Parashah
Vayeshev
“He
continued living”
B’resheit /
Genesis 37:1 – 40:23
The first of this week’s seven parashot commences
with Ya’akov continuing to live in the land where his father had lived as a
foreigner, the land of Kena’an. The
thought of living in the land as a foreigner has a certain ring to it, as if we
have heard of this before, and we have.
Back in the 15th chapter,
verse 13 it is recorded as follows:
“Adonai said to Avram,
‘Know this for certain: your
descendants will be
foreigners in a land that is not
theirs. They will be slaves and held in oppression
there for four hundred
years.’”
Furthermore, Sha’ul, an emissary
from the Father wrote the following in Galatians 3:16a - 17:
“Now the promises were
made to Avraham and to
his seed…Here is what I
am saying: the legal part
of the Torah, which came
into being 430 years later
does not nullify an oath
sworn by God, so as to
abolish the promise.”
Though the first verse of this
week’s reading is in the past tense, and though Isaac’s death was recorded in
last week’s sixth parashah (35:28), our reading this week is actually a
flashback in time, but instead of Isaac being the patriarch, Ya’akov is
presented in that role.
Bear with me as I review the
genealogy from Isaac through our present reading in which we find Yosef to be
seventeen years of age. Yiitz’chak was
born twenty-five years after the announcement of the promise, so the four
hundred year time clock began when he was five years of age. Fifty-five years later, at the age of sixty,
Esau and Ya’akov were born. Yosef was
born when Ya’akov was ninety-one years old, and Yosef has now been around for
seventeen years. By adding 55, 91, and
17 we discover that the Hebrews are 163 years into the oppression, which means
that Yitz’chak is 168 years old; he has 12 more years to live. Being that we know the rest of the story,
Yitz’chak, who is 151 years older than his eleventh grandson, dies no more than
a year before Yosef’s ascent to #2 ruler in Egypt.
However, let’s get back to the
events at hand. At the age of seventeen
Yosef is a shepherd, and he has pastured the flocks with his brothers. A tattletale, so to speak, he is also the
most-favored child of his father. For
these two reasons, he was, shall we say, less than beloved by his older
brothers.
It seems as if Yosef had some
learning to do regarding discernment, because it seems he was not shy in
sharing with his family dreams which he had had. The meaning of the dreams was obvious to him,
his brothers, and his parents, yet Yosef was less than tactful in sharing the
dreams with his family. It seems as if
he was unaware of the animosity held by his brothers against him. How could he miss that they hated him so much
that “they couldn’t even talk with him in a civil manner.” (Gen. 37:4b CJB)
The two dreams that Yosef had are
likely very familiar to us. Sheaves of
wheat, eleven of them were being bound by the brothers when the sheaves seemed
to take on human-like characteristics.
In a sudden fashion Yosef’s sheaf rose up by itself into an upright
position. Does this not remind you, the
reader, of the rapidity of Yosef’s ascent into Egyptian leadership? One moment he is in prison, and the next
thing he knows all of Egypt is beholding to him. Eight years later we will discover that his
brothers have come down to Egypt in need of food. Having done due obeisance, bowing to Egypt’s
number 2 in command, ten of the nine brothers return to their father. What kind of food would they take back with
them, the fruit of the stalks of which the sheaves were made – grain. Having been told the dream so many years
earlier, however, the brothers were less than thrilled with the explanation.
Our parashah concludes with Yosef’s
second dream. The sun, moon, and stars
prostrated themselves before Yosef, and like the first dream, not
interpretation was really necessary as the meaning was quite obvious to his
family. Ya’akov (the sun), Leah or
Bilhah (the moon), and eleven stars (all of his brothers, including Benjamin)
bowed down to him. (I notice that Yosef
did not describe whatever it was that represented him.) Of course this came to pass when Ya’akov and
the whole family had completed their trek to Egypt.
What I also find interesting though,
is that the Egyptians worshipped the sun (Horus), moon (Thoth), and stars as
part of their pantheon of gods. All of
Egypt was subservient to our hero, even Pharaoh in some respects, for he left
all the preparations and handling of the years of plenty and famine in the
hands of his most trusted aide, Yosef.
That completes my lesson on the
first parashah of this week. If you
think that I’m going to write about the next portion also, well, you’re just
dreaming.
Shalom
to all who read this.
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