INTRODUCTION TO PARASHAT HASHAVUA

PARASHAT VAYESHEV

**************************************************************

In memory of Yakov Yehuda ben Pinchas Wallach
and Miriam Wallach bat Tzvi Donner

**************************************************************

OF AMBIGUITY AND CULPABITILITY, COATS AND GOATS

By Rabbi Yaakov Beasley

A.        Introduction

The story of the sale of Yosef ranks among the most famous narratives in the Tanakh.  However, even a quick glance at the account reveals that this story is as confusing as it is famous.  Who actually sold Yosef? And how many times did Yosef change hands before arriving in Egypt?  The Torah is not only ambiguous on this matter, it is contradictory!  Let's carefully examine the text.

25 And they sat down to eat bread; and they lifted up their eyes and looked, and, behold, a caravan of Yishmaelites came from Gilead, with their camels bearing spices and balm and ladanum, going to carry it down to Egypt. 26 And Judah said unto his brethren: “What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood? 27 Come, and let us sell him to the Yishmaelites, and let not our hand be upon him; for he is our brother, our flesh.” And his brethren hearkened unto him. 28 And there passed by Midianites, merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold Joseph to the Yishmaelites for twenty shekels of silver. And they brought Joseph into Egypt.

Apparently, although the brothers may have plotted to sell Yosef to the Yishmaelites, it was actually the Midianites who drew him out of the pit!  This is the opinion of the Rashbam, the Rabbeinu Bachye, and the Ketav He-ha-Kabbala, among others.  R. Shimshon Rafael Hirsch, in fact, suggests that the brothers original intent was to sell Yosef to the Yishmaelites, expecting that Yosef would be taken by them to Arabia.  However, Hashem planned a different outcome and arranged for a caravan of Midianite travelers on their way to Egypt to pass by.

Rashi, however, maintains the traditional understanding that the brothers were responsible for selling Yosef to the caravan.  He therefore argues that the modifier of "they drew and lifted up Yosef" reverts back to the brothers.[1] 

The confusion continues when we attempt to create order regarding who sold Yosef to whom.  The last verse states, "And the Madanites sold him into Egypt unto Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard (37:36)."  However, the story in Chapter 39, following the interruption of the account of Yehuda and Tamar states, "And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh's, the captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him from the hand of the Yishmaelites, who had brought him down there” (39:1).

Rashi suggests that Yosef was sold repeatedly. First, the brothers sold Yosef to the Yishmaelites. "'And Midianite men passed' – that was another caravan," and the Yishmaelites sold Yosef to them, and they [the Midianites] sold Yosef to Potiphar.  Apparently, Rashi views the Midianites and the Madanites as identical.  Rashi does not deal with the contradiction between the ending of our chapter and the beginning of Chapter 39.[2]  The Da'at Zekeinim Ba'alei Tosafot explain these issues similarly, but they insert a fourth sale, that of the Yishmaelites to the Madanites, who then in turn sold Yosef to Egypt.  To explain the difficulty posed by the beginning of Chapter 39, they suggest that Potiphar did not believe that the Madanites would have possessed a slave from Canaan legally, and he therefore summoned the Yishmaelites to testify as to the validity of the sale.

Other commentators assume a different approach in attempting to clear up this confusion   The Ibn Ezra and the Bechor Shor suggest that, in fact, the Yishmaelites and the Midianites were really the same people, as the kings of the Midianites were descendants of Yishmael.  All of the peoples mentioned are descendants of Avraham's concubines, as Yishmael came from Hagar and Midian and Madan came from Ketura.  The caravan that went down to Egypt comprised all three groups, and the Torah simply referred to them with different names, just as the Jewish people are referred to as Hebrews, Jews, or Bnei Yisrael.  The Maharal, in his super-commentary on Rashi, suggests that what the Torah described was a matter of perception.  The brothers and Potiphar thought they were dealing with Yishmaelites, but in fact the merchants were from Midian instead.

However a commentator and/or reader reconciles the technical questions mentioned above, one question must be asked:  What was the Torah trying to accomplish in creating this uncertainty?  Surely, had the Torah so desired, it could have made the entire discussion clear!  In her book Beginning of Desire, a collection of mediations on the different parashiyot in Sefer Bereishit, contemporary scholar Aviva Zornberg suggests an idea that we saw alluded to by R. Hirsch above:

One effect of the confusion seems to be to alleviate the brothers' responsibility for the sale – as if to say, not only do they not kill Yosef, they do not even, it seems, personally sell him.  Whatever their intention, God's plot overrides theirs, and their responsibility for Joseph's fate seem attenuated. (p. 266)

Her words echo the Rabbinic tradition that the entire episode was preordained from the beginning:

“Come and see the works of God; He is awesome in His plans toward the children of men."  Rabbi Yudan said: Hashem wanted to fulfill the decree of “You shall surely know that your seed will be a stranger…” and He instituted a design for all these matters, so that Yaakov would love Yosef, and his brothers would hate him, and would sell him to the Yishmaelites, who would bring him down to Egypt. (Midrash Tanchuma)

If the account ended with the sale, the effect noted by Aviva Zornberg would be undoubtedly correct.  However, the reader notes that this is not the only issue in evaluating the brothers' culpability.  The brothers' plan to sell Yosef, in fact, is not even their first plan.  They themselves seem unable to decide on a course of action.  When Yosef first appears in the horizon, they are simultaneously forewarned and off guard.  They have one advantage over Yosef, for they see him before he reaches to them.  However, as far as having an objective plan to dispose of their dreaming sibling, they are completely unprepared.  From their wording, we note that their indecision focuses on how to get rid of Yosef, not whether to do so.  What unfolds are a series of ad hoc, hastily spun suggestions as the occasion presents itself. 

Some commentators interpret the phrase in verse 18, "they conspired against him to slay him," that they sent wild dogs out to tear him to pieces before he even arrived at their camp. When that failed, they intend to kill him with their own hands and throw him into a pit to die.  Reuven suggested an alternate plan with two parts, one stated aloud and one reserved in his mind, while Yehuda suggested yet another revision.  Possibly, the Midianites interfered with their plan, which was then followed by Reuven's failed attempt to execute the second half of his original plan.  Notably, the only speakers in the episode are the brothers, and all the speech revolves around a single, constant goal – somehow, Yosef be disposed of, once and for all.

Finally, their brother was gone – but his shredded coat remained.  If the text wanted to ensure that we do not lessen the brothers' responsibility for their actions, despite their hasty, improvised, incompetent, and possibly unsuccessful nature of their planning, it could not have chosen a better symbol.  Even detached from its owner, the coat continued to signify Yaakov's special relationship with one son, and the corresponding lack of that relationship with the others.  From the brothers' point of view, as they think about the coat, one thing has become clear:  it is far too late to pretend nothing has happened.    Although their plans have aborted at virtually every level, one facet of the original suggestion can be salvaged – the blaming of a wild beast.  They dip the coat in goat's blood, return home, and wave the bloody garment in Yaakov's face.  Mockingly, they ask, "Please recognize it; is it your son's tunic or is it not?"  Yaakov can only respond, "A savage beast has devoured him!"  As Aviva Zornberg points out, "what the brothers had wanted to do to Yosef – indeed, what they had done to him – is truly articulated by their father" (ibid.).

Rashi suggests that the brothers used goat's blood because its consistency is most similar to that of human blood.  This act was more than tactical – for all intents and purposes, the brothers had shed Yosef's blood. Wild beasts had devoured him. 

We conclude with Thomas Mann's powerful and heartrending description of Yosef's arrival in Dothan, only to meet the brothers' wrath:

They fell upon him as the pack of hungry wolves falls upon the prey; their blood-blinded lust knew no pause or consideration, it was as though they would tear him into fourteen pieces at least.  Rending, tearing apart, tearing off – upon that they were bent, to their very marrow.  "Down, down, down!" they panted with one voice; it was the ketonet they meant, the picture-robe, the veil.  It must come off, and that was not so easy…  (Thomas Mann, Joseph and his Brothers)