"The Story of Joseph"
by Max Besbris
As many of you may know, I have already become a Bar Mitzvah in the traditional way. This is because my father was raised as a Conservative Jew while my mother was brought up in the Secular Kindershul community. So to honor the traditional side of my family, in December I read from the torah, and helped lead a Sabbath service. Today I honor the other side of my family with this presentation, which examines my torah portion through the eyes of a secular viewer.
I think that the entire experience has helped me understand more about my Jewish identity. For me being Jewish is not so much about practicing the ancient customs, but rather about being connected with other Jews in a community.
I admit that I thought analyzing my torah portion through the eyes of a secular Jew would make the workload easier since I already knew the material but once I began studying about the secular viewpoint, it turned out to be more work than I expected.
My torah portion is one of the better known ones. It begins at chapter 41 of Genesis and is called Mekeytz. It covers most of the second half of the Joseph legend. Many people know it as the plot of the modern musical "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat." It begins after Joseph’s brothers have sold him into slavery out of jealousy because their father, Jacob, shows that he prefers Joseph over his other sons and of course, over his daughters. Besides, Joseph bragged about his dreams that predict that he will rule over his brothers. When my portion opens, Joseph is in Egypt, in Pharaoh’s jail, after having been falsely accused of rape. The Pharaoh has two dreams, one about seven sturdy good cows who are eaten up by seven thin and ugly cows and another one just like it, only this time it is ears of corn and not cattle. Joseph is the only who can explain Pharaoh’s dreams. Joseph explains that the dreams are a message from God. There are to be seven years of good plentiful harvest followed by seven years of draught and famine. Joseph suggests that pharaoh put somebody in charge of building granaries for storing the surplus food that is raised during the years of good harvest. Joseph becomes the overseer of grain production and storage for all of Egypt and the second most powerful man in Egypt.
Joseph was right, and after the seven years of good harvest, the seven years of starvation began. Meanwhile back in Canaan, where Joseph’s family lived, the famine became severe and eventually, the whole family of Israel, Jacob and his sons and their sons, seek refuge from the famine in Egypt. It’s after their resettlement in Egypt that we’re told the Egyptians enslave all of the 12 tribes of Israel.
The traditional religious understanding of this story is that is meant to teach us many things that relate to our own lives. One is sibling rivalry. Joseph’s brothers are so jealous of him that they go so far as to sell Joseph as a slave and tell their father that he is dead.
Another theme is forgiveness. Despite being sold into slavery and being imprisoned, Joseph can still forgive his brothers. Although the Bible gives no reason why Joseph forgives his brothers so easily, it can be interpreted as teaching that in cases concerning family members, we should forgive and forget. Another traditional interpretation is that Joseph forgives his brothers because his reunion with them represents a reunion with lost family and a reconnection with his Jewish roots. At the time of the reunion, Joseph had already taken an Egyptian name and an Egyptian wife. Here, all of a sudden, is a powerful reminder of his family and religious past.
Secular Jewishness respects the bible both as a compilation of the literature created by the Jewish people and the influence it has had on them and on world culture. However, Secular Jews rely on modern biblical scholarship in understanding the bible. Beginning with the great Jewish philosopher Baruch Spinoza who noticed contradictions in the text that proved Moses could not have been the author of the Torah, modern scholars have discovered that there were many different sources of biblical stories. The Joseph story, for example, has many parallels in the ancient folklore of the Middle East. In addition, another clue is that it refers to God—in only a few places, God is mentioned—as "Elohim" instead of "Yaweh." According to modern science, "Elohim" stories come from primitive times when people believed in many gods. "Elohim" is a plural name. Belief in "Yaweh" as the chief god or only god came much later.
There are many examples of how folklore became absorbed into the bible. A scholar points out that in the original Hebrew text, the coat Jacob gave to Joseph is a coat of "passim." Pasim is the plural of pas, which means lengths or extensions. So the coat given to Joseph is not one of many colors, but a coat of lengths. The scholars who translated the bible into Greek took this to mean a coat of many lengths from different materials and thus "a coat of many colors."
In the Joseph story, his brothers bring their father false evidence of Joseph’s death. Similar stories where the hero’s clothes are smeared with animal blood to prove that the hero is dead appear in many other cultures. Stories about false accusations of rape following the rejection of a woman’s sexual advances are also common. One tale incorporating both is found in the Arabian Nights. Two lovers, Kemerezzeman and the beautiful Budour, want to elope, but Kemerezzeman’s father does not allow him to leave the house. So Budour’s brother arranges for the hero to escape, leaving his clothes smeared with camel’s blood. But there’s more:
Kemerezzeman has 2 sons, one by Budour and one by another wife. Later, each wife makes sexual advances on the other’s son. Both sons refuse, and the two wives tell Kemerezzeman that his sons have tried to rape them. Kemerezzeman tells his servant to take the two sons out to the desert and kill them and bring back a jar of blood as proof of the sons’ death. Instead, the servant brings back a jar filled with a lion’s blood. Thus, Kemerezzeman falls for the same ruse that he himself used on his father. The ruse of animal blood is found in stories from Turkey, Iceland, and in Japanese cultures.
Other stories of false accusations of rape are very common. They appear in Egyptian, Persian, Chinese, Native American, and Hittite cultures. The most famous is probably the ancient Greek story of Phaedra and Hippolytus.
All these stories of false accusations of rape portray women as not only creatures of their lust but also capable of terrible lies when they are scorned. These stories are understood to come from the primitive times when the male leaders of tribes were trying to wipe out the still earlier legends about the goddesses who were thought to have created earth and life.
The number 12 shows up as a very large part in Joseph’s story. Joseph is one of 12 brothers, and the number12 may have been the basis of our zodiac and the symbols of the tribes, the symbols for the zodiac. Or maybe it was the other way around. It’s hard to tell which came first, the Torah, or the Zodiac. And the seven good years/seven bad years may reflect the belief that seven is a magical number: there are seven openings in the head and the cycle of the moon is divided into four seven-day periods, which we call weeks. Folklore, including Jewish folklore, talks about "seven heavens."
Another important aspect of the story of Joseph is that Joseph literally rises from prisoner to the second most powerful man in Egypt within a very short time. Stories like these have always been popular with minority people. They like to hear stories about people who were once like them, and then rose to something greater. People want people like themselves to become rich or powerful. They think it says something about themselves if one of them can rise to power.
This is true in our own time too. As a minority, most Jews feel proud when another Jew attains a high position. In the United States, Jews have held positions of respect and sometimes of authority, ever since the Revolution and the Bill of Rights started our country on the road to democracy. But we must judge prominent Jews on their achievements. We cannot take pride simply because they are Jewish. Joseph was great because he knew what to do in case of famine and he helped save Egypt and the surrounding area from death. He was not great merely because he was a Jew who rose to be Pharaoh’s adviser. As American Jews, we must be careful about how we react to other Jews being in positions of high authority. If anything, we have a special responsibility to criticize the actions of people like Henry Kissinger or Madelyn Albright, when we disagree with them, because they are not great because they happened to be Jewish.
Lastly, the story of Joseph and his brothers represents an area on which that traditional and secular Jews can agree. Joseph’s reunion with his family, the tribes of Israel, their subsequent move to Egypt to avoid famine and enslavement by the Egyptians, set the stage for the Exodus and the Jews liberation from bondage. Our liberation from slavery in Egypt, whether you accept the religious view it was by God or the secular view that we liberated ourselves, remains the most important single event in Jewish history. Its message that Jews must dedicate themselves to the liberation of all people is one that unites us all, secular and traditional.
Thank you to my mom and dad for helping me so much with my speech and paying for another Bar Mitzvah. To Hershl and Susan for their insight and help. Thank you to my sister for being my sister. And to everybody for coming.
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