Vayechi

So Joseph died, being a hundred and ten years old: and they embalmed him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt. - Gen 50:26

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the Universe. - Carl Sagan

As we complete the Book of Genesis, a new narrative emerges; we exchange cosmology and biography for racial history. With the death of Joseph, the Bible's last cosmopolitan protagonist, the story ceases to be about the creation of the Universe, and the interplay of a few select men and their tribes with the neighbouring tribes of Bronze Age Judea. The story is now about the Jews.

For the remaining four books of the Pentateuch, we will follow one man - Moses - as he leads a single nation - Israel - from the bonds of servitude in Egypt to bloody conquest in the Promised Land, with a lot of nomadic wandering thrown in for good measure.

The commentators distinguish between two phrasings of the same essential blessing, "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, who created the Universe" and "Blessed art thou, Lord our God, who took us from Egypt". This distinction seems to demonstrate a sensitivity not just between two different kinds of god - the Deistic watchmaker, and the Theistic interferer - but between two different kinds of idea: the Big Idea, and the Small Idea.

Big Ideas are questions of philosophy. Who are we? Where did we come from? What is the Universe for? Why is - well, any question beginning with "why" is probably a Big One.

Small Ideas are questions of practicality. Did I leave the iron on? Will bad traffic cause me to miss this appointment? Does that special someone feel the same way?

Life is, and ought always to be, a delicate interplay of the two. We must live with a constant awareness of Big and Small, and strive to understand which of the two should take precedence in each moment. This is no easy task. But the literary end of Genesis, and the mortal end of Joseph, both remind us of the task's importance - not just its necessity, but its urgency.

For the ultimate fate of Joseph is the fate of us all - indeed, the fate of the Universe itself. We must make the best of what we can - right now - for time is short. Go tell someone you love them, hug a stranger, and try something crazy you've always been too scared to do. Above all else, dedicate yourself to that which is truly important.

You will never be as young as you are today.

Vayigash

After successfully predicting and preparing for an imminent seven year famine, Joseph is left in control of the only food in the region. The citizens of Egypt pawn all their possessions, and that gets them enough food for a year.

When that year was ended, they came unto him the second year, and said unto him, "We will not hide it from my lord, how that our money is spent; my lord also hath our herds of cattle; there is not ought left in the sight of my lord, but our bodies, and our lands: Wherefore shall we die before thine eyes, both we and our land? buy us and our land for bread, and we and our land will be servants unto Pharaoh: and give us seed, that we may live, and not die, that the land be not desolate." - Gen 47:18-19

Interestingly, the commentators write that Joseph willingly accepted all the real estate, but he did not acquire the citizens of Egypt as slaves. Now consider the incident of Jacob and Esau that took place a few parshiot earlier:

And Jacob simmered a stew, and Esau came in from the field, and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, "Feed me, I pray thee, with that red stew; for I am exhausted." (Therefore was his name called Edom.) And Jacob said, "Sell me this day your birthright." And Esau said, "Behold, I am about to die: of what use is a birthright to me?"

And Jacob said, "Swear to me this day;" and he swore unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau spurned his birthright. - Gen 25:29-34

Compare the actions of father and son. Jacob sees his brother about to starve and insists upon acquiring the poor man's birthright before feeding him. Joseph sees his subjects about to starve and refuses their own offer to become his slaves.

The Kabbalists write that the Patriarchs represented different sefirot, or attributes of the Divine. Roughly translated, Abraham was chesed: mercy; Isaac was gevurah: strength; and Jacob was tiferet: balance. As the lineage proceeded, the attributes were honed. I do not know of any commentators raising this particular example, but I like the clear contrast between Jacob's exploitation and Joseph's mercy.

There's a sensation you get with good literature, that the text is almost cognizant, and that when you curry its favour with diligent study, it rewards you with a new insight. Turn it this way, turn it that way.

Shabbath Shalom

Mikeitz

Joseph's Guide to Obtaining and Wielding Power!

1) Be just a tiny bit better than the competition

Everything Joseph does, he does slightly better than everyone else. Whether it be slave to the House of Potiphar, or astrologer to kings, Joseph goes above and beyond every time. And that gets him promoted: whether from servant to head servant, or from small-time soothsayer to ruler of the whole fucking country, Joseph is always climbing the ladder. What's interesting about Joseph's upward-mobility is that he's doesn't seem to work that much harder than anyone else.

Bob Rona, author of The Quick and Easy Guide to Sensational Selling, says that the differences between an average product, a good product, and a great product, are often very minimal. For a 10% increase in price, you may well get a product that's twice as good.

The same principle is true of good workmanship. Joseph doesn't do anything extraordinary in Potiphar's House - he just does what he's told to. But he does it properly, every time, and is thus appointed to run the household.

Success is not always a matter of breaking your back in difficult toil - many do that their whole lives, and never get anywhere. Sometimes it's just about finding the right place to put in that little bit extra.

2) Have a plan

When Pharoah asks the young Hebrew to interpret a pair of troubling dreams, Joseph tells the king what the dreams mean, then judiciously follows up with sound advice on what Pharoah should do about it. Pharoah is so impressed that he instantly appoints Joseph viceroy over the entire empire - "by my throne alone shall I outrank you." (Gen 41:40)

Pharoah didn't ask Joseph for actual advice - the lad was brought before the throne to serve as a dream interpreter, not a strategic advisor. But because he recognised a newly created gap in policy, and demonstrated the initiative and foresight to fill that gap with a viable plan, he was, with an air of inevitability, appointed to carry out that plan. The default position of those in power when presented with a grand scheme is often, in the immortal words of Jean-Luc Picard, "make it so". This policy makes perfect sense from the leader's point of view: the originator of a strategy is generally someone who properly understands its value and what is needed to make it work - why complicate things by trying to find someone else who fits the bill?

3) Get divine assistance

And Joseph had been brought down to Egypt. Potiphar... purchased him from the Ishmaelites who had brought him down there. God was with the Joseph, and he became a successful man; and he remained in the house of his Egyptian master. His master perceived that God was with him, and whatever he did God made succeed in his hand. Joseph found favour in his eyes, and he served him; and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had put into his hand. - Gen 39:1-4

Remember when I said that Joseph did his servant-work competently? Well, he did get a little help. While this does dampen his success a bit in Potiphar's house, his dream-interpreting stuff is still pretty impressive... right?

Then Pharoah sent and summoned Joseph, and they rushed him from the dungeon. He shaved and changed his clothes, and he came to Pharoah. And Pharoah said to Joseph, "I dreamt a dream, but no one can interpret it. Now I heard it said of you that you can comprehend a dream to interpret it."

Joseph answered Pharoah, saying, "That is beyond me; it is God Who will respond with Pharoah's welfare." - Gen 41:14-16

So if you can get God to do everything for you, you'll do pretty well. Problem is, of course, that we're never told exactly what it is that Joseph did to get God onside, though I suspect that nepotism played a significant role.

And, finally:

4) Once you have the power, be a dick

God's constant assistance wasn't the only thing Joseph got from papa. He also inherited his father's love of being an asshole. But instead of simply stealing from his brothers, Joseph took his dad's favourite pastime one further: he framed his brothers for stealing from him.

During a famine that affected the entire region, Joseph's brothers came to Egypt to buy food from the royal stockpile. When they finally met after so many years apart, Joseph recognised his brothers, but they didn't recognise him. Most of this week's parashah is dedicated to the ensuing story of how Joseph repeatedly framed, falsely accused, imprisoned, and generally mindfucked his bewildered brothers.

It must be noted that Joseph was far more justified in all of this than his father ever was; after all, his brothers did attempt to murder him shortly before they sold him into slavery. So I guess you can't really fault him for being a dick in this instance. But you definitely have to give him credit for doing it well. And I suspect he enjoyed it. A lot.

As my favourite misquotation of Lord Acton goes, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. But it also rocks absolutely."

Shabbath Shalom

Vayeishev

"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seek it..." - Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Two seemingly unrelated narratives run through his week's parashah. The main tale - which continues into next week - is about Joseph, favourite son of Jacob, favourite son of Isaac, favourite son of Abraham. By this point we all know how well the whole "favourite son" thing works out, but just like that one time when your spaghetti bolognaise slid right off its plate and splattered dramatically onto the recently-cleaned-but-still-much-too-dirty-to-eat-off floor, there is nothing you can do but gape as the awful spectacle unfolds.

Joseph, like his father before him, does a very good job of being a dick. Not enough that his dad gives him amazing technicolor dreamcoats, no sir. No, Joseph has to go around telling his brothers about dreams he's had involving symbolic sheaves of wheat and celestial bodies in motion - the sort of thing which is basically fancy-pants astrologer speak for "you'se all my bitches". As we are all aware by this point, there is only so much complete dickery that favourite sons can get away with before their siblings try to kill them. Whilst out shepherding one day (the sons of Jacob were all shepherds; Yissachar wanted to go into medicine, but that was no field for a good Jewish boy), the brothers throw Joseph into a desert pit to die of thirst; then, in a sudden fit of joint compassion, rescue him from the pit and sell him to Arab traders instead.

Joseph ends up working for a wealthy Egyptian named Potiphar, and soon rises through the ranks to become Chief Servant of the Household. That might not sound very impressive to you, what with the word "servant" still being part of the title and all, but it comes with a good dental plan and superannuation, and when you're sold to Arab traders, you take what you can get. Potiphar's wife has a penchant for kosher sausage, and tries to sleep with Joseph whenever she gets a chance. Joseph continually rebuffs her, ostensibly because he's too honourable to sleep with a married woman, but more likely because she looks like a snaggletoothed cross between Rosie O'Donnell and Amy Winehouse.

Eventually, the constant rejection really pisses off Mrs. Potiphar, and in her fury she claims that Joseph tried to rape her, an allegation which quickly lands the young lad in an Egyptian prison. While incarcerated, Joseph meets Pharoah's butler and Pharoah's baker, who are troubled by their recent dreams. Seeing how well the whole interpreting-people's-dreams thing went the first time around, Joseph takes a crack at these two, predicting that the baker will be executed while the butler is to be released and reinstated to his old job. Joseph asks the butler to put a good word in with Pharoah, so that the king might release Joseph. But when the predictions prove true, the butler demonstrates that he, too, can be an absolute tool, and completely "forgets" to ever mention the incident to Pharoah. Which I guess is unsurprising, really: what else do you expect from a public servant?

In next week's parashah, we see things eventually work out for Joseph. When the butler eventually does remember to mention the whole dream incident to Pharoah - TWO YEARS LATER - Joseph is summoned to the palace and begins a swift climb through the ranks which culminates in his appointment by Pharoah to run the whole damn country.

Meanwhile, far away, in another part of town, Judah gets married, settles down, and has three sons. The kids grow up, and Judah marries his eldest boy, Er, to a girl named Tamar.

But Er, Judah's firstborn was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord slew him. Then Judah said to Onan, "Consort with your brother's wife and enter into levirate marriage with her, and establish offspring for your brother." But Onan knew that the seed would not be his; so it was, that whenever he would consort with his brother's wife, he would let it go to waste on the ground so as not to provide offspring for his brother. What he did was evil in the eyes of the Lord, and the Lord slew him, too. - Gen 38:7-10

At this point Judah realises that marrying this particular dame might not be the optimal course of action for son #3, so he takes a raincheck on the whole business.

Time passes, and Judah's wife dies. Tamar, frustrated that she still has no baby-daddy, covers her face with a veil, disguises herself as a whore, and waits by some crossroads which she knows Judah will soon be passing by. Judah sees her and asks her for (apparently unprotected) sex. How Tamar knew that he would go for a hooker is never satisfactorily explained. He offers her a sheep, which was apparently the going rate at the time, and she accepts. Judah leaves his staff, cloak and signet ring (why he has non-soulbound gear equipped is also never satisfactorily explained) as a pledge that he will send said sheep and, dangerously undergeared and lacking the stats needed to deal with any random encounters, departs for home. He actually tries to send her the sheep he promised but, seeing as how she isn't actually that crossroads' resident slut and, furthermore, how she has left no forwarding address, the livestock comes back marked "return to sender".

And it was, when about three months had passed, that Judah was told, "Your daughter-in-law Tamar has committed harlotry and, moreover, she has conceived by harlotry." Judah said, "Take her out and let her be burned!" - Gen 38:24

In your head, run through the classic scene from Holy Grail with minor adjustments for added hilariousness: "We have found a slut, may we burn her?" "How do you know she is a slut?" "She looks like one!" etc

As she was taken out, she sent word to her father-in-law, saying, "By the man to whom these belong I am with child." And she said, "Identify, if you please, whose are this signet, this wrap, and this staff." Judah recognised; and he said, "She is right; it is from me, inasmuch as I did not give her to Shelah my son." And he never had sex with her again. - Gen 38:26

Some people claim that the Bible is merely a collection of fairy tales, but this story clearly proves otherwise. Fairy tales end with, "And they all lived happily ever after." Bible stories end with, "And he never had sex with her again." CLEARLY DIFFERENT.

The fall and rise of Joseph, and the dalliance of Judah and Tamar, have the same theme running through them: the getting, use, and abuse, of power. Joseph's is the classic rag-to-riches tale; a young man whose talent for interpreting dreams in a reliable yet remarkably insensitive way proves to be both the instrument of his downfall and the tool of his redemption (which leads, naturally, to the redemption of the tool). Eventually, Joseph uses his political power to screw with his brothers; a highly illustrative example which presumably makes social scientists wet themselves with glee.

Judah's tale, meanwhile, starkly highlights how power imbalances - between the prince and the proletarian, between man and woman - lead to severe, yet seemingly inevitable, injustices. Tamar sluts it up? Kill her! Judah sluts it up? Well, um... you see... look, let's just forget this whole thing ever happened, ok? The girl? No, just let her go. Case closed.

I've heard it argued that Judaism is likely the one true faith because its holy writ portrays its heroes warts and all, unlike the sacred texts of other faiths, which contain unrealistically perfect protagonists. A few points need to be said about this admittedly innovative piece of apologetics. Firstly, of course, it's blatantly not true. For instance, Arjun from the Bhagavad Gita is also depicted as far from perfect, and in a constant state of internal struggle. Secondly, even if the Torah were uniquely realistic with regards to its heroes' flaws, it would prove nothing other than perhaps a little more literary finesse on the part of its author. King Lear is brilliant, but that hardly makes it true.

Finally, and most importantly for our purposes: it is interesting to note the extent to which conventional orthodox Jewish readings attempt to completely counter this nuance, and portray all the "good guys" of Tanakh, ironically enough, as infallible übermenschen. The commentators seem to have developed, with a few honourable exceptions, the nasty habit of whitewashing the text into simplistic morality tales, ignoring the depth of character and events which are so abundant within the works. This parashah especially is a fantastic study of character, power, and the workings of society, and I encourage you to set aside, even temporarily, whatever interpretations you might already hold, and truly explore the richness within.

Vayishlach

Regular readers will already be familiar with my view of the traditional Esau-Jacob rivalry: Esau was both an upstanding gentleman and a total badass, whilst Jacob was a an odious crook. This week we read of the last time the twins would ever meet alive. The parashah begins thus:

Then Jacob sent messengers ahead of him to Esau his brother to the land of Seir, the field of Edom. He charged them, saying: "This shall you say, 'To my lord, to Esau, so said your servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban and have lingered until now. I have acquired oxen and donkeys, flocks, servants and maidservants and I am sending this message to my lord, that I may find favour in your eyes.'"

The messengers returned to Jacob, saying, "We came to your brother, to Esau; moreover, he is heading toward you, and four hundred men are with him." - Gen 32:4-7

At this point, our antihero clearly realises that he is royally screwed. Jacob, realising that his uppance is about to come, commences Operation: Bribe Your Way Out Of A Tight Spot, and sets up several flocks of herd animals as gift offerings to placate the righteous anger of his brother. Interestingly, he staggers the flocks so that the gift will appear larger than it really is. First sales trick in the Bible?

But before Jacob's gift trains can reach Esau, Esau reaches him.

Jacob raised his eyes and saw - behold, Esau was coming, and with him were four hundred men - so he divided the children among Leah, Rachel, and the two handmaids. He put the handmaids and their children first, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph last. - Gen 33:1-2

Nota bene: Jacob protected his beloved wife and kids by hiding them behind his less valuable wife and kids. Just saying.

Then he himself went on ahead of them and bowed earthward seven times until he reached his brother. - Gen 33:3

Moment of truth. Jacob grovels a little, but it's surely too little, too late. This is where you expect Jacob to get his ass absolutely handed to him. But wait!

Esau ran toward him, embraced him, fell upon his neck, and kissed him; then they wept. - Gen 33:4

Take a second to truly feel what has just happened here. You have just witnessed the greatest act of forgiveness in the entire Torah. You have to understand what was at stake. When Jacob stole Esau's blessing, he didn't just screw Esau. He screwed all of Esau's descendants, in perpetuity, forever. Forever-ever? Forever-ever!

Esau was well within his rights to slay Jacob. But he didn't, because Esau was like Mahatma Ghandi². He didn't even take the damned bribe. He just said, "It's cool. We're cool." And that was that.

The midrashic commentators, by and large, continue to insist that Esau is the villain of the story. Some go so far as to claim that by "kissed him", the Bible clearly meant "tried to bite his throat out". Humans are very good at twisting new information to fit our respective preconceived world-views. None of us are immune to this tendency. But simply by recognising its very presence, we can begin to combat its specious and insidious consequences.

Try to ask yourself, early and often: "What if I'm wrong?" And always, always remember that the answer to that question is never quite as terrible as it seems.