Vayeshev
Here we get introduced to four sidrot which focus on Joseph (though in today's sidra we have an interlude referring to Judah). Joseph has a wonderful coat (the word "Technicolor" does not appear - it is clearly post-Biblical). Jealousy means that Joseph's style annoys his brothers so much that they chuck him in a pit leaving him for dead. Some Ishmaelites sell him into slavery in Egypt where he encounters Potiphar and his femme fatale wife. Refusing her attempts at seduction, he is denounced and put in prison.
Vayeshev - Janet Berenson-Perkins
Janet Berenson-Perkins works as Consultant in Family and Teenage Education for the Leo Baeck College and as Community Development Executive for Edgware & District Reform Synagogue. She is also a teacher of Jewish meditation, a life-long student of Kabbalah and author of Kabbalah Decoder.
There are no mitzvot in Sidra Vayeshev, no sacrificial offerings, and no direct communication between God and human beings. [Thanks to Rafi Zarum and Torah L'Am for showing me a new way to look.] Instead we meet people struggling with ordinary (!) and identifiable human emotions and fears. What we find are three powerful episodes of the Joseph story and the interpolated tale of Tamar and Judah. What better portion could there be for an aspiring Jewish mystic than this? God is mentioned but doesn't speak or act overtly, and the reader is challenged to discover the divine message through the actions, words and inferred intentions of human beings. And then there are those dreams!
Mystics have generally played a peripheral or somewhat suspect part in Jewish life, unless they have been recognised as prophets. Since Freud and Jung, being a dreamer has taken on so many overtones that it is almost impossible to imagine the ancient attitude to dreams with an unbiased mind.
In the Talmud (Berachot 55), Rabbi Chisda says: "A dream which is not interpreted is like a letter which is not read" and "a bad dream is better than a good dream" because it encourages repentance. But for Rabbi Yochanan "the truth is...that just as wheat cannot be without straw, so there cannot be a dream without some nonsense".
When Joseph shares his two prophetic dreams with his brothers, he seals his fate by provoking their jealousy, but at the same time, his seemingly reckless words both presage and ensure the subsequent survival of our people.
Hillel Goldberg (JWR Thought, Dec 25, 1997) writes: "Through dreams, God may enable a person to see a reality in his own life that attains a spiritual existence before a physical existence". He quotes Maimonides (12th century sage and commentator) on prophecy as that which "occurs only through a 'dream, a night vision' or, if at day, through a 'deep sleep'." Day or night, a prophetic dream is accompanied by "trembling limbs, a weakened body and disrupted thoughts," leaving the mind "free to understand what it sees" (Yesodei ha-Torah 7:2).
We don't know how Joseph was affected by his dreams. We do know that he continued to follow his brothers to be with them, but was it despite or because of their reactions to him? Did he know the import of his dreams? Did he struggle with the uncertain position they placed him in?
Later, when Joseph finds himself in Pharaoh's prison and volunteers to interpret the dreams of the cup-bearer and the baker, he recognises that his ability comes from God: "Surely God will interpret [solve]. Tell me." (Genesis 40:8)
Vayeshev also contains one of my favourite cantillation notes, shalshelet, (Genesis 39:8) in the episode of Joseph's encounter with Potiphar's wife. It occurs only 7 times in Tanach, and each time it is associated with words of ambivalence and inner struggle. When Joseph refused the advances of the wife of his employer and benefactor, he again determined the flow of future events. But in that instant of wavering, we feel the inner human struggle between lust and loyalty.
In the Kabbalistic schema, Joseph is associated with Yesod, foundation, in whom the lights of the Patriarchs are hidden. He reminds us of the creative power of dreams and the up-and-down paths that our lives may take, and that righteousness can carry us through. According to some Kabbalistic teachings we are in the millennium of Yesod, ruled by the energy personified in Joseph. So Vayeshev is truly a tale for our times.
Another Voice
We all know, or think we know, the story of Joseph rather well from the English version we have read (King James or Lloyd Webber, the latter of which is having another run at Nottingham University at the end of December!).
Joseph gets saved in Egypt because of his ability to foretell the fate of the butler and the baker by interpreting their dreams. Yet what neither version reveals is the subtlety of the Hebrew language Joseph uses.
For the language is almost identical for both the butler and the baker. Joseph tells the butler - Yissa Par'o et roshecha - Pharaoh will lift your head (i.e. forgive you). He then tells the baker exactly the same words - Yissa Par'o et roshecha (Pharaoh will lift your head) - the only glitch being that he adds another word to it - me'alecha 'from upon you'. The message is now different and somewhat less optimistic to put it mildly! The Rabbinic cantillation indicates that the reader should pause slightly before saying the word 'me'alecha' as if Joseph is teasing the baker with his interpretation.
Yosef means "he who adds" - perhaps here we see why!