Regarding The Character Of Tamar
Two of them stand out in the story of the brothers’ hatred of Joseph. They advise how to take revenge on their brother, but they think about saving his life. Firstborn Reuven suggests:
Don’t spill blood, throw him in the cistern: Yehuda moderates the brothers in a different way:
What will it profit us if we murder our brother, let our hands not even touch him.
After all, he is our brother, our body. Yehuda’s proposal then reads: Let’s sell him to the Ishmaelites! Joseph is really sold and taken to Egypt. The biblical account now leaves Joseph and devotes itself to Yehuda.
The destinies of his family are filled with tragic events. Er’s first son dies childless.
Death also pursues the second son of Onan, who sinned by disregarding the customs of levirate law and he refused to father a child with Tamar, his brother’s widow. This duty passes to the third son. However, Tamar did not give Yehuda to his son. But Tamar does not give up. Disguised as a harlot, she seduces Yehuda and becomes pregnant.
When Yehuda finds out about his daughter-in-law’s pregnancy, he wants to punish her as an adulteress. But he recognizes the things he pawned to an unknown prostitute, and then realizes his mistake. Yehuda Tamar forgives and rejoices in the birth of two sons, Perec and Terach. From a literary point of view, it may seem that the inclusion of the chapter on Yehuda and Tamar follows only
a release of tension in Joseph’s story. Joseph is sold to Potiphar, everyone is curious about the continuation of the drama, and behold – the narrator turns to a topic unrelated to Joseph. Our Talmudic scholars already knew another – ethical explanation. There is an internal relationship between the stories of Joseph and Yehuda. It manifests itself in some similarities, which the use of similar words brings us to statement.
It is written about Támar returning the pledges:
And she sent them to her father-in-law… and said: know now to whom the seal, the cord, and the staff belong. And he recognized Yehud and said: He is fairer than me. In the account of how the brothers cheated their father by faking a blood-stained garment, it reads:
And they sent a colorful skirt and said: know then, is it your son’s skirt or not? And he recognized her and said: it is my son’s skirt.
We can hardly believe that such a striking parallel could be the work of the narrator at will.
Joseph was sold on the advice of Yehuda.
He then participated with his brothers in a trick to deceive his father. Jacob believed that his beloved Joseph had been torn apart by wild animals. The suffering of the father was immeasurable. In the words of Tamar, the Judge of all the earth now reminds Jehud of the torment he caused his brother in grandfather.
The sale of Joseph started a chain of events that led to the suffering of Yehuda himself.
Jacob was forced to know Joseph’s wife in grief, Yehuda is now forced to know his things in shamed and ashamed of his actions. The biggest character in Yehuda’s story is Tamar. From the few hints we can recall her relationship to Yehuda’s wife.
The two women, who had such an influence on the destinies of Jáko’s house, stand in opposition. We can already see this in the way the Torah names them. The name of Yehuda’s wife is withheld, she is determined only by her position in the family. She is spoken of as the daughter of a Canaanite man, the daughter of Shu, elsewhere she is called a woman Yehuda.
It is different with her daughter-in-law, her name Támar returns many times in the story. But there is no mention of her parents anywhere. Tamar is herself even without her family.
The first, as if anonymous, is passive. She fulfills her mission and gives birth to three sons. He suffers from the wounds of fate and loses two of them. In the end, she dies alone in grief. Tamar, on the other hand, is a symbol of independence and daring.
In this she resembles our great-grandmother Rivka, who was not afraid of a trick, just to get a blessing for the son who, in her judgment, deserved it. Even Tamar took the path of trickery in order to reach her goal – a connection with an eternal home Jacob and his descendants.
From the words of Rashi – her action was in the name of heaven, we see how our tradition considers Tamar.
We find many words of praise about her in the midrash. According to them, she prayed at the grave of our father Abraham and begged for the good fortune to have her a man from among his descendants and that she may bear him sons. To appreciate the greatness of Tamar, we don’t have to go only to psychological analyzes and the words of the midrash. After all, the Scriptures themselves provide a clear testimony of the respect she enjoyed among the following
generation. Among the blessings with which Boaz is blessed in the book of Ruth is this – Let your house be like a house
Peretz, whom Tamar gave birth to Yehuda. At the end of this book we find a family tree ending with King David. This genealogy does not begin, as we might expect, with Jacob or Judah; is in the first place here Peretz, son of Tamar.
Let’s pause for a moment on the similarity between Tamar and Ruth. Beno Jacob, who has addressed the issue, says:
Both guard with the greatest determination the ties that bind them to the house of Israel.
Both of them come from pagan nations. Ruth was a Moabite, and Tamar, as appears from the plain meaning of the wording of the Scriptures (Peshat), was equally as the daughter of Shua the Canaanite.
Tamar and Ruth were not moved to their actions by a mere desire for children, but above all by the knowledge of the One G-d, the G-d of Israel.
What Tamar also had in her heart, Ruth expressed in beautiful words with her strength:
Your people – my people, Your G-d – my G-d.
Compared to Ruth, Tamar is more independent, but even she could be surrendered. She manifested a special kind of power – passive power. A person gifted with this power stemming from moral knowledge must be capable of great things
self-denial. Yehuda orders his adulterous daughter-in-law to be brought out and burned. And she, instead of publicly accusing Yehuda of sin, leaves the decision in his hands. Yehuda can voluntarily confess to his crime and set her free, but he can also have her destroyed and thus to hide from all his transgressions. This is why Tamar reveals the truth to his judge using objects.
Her message is incomprehensible to all but Yehuda. Tamar thus becomes the mother of the Jewish moral tradition. One of the noble principles of our morality says:
It is better for a man to be thrown into a burning furnace than to shame his neighbor before his eyes many” (Berachot 43)
Interpreters of Scripture have always been interested in what title and according to which law Yehuda actually wanted his daughter-in-law to judge.
The Ramban gives three possible interpretations.
The first, held by Rashi, is based on an explanation given by Rabbi Meir in Bereshit Rabba:
Tamar was the daughter of Shem and he was a priest, so she was to be sentenced to be burned.
The Torah, however, several centuries later, commands the burning of a priest’s daughter who commits adultery.
(Leviticus 21:9)
After a detailed halachic analysis, the Ramban refutes this rationale.
He points out in particular that the priest’s daughter, expecting to conclude a levirate marriage, in the event adultery is not punishable by death at all. In justifying the second possible interpretation, he says this:
It seems to me that Yehuda was a worldly dignitary and a keeper of order.
If his daughter-in-law committed adultery, she was treated like those who offend the ruler. According to the third interpretation, Yehuda wants to impose a punishment corresponding to the customs of other nations.
Ramban finds comparisons in his surroundings.
In many regions of Spain it was customary to bring an adulteress before her husband, who then he decided her life or death according to his will.
According to this, Yehuda would represent his son, to whom Tamar was promised, at the trial.
The most original opinion on the punishment for Tamar is quoted by Baal Turim: Rabbi Yehuda ha Chasid interprets –
Yehuda did not condemn her to be burned at all, but to burn a shameful brand on her face, as a sign that she is a prostitute.
Once he found out that she was pregnant by himself and that she was innocent, they did nothing to her. Baruch Halevi Epstein also agrees with this explanation.
Interestingly, Hammurabi’s code required the same punishment for similar offenses.
In conclusion, let us add that even the midrash pondered over the question that we dealt with at the beginning of ours considerations.
Why is the story of Yehuda connected to the history of Joseph?
In the stories of the forefathers there is also a foreshadowing of the destinies of the nation.
In Joseph’s descent into Egypt we see the beginning of galut. The next chapter tells of the birth of Peretz, from whom David, the Anointed of G-d, came Israel.
In this we recognize the promise of deliverance for Yehuda descendants.
With this in mind, the Midrash rabba says: behind everything was the Holy One, blessed be He, who prepares the light for the king – the Messiah.
Czech Parashat
In today’s Parashat Vayeshev, we follow Joseph down to the very depths of his fate. Joseph was the youngest of the brothers, and perhaps for that reason he was favored by his parents. This did not increase his popularity among his brothers. Add to that his dream interpretations, in which he managed to provoke them even more—that they would bow down to him! Ordinary sibling rivalry was turning into a time bomb. Moreover, he received a colorful tunic from his father as another demonstration of extraordinary attention toward him. And then his father sent him to check on his brothers and report back about them… That was the last straw. The brothers even wanted to kill him, but in the end, they only sold him into slavery. As a slave, he ended up in Egypt. There, he proved himself to be a reliable servant, and his status improved. To his misfortune, however, his master’s wife took a liking to him. When he would not comply with her wishes, Potiphar’s insulted wife falsely accused him, and he was thrown into prison. There, he once again interpreted dreams, and successfully so, but it didn’t help him much. Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer, who was released, was supposed to help him in return by interceding for him with Pharaoh. But as we can read: “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him” (Bereishit 40:23). As if his fate were sealed, this expression is doubled: did not remember and forgot…
A Hasidic story can help us understand what was going on here. When Reb Aharon of Titiev—the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov—was a young man and not yet a rabbi, he lived in incredible poverty. Things had gotten so bad that on one Shabbat there was truly nothing at all to eat at home. He could not cope with his misery in his mind and turned to his coreligionists in the synagogue: “Is it conceivable that the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov should be so immensely neglected by his fellow Jews that he does not even have the smallest piece of bread and water?”
Their conscience was struck, and the congregants immediately pledged to set aside a certain amount once a week as a “ma’amad” (contribution) for his support, and they decided that immediately after Shabbat they would meet to properly organize the matter, appoint a collector, and so on. But as soon as everyone went home, Reb Aharon was horrified: What have I done? All the days of my life I have strived not to ask for a favor from anyone, no one of flesh and blood, and I have always dedicated all my faith and trust to the Only One, who would undoubtedly come to my aid. And have I not abandoned this faith now, when I did not turn to Him, but sought salvation from the hands of mortals? Even worse, I used the name of my holy grandfather, the Baal Shem Tov, for this purpose. And so, in the end, he overcame his anguish by presenting his request to G-d in prayer: that his kind fellow citizens would completely forget about him and their promises, and do nothing for him. And imagine, his prayer was answered, and no one remembered a single word of their noble intentions…
This story rather looks like a Jewish Enlightenment joke on the theme of: the miracles of the Hasidic rabbis. But it still carries a message, just as with the biblical Joseph, whom Pharaoh’s cupbearer did not remember and forgot. These are moments that each of us has experienced, even if not in such a heightened form. When we were in a desperate situation and relied on a person who simply did not remember and forgot. Such a situation hurts, one analyzes it from all sides, and it internally weakens a person immensely, like all self-reproach and self-pity.
Reb David Moshe of Chortkov returned to this story of Reb Aharon and added that it helps to understand the meaning of the Midrash, which speaks of Joseph and Pharaoh’s cupbearer in prison. The Midrash adds to Joseph a verse from the Psalms: “Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after false gods!” (Psalm 40:4) [Note: *The Czech text quotes Psalm 40:5 which is slightly different in standard English translations, so I have used the most contextually relevant translation of that verse/passage]. Joseph is a righteous man, a model of virtue, but this connection seems problematic—for in reality, Joseph turned to the cupbearer with a request to intercede for him with Pharaoh. But then we have the verse describing the result of this request, which is written in that strange, doubled form: “Yet the chief cupbearer did not remember Joseph; he forgot him.” And the reason is that Joseph soon after regretted trusting a mortal man and therefore prayed that the cupbearer would forget him. Therefore, Reb David Moshe concluded his reflection, the Midrash can say of Joseph that he trusts G-d.
None of us are some isolated island. We live among people, and we often and happily associate and help each other, and that is only good. In all this, however, we must not forget the One who is always worthy of our trust. Especially in moments when we feel alone or perhaps even betrayed. Joseph did not stop trusting G-d even at the deepest low point of his life. And then incredible things began to happen to him…