:  "'She is more righteous than I; forasmuch as I gave her not to Shelah my son.' And he knew her again no more."  So...because he was personally involved it makes it okay?!?  The Kehot Chumash offers a bizzare interpolation and explanation:  It understands "And he knew her again no more" to mean that Judah married her and therefore never slept with her in the questionable way he had before.  The commentary adds that while "the Torah forbits a person to marry his daughter-in-law," it was okay in this case even though the Torah had not yet been given because "Judah may have felt it was better to transgress a future law, which he was not obligated to keep, than abandon Tamar."  There's some Torah logic for you!

39:2-3 - Back to Joseph, who is brought to Egypt and sold to a courtier of Pharoah...  These verses explain that "God was with Joseph," who becomes a successful man in the house of Potiphar, who "saw that the LORD was with him, and that the LORD made all that he did to prosper in his hand."  Joseph becomes quite important in the house.  My question is what's the deal with an Egyptian acknowledging "the LORD"?  I thought there were lots of gods and that the Egyptians did not acknowledge that God was "the LORD"?

39:7-8 - Here it is!  My favorite verses in the Torah!!  Potiphar's wife tries to seduce Joseph, who refuses her advances...but he is tempted!  The trop on the word "He refused" is a shalshelet, the rarest cantellation mark in the Torah.  I always admired the way this mark was used to indicate Joseph's wavering!  (Having just done a little Googling, I found this D'var Torah which, to my surprise, points out that this mark appears three times in Bereishit and once in Vayikra.  Four times!  I thought it only appeared once!  Super cool!)