In his perfectly crafted and emotionally stirring speech before the “Grand
Vizier” of Egypt, Judah manages to move his powerful “adversary” to the point of
revealing who he really is and so repairing the fractured family of
Jacob.
It is precisely this function – uniting the people of Israel –
which is the most important criterion for the leader of the emerging nation, who
will stand as prototype for King Messiah. After all, Israel will never be able
to unite the world unless it first unites itself.
Unless we understand
this crucial element of Jewish leadership, we will never understand why the
patriarch Jacob sent his beloved son Joseph into the “lion’s den” to seek “the
welfare of his brothers.” Although he had pronounced Joseph heir apparent by
presenting him with the striped cloak of many colors – indeed, the very symbol
of a single entity which combines and unites within itself many different hues,
attitudes and ideas – Jacob was painfully aware of the deep divide within the
family engendered by Joseph’s arrogance and dreams of domination. Hence, Jacob
sends Joseph as an agent (shaliah) “to look after the peace of your brothers”
(Genesis 37:13, 14) – to unite them through his concern for their
welfare.
In the very next verse, an anonymous passerby asks Joseph: “What
are you searching for?” He responds, “It is my brothers [or brotherliness,
sibling harmony] for whom I am searching.” But alas, Joseph’s agency (shlihut)
is not sufficient to mend the break in the family.
The Talmudic sages
teach us that “the agent of an individual is like the person on whose behalf he
undertakes the mission” (Shulhan Aruch, Hoshen Mishpat, 183, 1), which means
that he is also limited by his “sender,” that he cannot transcend the
limitations of his sender. And since it was Jacob who set the stage for the
division by so blatantly expressing his favoritism, Joseph’s mission fails; the
chosen brother becomes the cast-out brother, first in a pit and then in the
exile of Egyptian slavery.
Now, let us turn to the most dominant and
influential of the other brothers, Judah. Yes, he probably prevented Joseph’s
life from ending in a deadly, deserted pit, but he was ultimately directly
responsible for Joseph’s separation from the family; it was his idea to sell him
into Egyptian serfdom.
This story continues with the subsequent
deterioration of Judah, how he continues to move further and further away from
brotherly love and unification. “And it happened at that time [after the sale]
that Judah went down [and away] from his brothers...” (Gen. 38:1).
Judah
takes a Canaanite woman to wife (against the Abrahamic command), with whom he
fathers three sons, Er, Onan and Shelah. Er marries Tamar, but dies without
leaving progeny. When a man dies without leaving an heir, his brother marries
the widow, providing her with financial security, and giving her a child who
will bear the name and receive the inheritance of the deceased
brother.
Onan, however, selfishly refuses to provide his brother with
continuity, withholding his seed from her. When Onan also dies without progeny,
Judah refuses to give Tamar his third son, Shelah, in levirate marriage, giving
as his reason that Shelah is too young. Judah himself is now left without an
heir, having raised sons who lack sibling responsibility. This is hardly the way
to continue the Abrahamic covenant.
Tamar, anxious to continue Judah’s
family line and produce offspring for her deceased husbands, poses as a harlot,
seduces Judah, and becomes impregnated by him. When the widowed Tamar is seen to
be pregnant, she is about to be killed. Judah takes responsibility, declaring,
“She is more righteous than I” – because she understood better than I sibling
and familial responsibility.
Twin sons are born, one of whom, Perez, is
the ancestor of Boaz who, together with Ruth, will be the grandparents of David,
progenitor of the Messiah.
When Judah thought Tamar was a prostitute, he
had given her a pledge of responsibility: his signet, his cloak and his staff.
(eravon, as in arev, co-signer). When she returned these to him, he finally
recognized his familial responsibility to her, and to his family and to his
continuity.
When Jacob is frightened of sending Benjamin to the Grand
Vizier, a chastened Judah declares, “I shall personally be his guarantor,” his
arev (Gen. 43:9).
And when the Grand Vizier hears that Judah is ready to
stand in as a slave instead of Benjamin in order to save his father the grief of
losing yet another son of Rachel, he realizes how far Judah has come. Familial
unity can only be achieved when familial love demands mutual responsibility one
for the other, each truly acting as his brother’s keeper. Now Joseph can be
revealed, ready for the family to heal and unite behind the one brother ready to
bear co-signership responsibility for the welfare of each of his
siblings.
The writer is the founder and chancellor of Ohr Torah Stone
Colleges and Graduate Programs and chief rabbi of Efrat.
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