Turn it and turn it

Gen. 39:1-6 This very short aliyah, highlighting the rise of Joseph in Potiphar’s household after his sale into Egypt, ends with the statement that “Joseph was well built and handsome.” Generally the assertion is considered to be an introduction to the following episode, in which Potiphar’s wife attempts to seduce her husband’s good-looking young slave, but if that were so, it would make more sense at the beginning of the next aliyah. The present division seems to imply that Joseph’s appearance has something to do with his high status in the eyes of his master as well. Despite centuries, possibly millennia, of admonitions from parents to children that “handsome is as handsome does,” and “You can’t tell a book by its cover,” modern studies show that good looks are still an advantage in everything from hiring to sentencing. It has even been suggested that we are biologically programmed to prefer a more symmetrical appearance as a sign of healthy genes in a possible mate. Interestingly,...

Gen. 34:1-35:12 Deborah, Rebekah’s nurse, died, and was buried under the oak below Bethel; so it was named Allon-bacuth. - Gen. 35:8 I have lived a long life and seen three generations of my young mistress’ family grow to adulthood, but never have I been so grieved and ashamed as I have been by the actions of her grandsons Simeon and Levi. And the howls of despair and grief that come from the women’s tent as my youngest lady, Dinah, bewails her lost husband, are enough to break this old heart in two. The young fools! If she had been taken unwillingly, at least their sister would have been an honored wife, mistress of a household – and what is left for her now? But young men do not think of these things when their blood is up and their honor is wounded. How I remember my first nursling, young Rebecca, running breathlessly home, her eyes alight with excitement and the bracelets that Abraham’s manservant had given her jangling about her wrists. Her brother Laban was no prize, but what i...

Gen. 30:28-31:16 When Jacob decides to leave Laban and return to his ancestral land, he tells Leah and Rachel that Laban “has cheated me, changing my wages time and again.” But is this accusation a just one, borne out by the facts of the case as provided in the text? Jacob’s main complaint is presumably Laban’s substitution of Leah for Rachel, but while his intent was obviously deceptive, Laban could certainly claim (along with many modern politicians) that his response to Jacob’s request was “legally accurate.” “Better that I give her to you than that I should give her to an outsider. Stay with me,” is, in the words of Etz Hayim , “a statement of consummate ambiguity naively accepted by Jacob as a binding commitment,” and Laban did, indeed, eventually allow Jacob to marry Rachel. Perhaps Jacob, whose previous experience in deception consisted of outright lies like “I am Esau, your firstborn,” can be forgiven for missing the subtlety in his uncle’s more sophisticated technique. However...

Gen. 26:30-27:27 REBECCA: Foolish old man! Thank God he has a healthy appetite for game, even in his old age. He provided me with the perfect opportunity to prevent the disaster that would come if he allowed his doting love for Esau to blind him to reality. I had the idea of substituting Jacob for his brother when it first became obvious that Isaac could not tell one son from the other in the dim light inside the tent, but the problem had always been how to make the switch. Now Isaac himself had solved it for me. Please don’t think that I don’t love my older son, but he is a simple, uncomplicated man who acts on a whim, definitely not suited for the responsibilities that should by custom fall upon him as the eldest. Jacob, on the other hand, takes after me and my brother Laban. Even his hesitation came more from his fear of being caught than from any scruples about what I was asking of him. He feared appearing as a trickster to his father, not being one. On my side of the family, we a...

Gen. 24:53-67 After that unnerving, dream-like experience with my father and the subsequent death of my mother, I fled. I could no longer bear the burden of being the focus of all his impossible expectations – that strange, God-touched man, my father. And where did I go? I sought out my brother, Ishmael, whom I had not seen since I was a child. I barely remembered him, but in those memories he was a huge, god-like figure, strong and outgoing with a booming laugh that seemed to make the earth vibrate under my feet. I found him at Beer-lahai-roi, where his mother had first heard the voice of God – one more thing for which my mother had never forgiven her. He was still the same, large and hairy and smelling of the outdoors, and he welcomed me with tears in his eyes and a bone-crushing hug. We spoke about the abandonment we had both suffered at the hands of our father, and how he had come to terms with it. Expansive in his feelings as well as his gestures, he had long ago forgiven Abraham,...

Gen. 21:5-21 With the last of my strength I flung my beloved child the last few feet into the only shade available, and moved slowly, feebly, like an old woman, to sit down and give way to despair. My eyes were dazzled by sun and sand, my skin blistering, and my lips and throat were parched. It seemed like hours ago that I had forced the last of the water down Ishmael’s throat, and now he moaned and tossed in a delirium that I could not bear to witness. How could Abraham have done this to us - to his firstborn son, at least, however little he thought of me? Yet his eyes had borne a stricken look as he placed the supplies on my back, and there had been tenderness in the hand that brushed a stray lock of hair out of my eyes. As he bent over me, he had whispered some hurried instructions to the nearest oasis, but I had either misunderstood or made a wrong turning, an error we would pay for with our lives. If only I had never gone back to Sarah! I had been deceived; it had been no divine b...

Gen. 14:18-15:6 After the battle of the five kings against the four and the rescue of his nephew Lot, Abram lay in his tent, sleepless. Instead of the elation of victory, he felt a strange emptiness. Not so strange, really, he thought. This day had seen the end of a dream, with none to replace it. Even after they had parted in the wake of their herders’ wranglings, he had believed that Lot would be his heir if he and Sarah had no son, which seemed increasingly likely. Now, however, the breach between them was complete, and although Lot was a decent man, there was a fundamental flaw in his character. Abram had already known this, deep in his heart, when he had offered his nephew the choice of which land he would take and Lot, like a greedy child, had grabbed at the most attractive parcel as if it were a sparkling toy. A serious, thoughtful man, a potential leader, would have deferred to his elder, or at least consulted with him. And yesterday, when they had burst into the encampment whe...

Gen. 9:8-17 In a sense, the fifth aliyah of this parashah is a recapitulation of creation, but with a difference. While God did indeed create the world and everything in it at the beginning of Bereshit, the only divine interaction with human beings and animals comes in the form of commands, to “be fruitful and multiply” and in Chapter 2 for Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and bad. This may be likened to a parent who provides everything for her child but does not communicate with him, except in the most basic sense of telling him what to do and punishing him when he disobeys. This parent has not made, and shown herself to have made, an unconditional emotional investment. Perhaps she has unreasonable expectations of perfection in the child. Then a tragedy happens, perhaps brought on by the actions of the parent herself, and she realizes her child does not have to be perfect; she loves him just the same. After the flood God is in this position, at last recognizing...

Gen. 4:19-26 It could be argued that the listing of Lamech’s four children by his two wives, and their crediting as “ancestors” of those who practice various callings, is ultimately meaningless. Even if their children intermarried with the descendants of Seth, in the end, through the bottleneck of Noah, they would still be the ancestors of all human beings. However, perhaps this is the meaning that can be found in the passage. Although throughout history there have been clans and guilds that have restricted certain trades to their own members, and even talents such as music that seem to have a genetic component, there is no “natural” reason why an aptitude should not show up in any given individual, regardless of bloodline. Indeed, even if these men, and one woman, who according to the midrash was a singer, had no blood descendants, as the originators of their callings they are the ancestors of all who followed them. As the Talmud points out, a teacher is, in a sense, a parent to his ...