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.