Va-yeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) and Haftarah (Amos 2:6-3:8): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary
24
Va-yeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) and Haftarah (Amos 2:6-3:8): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary
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Overview
Va-yeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) and Haftarah (Amos 2:6-3:8): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary shows teens in their own language how Torah addresses the issues in their world. The conversational tone is inviting and dignified, concise and substantial, direct and informative. Each pamphlet includes a general introduction, two model divrei Torah on the weekly Torah portion, and one model davar Torah on the weekly Haftarah portion. Jewish learning--for young people and adults--will never be the same.
The complete set of weekly portions is available in Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin's book The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary (JPS, 2017).
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780827613676 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | The Jewish Publication Society |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2018 |
| Series: | JPS Study Bible |
| Pages: | 24 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d) |
About the Author
Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin serves as the senior rabbi of Temple Solel in Hollywood, Florida. He is the author of Putting God on the Guest List: How to Reclaim the Spiritual Meaning of Your Child’s Bar or Bat Mitzvah, winner of the Benjamin Franklin Award for the best religion book published in the United States, and The Gods Are Broken: The Hidden Legacy of Abraham (JPS, 2013).
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Torah
Va-yeshev: Genesis 37:1–40:23
Welcome to the longest story in Genesis, and one of the most famous in the entire Bible — the story of Joseph. Joseph is Jacob's favorite child, although he is a bit of a jerk to his brothers. Joseph is constantly bragging to his brothers about his dreams of grandeur, and this really annoys them. Eventually they plot to do away with Joseph, throw him into a pit, and then sell him to some traders who are on their way to Egypt.
Joseph winds up as a slave in Egypt, working for the captain of Pharaoh's guard. He is doing pretty well (for a slave) until a false accusation lands him, once again, into the "pit" of a prison cell. Yes, life is the "pits" for Joseph — until you realize that a pit (like a peach pit) can be the seed of new growth. Joseph will grow up. Stay tuned.
Summary
• Jacob's favorite child is his second-youngest son, Joseph. Jacob makes him a special coat, which stirs up jealousy in his brothers. Joseph also has dreams of grandeur, which does not win him any popularity contests with his brothers, either. (37:1–11)
• Joseph's brothers get fed up with his bragging, and they sell him to some Midianite traders, who take him to Egypt. And, there, Joseph is sold to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard. (37:12–36)
• A side story about Judah shows how he wrongs his daughter-in-law, Tamar. Judah has relations with her, and later Judah must publicly admit his wrongdoing. (38:1–30)
• In the first case of sexual harassment in the Torah, Potiphar's wife hits on the handsome Joseph. When he resists, he winds up in prison. (39:1–23)
• The always-talented Joseph interprets the dreams of his fellow prisoners, but they forget what he did for them. (40:1–23)
The Big Ideas
• Parents should treat their children equally. Parents should not play favorites. Jacob made it clear to everyone that he loved Joseph best, and this created terrible jealousy within his family.
• Even seemingly "small" actions can have massive consequences. Jacob spoiled Joseph. While this might have appeared to be a small matter at the time, it had terrible results. It ultimately resulted in the entire Jewish people becoming enslaved in Egypt. The small stuff counts.
• Dreams are important. Our dreams tell us a lot about what is going on inside our heads, and so we ought to pay attention to them. Often, they represent things that we are worried about. In the Bible they can sometimes even predict the future.
• Being honest with yourself is the mark of maturity. In particular, the best leaders are those who can own up to their mistakes, apologize, and then move on to do better. Judah's admission that he was wrong is an example of this. Perhaps that is why his tribe became the most important tribe, and why Jews, to this day, bear his name — Judah-ites, which means "Jews."
• Temptation is an ever-present reality. Temptation always exists, whether it involves cheating, irresponsible sex, stealing or misusing money, or abusing power. It takes great strength and maturity to stand up to those temptations.
• Jews have a role to play in their societies. Here, Joseph is the historical role model for Jewish engagement in the world, because he devotes his efforts to improving the Egyptian economy. Jews have always brought their talents and their gifts to the countries and societies in which they live.
Divrei Torah
Don't Play Favorites!
Here's a story that's all too common: Mother dies — she had been old, and she had lived a good life. One of her sons has always loved the antique dining-room table that used to be the setting for their warm family dinners. That's the only thing of his parents that he wanted. Instead, his mother made it clear before her death that his younger sister would get the dining-room table. He wound up with a simple bookcase. Yes, it is nice — but it is not the same as the antique dining-room table. That table had all the good memories built into it. But, now, it will never sit in his home. It will sit in his sister's house. He is jealous of his sister, and the anger burns inside him.
Sound familiar? It should. It's the story of Joseph, updated for our time. Joseph's brothers may have been jealous about his "amazing technicolor dreamcoat," but what they really wanted was their father's attention and affection.
Why did Jacob favor Joseph? He was born when Jacob was already quite old. Perhaps the mere existence of Joseph reminded him that he was still young enough to produce children! Or, perhaps Joseph looked like Jacob's beloved wife, Rachel, who dies when giving birth to her second son, Benjamin. Jacob had fallen instantly in love with Rachel; every time he saw Joseph, he relived that moment of falling in love.
Parental favoritism is the Genesis family pattern. Remember Sarah favoring Isaac, Rebekah favoring Jacob, and Isaac favoring Esau? It is what we would nowadays call "dysfunctional."
There are two lessons here.
First, when parents play favorites, it breeds deep resentment and anger that can go on for generations.
And the second — our actions can have unintended consequences. "A parent should never single out one child among the others, for on account of a piece of silk, which Jacob gave Joseph in excess of his other sons, his brothers became jealous of him and the matter resulted in our descent into Egypt." Joseph's brothers' jealousy over that one silk coat was the tipping point of the resentment that eventually led not just to their brother's slavery, but that of the entire Jewish people in Egypt.
But wait. Maybe God needed Joseph to be taken to Egypt, so that the Jewish people would wind up in Egypt, and eventually experience the Exodus from Egypt. As Bible scholar Avivah Zornberg writes: "[Joseph's brothers] find themselves in the chaos of a reality whose plot is hidden from them." Could it be that there is a greater reason for what happens to Joseph and his family that they themselves cannot discern?
Maybe this is all part of God's Big Plan. And maybe our actions are as well.
Judah and Tamar: The Episode That Created the Jewish Future
How did the Jews get their name?
Simple. The word "Jew" comes from the Southern Kingdom of Judah (the Northern Kingdom was Israel) — and, before that, from the tribe of Judah, which got its name from Jacob's son Judah. In Hebrew, the name Judah is Yehudah, which means "thanks" (from the same root as todah), because Leah was thankful to God after the birth of her fourth child (Judah).
But what was so special about Judah that the Southern Kingdom of ancient Israel and later the Jewish people were named after him, and that King David and his dynasty should be descended from him?
After the brothers sell Joseph into slavery, Judah wanders off from his troubled family, and marries, and has three sons. He marries the first son to a woman named Tamar; the son dies. He marries the second son to Tamar; he dies as well. There is still a third son waiting in the wings. Judah tells his daughter-in-law to wait around for that third son to grow up so that they can marry.
Why is that important? According to the biblical law known as levirate marriage, if a man dies, a surviving male relative must marry the widow so that they can have children. With two brothers dead and one left, the surviving son should have married Tamar so that they could have children. But Judah didn't give that son to Tamar. Therefore as the only other man in the family, Judah would have had to marry his daughter-in-law so they could have children and continue the family line. But, he doesn't. (And, don't worry: this tradition no longer exists).
Tamar knows that Judah has done wrong by not giving her his third son, or by not marrying her himself. He "owes" her children. And, so, she disguises herself as a prostitute, and she has sex with Judah — in order to get pregnant. Judah doesn't have enough "cash" on hand to pay her, so he leaves some of his belongings behind as a pledge that he will return and pay her later. Tamar, the "prostitute," becomes pregnant. Meanwhile, Judah finds out that his former daughter-in-law, Tamar, is pregnant — and she is unmarried! Big scandal! And here's the big deal — Judah doesn't realize that he has had sex with his own daughter-in-law, and he surely doesn't know that he has impregnated her!
Look at how Tamar handles the situation. She sends Judah's belongings to him, with the message that the man who left those things with her had impregnated her. As Rabbi Geela-Rayzel Raphael teaches: "Tamar refuses to publicly humiliate Judah. She does not report directly that Judah is the father; rather, she sets it up so that he confesses." Judah realizes that he has, by mistake, had sex with his daughter-in-law. He realizes that he should have married Tamar all along. He declares: "She is more in the right than I am!" (38:26). The ancient sages taught: "Why did Judah's descendants deserve to become kings? Because he admitted that he had done wrong."
Yes, when it comes to biblical stories about sex, this story is a little "out there." But Judah's sin is not the most important thing here; it is the way that he owns up to it. Ever since Cain denied moral responsibility for his brother, Abel, God has been waiting for someone to own up, publicly, to doing wrong. Judah is the first person in the Torah to do that. He will do so a second time when he steps forward to Joseph. Our tradition says that's why the Jews are named for Judah — because he could say, "I'm sorry."
Connections
• Joseph not only bragged to his brothers about his dreams; he also brought bad reports about them to his father. In other words, he was a tattletale. What is this story teaching us about gossip? Have you ever experienced gossip? What was it like?
• Do you know of siblings who are jealous of each other? What are some things in a family that can provoke jealousy? How do you think that parents should deal with this?
• Have you ever been in a situation where you had to own up to something you had done wrong? How did it feel? What did you learn from that? Can you think of historical examples of people who publicly confessed that they were wrong? Why is this trait particularly important in a leader?
• Have you ever faced a particular temptation (taking money, cheating on a test, doing anything that is wrong)? How did you deal with that temptation? Were you successful in resisting it? What does it take to fight temptations?
• Tamar refuses to accuse Judah in public. She does not want to humiliate him. Why is public humiliation so bad? How can it be avoided?
• Have you ever done something for a friend and felt that he or she was not particularly grateful to you? Did you ever feel "forgotten" by that friend? What was that experience like? How did
CHAPTER 2The Haftarah
Va-yeshev: Amos 2:6–3:8
"It's not just about us." That's what you can imagine the prophet Amos saying. He was a native of Tekoa, a village south of Jerusalem in Judah, but he moved to the Northern Kingdom of Israel. In the passage before the beginning of this haftarah, Amos went on a whirlwind tour of the other nations in the ancient Middle East, criticizing their human rights violations. The kingdoms of Israel and Judah must have thought that they were going to get off easy. No such luck. He scolded them too.
According to Amos the violations of Judah and Israel came about because they had broken the covenant with God. The biggest evidence? They had mistreated the poor. How had they done this? They took garments as collateral for loans. They drank wine that had been purchased with money from fines that they imposed on others. Amos is furious: look at how the people are acting, and compare that to how God had treated them during their wandering in the wilderness. Finally, Amos reminds the Jewish people of the meaning of being a Chosen People — not that they are special, but that God will hold them accountable for their sins.
What's the connection to the Torah portion, which describes how Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery in Egypt? In the haftarah, Amos quotes the Lord saying, "Because they have sold for silver those whose cause is just, and the needy for a pair of sandals" (2:6). Both are about "selling out" for the wrong reason. The brothers turned on one of their own and sold their very own sibling. The people of Amos's time turned on the most vulnerable in their midst. It's been said that when Joseph's brothers sold him, the amount of money they received was enough for each of them to buy a pair of sandals. How sad, especially when history repeats itself.
Chosen — For What?
An English journalist, William Norman Ewer, once wrote this little verse:
How odd Of God To choose The Jews.
To which someone replied:
Not so odd The Jews chose God.
Welcome to one of the most basic but controversial ideas in Judaism. It's the Chosen People, and it has a starring role in this haftarah.
How basic is it? So basic that Jews affirm it whenever we make Kiddush over wine, or say the blessing over the Torah. We say: "who has chosen us from all the peoples. But what does it mean? The verse in the blessing continues "and given us the Torah." The idea is that God chose the Jews to bring Torah into the world. In the words of writer Blu Greenberg: "We are chosen to serve as a witness to the world: how to live as an ethical community, a responsible and kind family, a caring neighbor, a believing spirit."
Being chosen in this sense is a mission; it doesn't mean privilege or that we are better than other people. To the contrary, the prophet Amos (see last week's haftarah) put it this way: "You alone have I singled out of all the families of the earth — that is why I will call you to account for all your iniquities" (3:2). Amos goes on say how God cares for other people too, but that Israel bears a special burden.
Throughout history some people have loathed the Jews for their notion of being chosen, some have admired it, and some have envied it.
Among Jews themselves some have denied it or felt embarrassed by it, while many have embraced it. Mordecai Kaplan and the Jewish Reconstructionist movement dropped the reference to the Chosen People altogether on theological grounds. And other Jews have found it too difficult to bear the burden of being chosen for historical reasons. To be chosen means, sometimes, to be persecuted. As Tevye famously jokes in Fiddler on the Roof: "God, I know that we're Your Chosen People. But could you choose another people for a change?"
Yet many if not most Jews find the belief in their chosenness to be a source of comfort and strength. Author Dennis Prager puts it rather starkly: "If I did not believe that the Jews were chosen by God, I would not raise my children as Jews. To bequeath the suffering that may attend being Jewish to my descendants is defensible only if we have a divine calling."
Some Jews prefer to call themselves "the choosing people" rather than "the Chosen People." Either way, it's a big responsibility — and the choice is ours!
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Va-yeshev (Genesis 37:1-40:23) and Haftarah (Amos 2:6-3:8): The JPS B'nai Mitzvah Torah Commentary"
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Copyright © 2018 Rabbi Jeffrey K. Salkin.
Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF NEBRASKA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
General Introduction Va-yeshev: Torah Commentary Va-yeshev: Haftarah Commentary