Parshat Vayeshev; Genesis 37:1-40:23 by Rabbi Denise L. Eger

In this week’s portion, Joseph is sold into slavery by his brothers and taken off to Egypt. Their dislike of him as the favorite of their father Jacob takes this nasty turn and sets up the future of the Israelites in Egypt.

Once in Egypt, a courtier of Pharaoh, Potiphar, buys Joseph. He takes a liking to him and makes him his personal attendant. The Torah is very clear that God blessed Joseph in all his endeavors. More importantly, Potiphar recognizes the God-given blessing and talents in Joseph and puts him in charge of his household. His household is blessed by God and prosperous under Joseph’s hand because of God’s blessing. Potiphar has few cares in the world because Joseph is taking care of him and his affairs.

But Joseph’s good looks and success set him up for trouble with Potiphar’s wife. She continuously tries to seduce him. She puts him in compromising positions. But Joseph refuses her advances. Joseph refuses not only out of loyalty and devotion to Potiphar but articulates that it would be an affront to God. Joseph isn’t afraid to make a moral judgment. This doesn’t deter the wife who still harasses Joseph and tries to corner him sexually.

Finally, she does get him alone and tries to grab him by force. But Joseph flees leaving his coat in her hand. She uses this as “evidence” against Joseph claiming falsely that he tried to seduce her.

Of course this causes Potiphar to imprison Joseph. But even while in prison, God continued to bless Joseph easing his way in the jail.

How ironic that a charge of seduction/rape happens to Joseph since this is what happened to his sister Dinah in parshat Vayishlach. Dinah is raped by Shechem. And though he tried to cover up his act of violence by wanting to marry her, he paid with his life as well as the lives of all of the townspeople at the hands of her brothers Simeon and Levi. They took out their revenge upon Shechem and his father Hamor and all the townsmen.

While Dinah wasn’t the perpetrator but the victim, here Joseph is falsely accused of being the perpetrator but indeed he is the victim as well. We never hear Dinah’s voice in her story and we never hear of her again. She isn’t mentioned. The silence and I think pain of the story—painful because of what happened to her, painful because of the the brothers’ retribution, painful because her father was ready to marry her off to the perpetrator. It isn’t hard to imagine that Dinah never recovered from the horror of her rape. There are a few midrashic passages—that state she married her brother Simeon and another in the Talmud that says she married Job. But Dinah isn’t heard from again.

Joseph too could have been paralyzed in many ways by this incident. Thrown in jail, he could have remained their never amounting to much. And yet, we know that God was continuously with him. Joseph indeed rises above this incident to become second only to Pharoah in the land of Egypt.

Do you think Joseph understood his sister better after this incident? Do you think he understood the dynamic between power and the use of sex as an instrument of power? That is surely what Potiphar’s wife was doing.

As Joseph climbs to power in Egypt following this incident, he will have many opportunities to use and abuse his power. Hopefully, this incident with Potiphar’s wife shapes him into being one whose need for revenge is muted.

It certainly should give each of us a pause for reflection on the uses and abuses of power in our own lives.

Posted by Lee at December 19, 2005 09:28 AM