His Father’s Face

 

In this week’s reading, it is said that Jacob “loved Joseph more than all his other sons, because he was the son of his old age” (Gen 37:3). This sounds like a mistake: if the phrase “son of his old age” should refer to Jacob’s youngest son, that particular title ought rightly to belong not to Joseph but to his younger brother, Benjamin. (It’s also not a particularly good practice for a parent to favor one child over another; doing so only leads to trouble, as this week’s reading goes on to demonstrate).

 

But ancient interpreters suggested that we understand this verse in another way. By a popular notion, the word zaken, “old man,” was sometimes read as a shorthand for zeh kanah hokhmah,  “this person has acquired wisdom,” since everyone knew that true wisdom usually comes with old age. If so, then the text could be saying that Jacob preferred Joseph because he was the wisest of his sons—and this is indeed how the verse is translated in the Aramaic targum of Onkelos.

 

So far, Jacob doesn’t sound like a particularly good father, nor Joseph a particularly wise son. And in fact Joseph did not go down in Jewish tradition as “Joseph the wise,” but rather, “Joseph the righteous” Yosef ha-tzaddik. This title reflects his pious conduct (as reported later in this week’s reading) with his master Potiphar’s wife. Joseph was a handsome young man purchased by Potiphar to be his slave, and after a time, Potiphar’s wife (name otherwise withheld) propositioned him in the crudest way: “Lie with me,” she said. Joseph refused this proposal time and time again. But one day, she saw a special opportunity to advance her case.

 

According to ancient interpreters, that particular day was the Nile Festival, and all the inhabitants of Potiphar’s house had gone down to the Nile to celebrate—except for Potiphar’s wife. She pretended to be ill, knowing that Joseph, as a faithful Hebrew, would not be indulging in the pagan worship at the  Nile. He would enter the house to do his work as usual. This was her chance.

 

It is noteworthy that the Torah is quite emphatic in saying that at no point did Joseph ever consider giving in to her demands. The Talmud, however, suggests otherwise: If Joseph went to Potiphar’s house knowing that everyone would be down at the Nile, surely it was because he and Potiphar’s wife had conspired to meet that day: “The two of them planned to sin together” (Sotah 36b). It was only at the last moment that Joseph had a change of heart: suddenly, he had a fleeting vision of his father’s face, and this convinced him to run outside, leaving his clothes behind.

 

But this vision is nowhere mentioned in the biblical account. In fact, when the Talmud and midrash mentioned a particular source to explain Joseph’s sudden change of heart, it’s always in connection with a particular verse in the Torah, Gen 49:24—a verse that comes much later in Joseph’s life, when Jacob, now on his deathbed, seeks to give Joseph his paternal blessing. Referring to the incident with Potiphar’s wife, Jacob says that Joseph had escaped her clutches “At the hand of the Mighty One of Jacob, from there the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel.”

 

Even today, scholars have difficulty making sense of these last words, but the phrase “the Shepherd, the Stone of Israel” at first looks like a poetic reference to the Holy One. To ancient interpreters, however, it seemed possible to read this phrase in another way. The word for shepherd, ro‘eh (written with the letter ayin in its middle), could easily be confused with ro’eh, written with the letter aleph, which would then mean “sees” or even “he saw.” If so, then instead of “from there the Shepherd,” this verse could be saying “from there he saw,” that is, Joseph saw something, perhaps indeed in a vision. But a vision of what?

 

The text says that he saw “the Stone of Israel,” and it is true that God is often referred to as Israel’s “Rock.” But this too could be read differently. The word for “face” used by the Rabbis in recounting this vision is ikonin. This is actually a Greek loan-word into Hebrew; it comes from the same Greek word as our word “icon” in English, and both originally designated a stone bust or statue. If so, one could understand the Torah to be saying that Joseph escaped Potiphar’s wife because “from there,” that is, at that point in the story, “he (Jacob) saw the stone (bust) of Israel (remembering here that “Israel” was Jacob’s other name) and ran outside.

 

In short,  Jacob’s reputation was saved thanks to the dexterous work of ancient interpreters!

 

Shabbat shalom!