Parashah 9: Vayeshev (He continued living) 37:1–40:23

37 Ya‘akov continued living in the land where his father had lived as a foreigner, the land of Kena‘an.

² Here is the history of Ya‘akov. When Yosef was seventeen years old he used to pasture the flock with his brothers, even though he was still a boy. Once when he was with the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives, he brought a bad report about them to their father. ³ Now Isra’el loved Yosef the most of all his children, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a long-sleeved robe. ⁴ When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they began to hate him and reached the point where they couldn’t even talk with him in a civil manner.

⁵ Yosef had a dream which he told his brothers, and that made them hate him all the more. ⁶ He said to them, “Listen while I tell you about this dream of mine. ⁷ We were tying up bundles of wheat in the field when suddenly my bundle got up by itself and stood upright; then your bundles came, gathered around mine and prostrated themselves before it.” ⁸ His brothers retorted, “Yes, you will certainly be our king. You’ll do a great job of bossing us around!” And they hated him still more for his dreams and for what he said.

⁹ He had another dream which he told his brothers: “Here, I had another dream, and there were the sun, the moon and eleven stars prostrating themselves before me.” ¹⁰ He told his father too, as well as his brothers, but his father rebuked him: “What is this dream you have had? Do you really expect me, your mother and your brothers to come and prostrate ourselves before you on the ground?” ¹¹ His brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the matter in mind.

(ii) ¹² After this, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father’s sheep in Sh’khem, ¹³ Isra’el asked Yosef, “Aren’t your brothers pasturing the sheep in Sh’khem? Come, I will send you to them.” He answered, “Here I am.” ¹⁴ He said to him, “Go now, see whether things are going well with your brothers and with the sheep, and bring word back to me.” So he sent him away from the Hevron Valley, and he went to Sh’khem, ¹⁵ where a man found him wandering around in the countryside. The man asked him, “What are you looking for?” ¹⁶ “I’m looking for my brothers,” he answered. “Tell me, please, where are they pasturing the sheep?” ¹⁷ The man said, “They’ve left here; because I heard them say, ‘Let’s go to Dotan.’” Yosef went after his brothers and found them in Dotan.

¹⁸ They spotted him in the distance, and before he had arrived where they were, they had already plotted to kill him. ¹⁹ They said to each other, “Look, this dreamer is coming! ²⁰ So come now, let’s kill him and throw him into one of these water cisterns here. Then we’ll say some wild animal devoured him. We’ll see then what becomes of his dreams!” ²¹ But when Re’uven heard this, he saved him from being destroyed by them. He said, “We shouldn’t take his life. ²² Don’t shed blood,” Re’uven added. “Throw him into this cistern here in the wilds, but don’t lay hands on him yourselves.” He intended to rescue him from them later and restore him to his father.

(iii) ²³ So it was that when Yosef arrived to be with his brothers, they stripped off his robe, the long-sleeved robe he was wearing, ²⁴ and took him and threw him into the cistern (the cistern was empty; without any water in it). ²⁵ Then they sat down to eat their meal; but as they looked up, they saw in front of them a caravan of Yishma‘elim coming from Gil‘ad, their camels loaded with aromatic gum, healing resin and opium, on their way down to Egypt. ²⁶ Y’hudah said to his brothers, “What advantage is it to us if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? ²⁷ Come, let’s sell him to the Yishma‘elim, instead of putting him to death with our own hands. After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” His brothers paid attention to him. ²⁸ So when the Midyanim, merchants, passed by, they drew and lifted Yosef up out of the cistern and sold him for half a pound of silver shekels to the Yishma‘elim, who took Yosef on to Egypt.

²⁹ Re’uven returned to the cistern, and, upon seeing that Yosef wasn’t in it, tore his clothes in mourning. ³⁰ He returned to his brothers and said, “The boy isn’t there! Where can I go now?”

³¹ They took Yosef’s robe, killed a male goat and dipped the robe in the blood. ³² Then they sent the long-sleeved robe and brought it to their father, saying, “We found this. Do you know if it’s your son’s robe or not?” ³³ He recognized it and cried, “It’s my son’s robe! Some wild animal has torn Yosef in pieces and eaten him!” ³⁴ Ya‘akov tore his clothes and, putting sackcloth around his waist, mourned his son for many days. ³⁵ Though all his sons and daughters tried to comfort him, he refused all consolation, saying, “No, I will go down to the grave, to my son, mourning.” And his father wept for him.

³⁶ In Egypt the Midyanim sold Yosef to Potifar, one of Pharaoh’s officials, a captain of the guard.

38 (iv) It was at this time that Y’hudah went off from his brothers and settled near a man named Hirah who was an ‘Adulami. ² There Y’hudah saw one of the daughters of a certain Kena‘ani whose name was Shua, and he took her and slept with her. ³ She conceived and had a son, whom he named ‘Er. ⁴ She conceived again and had a son, and she called him Onan. ⁵ Then she conceived yet again and had a son whom she called Shelah; he was in K’ziv when she gave birth to him.

⁶ Y’hudah took a wife for ‘Er his firstborn, and her name was Tamar. ⁷ But ‘Er, Y’hudah’s firstborn, was evil from Adonai’s perspective, so Adonai killed him. ⁸ Y’hudah said to Onan, “Go and sleep with your brother’s wife — perform the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and preserve your brother’s line of descent.” ⁹ However, Onan knew that the child would not count as his; so whenever he had intercourse with his brother’s wife, he spilled the semen on the ground, so as not to give his brother offspring. ¹⁰ What he did was evil from Adonai’s perspective, so he killed him too.

¹¹ Then Y’hudah said to Tamar his daughter-in-law, “Stay a widow in your father’s house until my son Shelah grows up”; for he thought, “I don’t want him to die too, like his brothers.” So Tamar went and lived at home with her father. ¹² In due time, Shua’s daughter, the wife of Y’hudah, died. After Y’hudah had been comforted, he went up to be with his sheep-shearers in Timnah, he and his friend Hirah the ‘Adulami. ¹³ Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law has gone up to Timnah to shear his sheep.” ¹⁴ So she took off her widow’s clothes, completely covered her face with her veil, and sat at the entrance to ‘Einayim, which is on the way to Timnah. For she saw that Shelah had grown up, but she still was not being given to him as his wife. ¹⁵ When Y’hudah saw her, he thought she was a prostitute, because she had covered her face. ¹⁶ So he went over to her where she was sitting and said, not realizing that she was his daughter-in-law, “Come, let me sleep with you.” She answered, “What will you pay to sleep with me?” ¹⁷ He said, “I will send you a kid from the flock of goats.” She said, “Will you also give me something as a guarantee until you send it” ¹⁸ He answered, “What should I give you as a guarantee?” She said, “Your seal, with its cord, and the staff you’re carrying in your hand.” So he gave them to her, then went and slept with her; and she conceived by him. ¹⁹ She got up and went away, took off her veil and put on her widow’s clothes.

²⁰ Y’hudah sent the kid with his friend the ‘Adulami to receive the guarantee items back from the woman, but he couldn’t find her. ²¹ He asked the people near where she had been, “Where is the prostitute who was on the road at ‘Einayim?” But they answered, “There hasn’t been any prostitute here.” ²² So he returned to Y’hudah and said, “I couldn’t find her; also the people there said, ‘There hasn’t been any prostitute here.’” ²³ Y’hudah said, “All right, let her keep the things, so that we won’t be publicly shamed. I sent the kid, but you didn’t find her.”

²⁴ About three months later Y’hudah was told, “Tamar your daughter-in-law has been acting like a whore; moreover, she is pregnant as a result of her prostitution.” Y’hudah said, “Bring her out, and let her be burned alive!” ²⁵ When she was brought out, she sent this message to her father-in-law: “I am pregnant by the man to whom these things belong. Determine, I beg you, whose these are — the signet, the cords and the staff.” ²⁶ Then Y’hudah acknowledged owning them. He said, “She is more righteous than I, because I didn’t let her become the wife of my son Shelah.” And he never slept with her again.

²⁷ When she went into labor, it became evident that she was going to have twins. ²⁸ As she was in labor, one of them put out his hand; and the midwife took his hand and tied a scarlet thread on it, saying, “This one came out first.” ²⁹ But then he withdrew his hand, and his brother came out; so she said, “How did you manage to break out first?” Therefore he was named Peretz [breaking out]. ³⁰ Then out came his brother, with the scarlet thread on his hand, and he was given the name Zerach [scarlet].