Vayeshev

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This week’s parsha, Vayeshev, begins the dramatic and well-known story of Joseph and his eleven brothers. No wonder this biblical story has become such a strong part of our popular culture, one that has been made into both a famous Broadway musical, and a popular animated film. This is the bible at its height of drama – jealousy, sibling rivalry, family dysfunction, violence, seduction, imprisonment, power, suspense…As Chief Rabbi of Britain, Jonathan Sacks puts it, “This is as near the Torah gets to Greek tragedy”.

 

The story begins with Joseph as a young man of 17, tending the flocks in the fields with his brothers. And we are told “Joseph brought bad reports of them to their father”. Jacob favors his son Joseph over all the others, and makes him a special coat. The brothers are intensely jealous of Joseph, and to make matters worse, Joseph shares his dreams with them, in which “the sun, moon and eleven stars (clearly representing the brothers) were bowing down” to him. The brothers’ anger is inflamed and they plot to kill Joseph.

 

The narrative then follows Joseph through an array of changing scenes – first he is thrown into a deep pit by his brothers, and then spared by being sold to a traveling caravan of Ishmaelites, and brought down to Egypt. He finds his way into Pharaoh’s court, as the personal attendant to an Egyptian courtier, but then gets thrown once again into a dungeon, after being falsely accused of seducing the courtier’s wife.

 

In the dungeon he interprets the dreams of two of his fellow inmates, the cupbearer and the baker. He predicts based on the dreams that the cupbearer will be released, while the baker will be killed. He asks the cupbearer to intercede for him with Pharaoh once he is free, but at the end of the parsha we are told “yet the chief cupbearer did not think of Joseph; he forgot him”.

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This is a parsha full of strong imagery and symbolism, evoking bold colors and exotic scenes that would inspire any artist. The coat that Jacob makes for his favorite son, Joseph, the “katonet passim”, which some translate as an ornamented tunic, or a coat of fine wool, has often been imagined to be a coat of dazzling colored stripes. The coat dipped in goats’ blood, which the brothers show to their father to make him believe that Joseph has been killed, when in reality he has been sold to a caravan of merchants on their way down to Egypt. And, of course, there are the dreams.

 

The dreams in this parsha are all connected to the natural world – first he dreams he and his brothers are binding sheaves of wheat in the field – his sheaf stood up and remained upright, while his brothers’ sheaves bowed low to his sheaf. In his next dream, the sun, moon and stars represent Joseph’s family.

 

While in the dungeon, Joseph interprets the dreams of the cupbearer and the baker – the cupbearer dreams of a vine with three branches. “It had barely budded, when out came its blossoms and its clusters ripened into grapes”. From this Joseph predicts accurately that the cupbearer will be freed and restored to his post. The cupbearer takes the grapes and puts them in Pharaoh’s cup. The baker on the other hand, dreams of birds -  “there were three openwork baskets on my head. In the uppermost basket were all kinds of food for Pharaoh that a baker prepares; and the birds were eating it out of the basket above my head.” Joseph predicts, somewhat gruesomely, that the baker will be impaled on a pole, and the birds will pick off his flesh, and this too comes about.

 

Joseph, at the beginning of the story, is a naïve boy, a shepherd in the fields. Unlike his father Jacob, who we know as a clever trickster, and his brothers who come up with a scheme to get rid of Joseph, Joseph himself is a child of nature. He is honest to a fault – when he sees or perceives something, he feels the need to tell people around him, even when it would be smarter not to do so. He is eager and excited to tell his family his dreams, even though the meaning of them is clearly problematic.

 

He seems to have, without even trying, a simple connection to nature and to God. His ability to interpret dreams comes naturally, and without effort. He seems aware of this, and even to take it for granted. When the cupbearer and baker come to him, saying  “We had dreams, and there is no one to interpret them.” Joseph says to them to them, “Surely God can interpret! Tell me [your dreams].” He is certain that this ability he has is directly from God, and does not question it.

 

Joseph, in this beginning part of the narrative, has the childlike quality of just acting, without questioning, doubting, or analyzing the situation beforehand. Joseph acts through pure intuition, he sees and hears and feels what is around him, and in his dreams, and he responds. Joseph’s life is a lot like a roller coaster, yet he just keeps hanging on throughout the bumpy ride.

 

This is part of what makes Joseph’s story so fascinating. How many of us are able to just act on our intuition, without analyzing the possible outcome beforehand? How many of us believe seriously in the meanings of our dreams? While we cannot live by our intuitions alone, perhaps we should learn, like Joseph, to listen more to our dreams and visions, both those we have when we sleep, as well as the dreams we have for ourselves when we are awake.