Rashi

  Rather than kill him, on Judah’s advice, the brothers decide to sell Joseph into slavery.

  (Rashi: Joseph will be sold several times: first to the Ishmaelites, who sold him to the Midianites, who in turn sold him to the Egyptians.)

  The brothers kill a goat and dip Joseph’s beautiful coat in its blood. Seeing it, Jacob cries out: “It is my son’s coat; an evil beast hath devoured him.”

  Rashi is surprised: why didn’t the Holy Spirit—on whom Jacob usually depended until then—reveal the truth to him? Because the brothers put a ban on anyone who would. Question: Isaac was still alive and he knew; why didn’t he put his son’s mind at rest? Because he said to himself: if God doesn’t reveal the truth to him, by what right can I? Consequence: they each certainly had their reasons, but the unfortunate Jacob mourned for twenty-two long years.

  “And all his sons and all his daughters (in the plural) rose up to comfort him.”

  Rashi wonders: where do these daughters come from? (Jacob has only one, Dina!) He quotes Rabbi Yehuda: the founding father of each tribe had a twin sister. Rabbi Yehuda says: these daughters were the Canaanite women whom the sons had married—daughters that were really daughters-in-law.

  “And it came to pass at that time, that Judah went down from his brethren.”

  Rashi is surprised: why is the story of the selling of Joseph interrupted to tell a story that is unrelated to it: the affair of Judah and Tamar? The answer: the text teaches us that the brothers resented Judah for the advice he had given them; he really should just have told them to bring their brother back home.

  Indeed, the Talmud also has a low opinion of Judah: depriving a man of his freedom is a serious transgression.

  • • •

  The story of the widow Tamar, Judah’s daughter-in-law, is remarkable. As she sits by the wayside and her face is veiled, Judah mistakes her for a whore. He has no money on him, so he gives her his signet and bracelets as a pledge. Then she discovers she is pregnant. A public scandal: Judah’s daughter-in-law is guilty of adultery! She is sentenced to be burned. So she sends the signet and bracelets to her father-in-law and says: I am pregnant by their owner.

  Rashi’s commentary: why didn’t she name him? To avoid humiliating him. Indeed, she was prepared to die in the flames rather than humiliate him. Hence the saying of our Sages: it is better to throw oneself into a furnace than shame someone in public.

  And because Tamar behaved with so much dignity and modesty, some of her descendants will be kings of Israel.

  “And Joseph was well favored …” in the home of Potiphar, the chief steward of Pharaoh, in which he was a slave.

  Rashi: as he thought of himself as important and in power, he began to indulge in food and drink, and fixed his hair with care. So the Holy One, Blessed be He, said: your father is mourning and you strut about…. Fine, I’ll send a bear upon you.

  The bear of desire, of instinct … Potiphar’s wife falls in love with him. The opportunity arises on the day when everyone is at the fair except Potiphar’s wife and Joseph: she pretends to be unwell. And Joseph has work to do in the house.

  Rashi cites a nice discussion between Rav and Shmuel. One says: he really had work. The other says: of course not, he was going to give in to his lust. He was about to … but suddenly his father’s face appeared before his eyes. This saved him.

  Rejected by Joseph, she complained to her husband and accused the Jewish servant of trying to rape her. And her husband believed her? Yes, says Rashi, she told him about it while they were making love.

  However, Potiphar does not disappear from the scene.

  Several passages later, Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams has taken him from prison to the court of Pharaoh, where he is already enjoying quasi-absolute power when a certain Potipherah, priest of On, gives him his daughter Asenath in marriage. Rashi then identifies Potipherah as Potifar and says: he was given this new name because he became a eunuch for having tried, in turn, to seduce Joseph.

  And what about his brothers in all this? And Jacob?

  They are suffering. All the inhabitants of Canaan are suffering. A dreadful famine is devastating the land. The only place where people have food is in Egypt. Jacob knows what to do. The text says: “Joseph’s ten brethren went to buy corn in Egypt.”

  Rashi’s commentary: why “Joseph’s brethren” and not “Jacob’s sons”? Because they had repented; they regretted having sold him. They are now determined to love him and buy him back for as much money as is asked of them.

  They are arrested and brought before Joseph. He recognizes them, but they don’t recognize him: the last time they saw him he had no beard. Is it to punish them? He doesn’t reveal who he is. He accuses them of being spies. They protest: “we are all one man’s sons; we are true men.”

  Rashi: though the brothers don’t know it, it is the Holy Spirit that is speaking through their lips: indeed, they have the same father.

  They tell him the truth: we are twelve sons, “the youngest is this day with our father, and one is not.”

  Rashi cites a Midrash: “And if you find him and are asked a large sum of money in order to free him, would you pay it? Yes, they said. And if you’re told that he’ll never be returned to you, what would you do? We came to kill or be killed, they said. Ah, didn’t I say so? You came to kill the people of this city, said Joseph. In fact, I have divined by my goblet that two of you destroyed the great city of Shechem.

  He “took from them Simeon, and bound him before their eyes.”

  Rashi: why does the text say in front of his brothers? Because once they left, he was freed and given food and drink.

  Joseph demands that they fetch their youngest brother, Benjamin. Jacob refuses to let him leave. Reuben insists: “Slay my two sons, if I bring him not to thee.”

  Rashi: Jacob says, my eldest son is a fool. He tells me to slay his sons, but aren’t they also mine?

  But the famine is severe, and Judah convinces Jacob to let them return to Egypt for more food. Once there, however, Joseph plays a trick on them and takes from them Benjamin, the other son of Rachel. The brothers beg Joseph to free their younger brother. Joseph finally felt pity for his brother, and he went alone to his chamber and wept.

  Rashi pinpoints the moment of pity: Joseph questions Benjamin: do you have a brother by the same mother? I had one, said Benjamin, but I don’t know where he is. Do you have children? Yes, says Benjamin. I have sons. What are their names? Joseph asks. All their names are related to the name of my absent brother, says Benjamin. This is when Joseph feels tears coming to his eyes.

  It all ends well. A moving reconciliation scene. Joseph sends off his brothers to bring back their father. He warns them: do not quarrel on the road.

  For Rashi, thinking like a rabbi, this injunction not to quarrel means “do not discuss halakhah, Jewish law”—as if to say that to discuss Jewish law is to argue about it. But then he prefers the simpler interpretation; Joseph is afraid that they’ll start blaming one another: it is you who maligned him … it was your idea to sell him … you who incited us to hate him …

  “And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years.”

  Rashi: At the end of his life Jacob wished to reveal to his children the end of exile, of all exile, but he could not.

  “And Israel beheld Joseph’s sons, and said, Who are these?”

  Rashi: he tried to bless them, but the Shekhinah, God’s feminine attribute, left him because Jeroboam and Achav (impious kings) will be born from Ephraim and Jehu and his sons from Menasseh.

  Yet nonetheless he will bless them later: judge Gideon will be born from one and Joshua from the other.

  In his farewell blessings, once again, Jacob tried to reveal to his children the secret of redemption. And once again the Shekhinah departed from him.

  So he spoke of something else.

  After Jacob’s funeral, the brothers say to Joseph: “Thy father did command before he died, saying, So shall ye say unto Joseph, Forgive … the
trespass of thy brethren, and their sin.” But this is not true. Jacob never said any such thing.

  Rashi’s commentary: it was for the sake of peace that they didn’t tell the truth. Since then, the Talmud imposed this rule: one has the right to lie if it is for the sake of peace.

  3

  Israel, the People, and the Land

  Rashi believes, following all the Midrashic literature, that the people of Israel live and act at the center of the history of men and of nations. A feeling of superiority? No, of singularity.

  Why does the city of Hebron hold a special place in the biblical geography? Its name is Kiryat Arba, the city of the four. Four couples have their graves there: Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Leah, in other words the fathers and mothers of humanity.

  God gave the prophets to Israel alone. This was Moses’s wish. He requested it of the Lord. Who granted his wish? Balaam? Balaam, says Rashi, was a visionary, not a prophet. “The Shekhinah depends on the prophets only thanks to Israel.” Why did the angel take a live coal and burn the lips of the great prophet Isaiah? Because he said too many unkind things about his people.

  • • •

  Why the choice of Israel? Is it because of the alliance with Abraham and God’s promise to him, to him and his descendants? Is it because of his faithfulness even during his trials? Is it because of the fact that the Lord offered the Torah to all the nations of the earth (including the children of Ishmael and Esau), but they all turned it down, except Israel? Rashi considers all these possibilities and actually includes them all.

  God loves his people, says Rashi, citing, as always, Talmudic sources. His biblical commentaries, especially the Song of Songs, are bristling with this conviction, as are his commentaries on the Talmud.

  God’s true suffering? It comes from seeing Israel and the Shekhinah in exile, which is the worst of trials. Though suffering is the consequence of sins committed against Him, He loves Israel in spite of everything. The God of Abraham vowed to never abandon his descendants; he vowed never to substitute Israel for another people, for the people of Israel are never entirely guilty even in their worst sins.

  Example:

  During the episode of the Golden Calf, the text says: “He (Aaron) received them (the golden earrings) at their hands, and … made it a molten calf: and they said: These be thy gods, O Israel, which brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” Why “thy gods” and not “our gods”? Rashi quotes the Midrash: we can deduce from this that a mixed multitude had left Egypt and gathered against Aaron. It is these people (and not Israel) who fashioned the golden calf and incited Israel to follow it.

  In general, Rashi did everything he could to defend his people.

  “God comes from the Sinai”: it is like a fiancé who goes to meet his chosen woman.

  Israel is wedded to the Shekhinah. If anyone goes against Israel, it is as if he were going against the Holy One, Blessed be He.

  Grossman stresses this point in his aforementioned book. Contrary to what the first Christians and some of their relatives claimed, the God of Israel did not change people and He never will: the people of Israel remain the true Israel for all time.

  Naturally, Rashi talks a lot about the land of Israel, which has a special place in the eyes of God: the commandments fulfilled there have a greater significance than if they are fulfilled elsewhere. Rashi goes so far as to insinuate that it is a sin for a Jew to live far from Israel. “The land of Israel cannot tolerate the presence of those who violate the Law of the Torah.”

  In the passage cited at the beginning of the Tanach, in which he explains why the Bible begins with the creation of the earth and not with the laws, he proclaims unambiguously the right of the people of Israel to the land of Israel. And he repeats this in other works, in various ways and contexts, as when he writes about the hope of redemption and waiting for the Messiah.

  Peace

  Echoing the Talmud, Rashi, in his commentaries, celebrates the virtues of peace, a Jewish and human ideal that applies to the individual as well as to collective groups, both Jewish and non-Jewish.

  What is peace? It is charity and compassion among men. Rashi says this in a Talmudic commentary.

  The Flood was the result of the quarrels that dominated the generation of that period, says Rashi. And it shows the greatness of peace. Had the people aspired to peace, they would have been saved.

  When the people of Israel are united and in peace, says Rashi, the Name of God is praised on high.

  He goes much further in citing a Talmudic legend: great is the value of peace, for even if the people of Israel worship idols, as long as they maintain peace in their ranks, Satan will refrain from intervening.

  In one responsum, he says:

  Value peace…. Peace will be useful to you in saving you from the one who is persecuting you. Satan will no longer reign over you. Our Sages have already asserted it: great is peace, for it was entrusted to the Righteous and not to the impious. May He whose Name and blessing are Peace, gratify us with peace.

  Study

  In glorifying a thirst for study of the Torah, Rashi comments on the verse “In loving the Lord” as follows: “Don’t say, I’ll study the Law in order to become rich, to be dignified as Teacher, to receive rewards; rather in all your actions, let yourself be guided only by love of the Torah.”

  In interpreting the book of Job, Rashi states, “The Torah is maintained thanks to the efforts expended in learning it.”

  Elsewhere he remarks: “True, it is difficult to abandon the Torah, but it is still better to be attached to it.”

  “And you will teach your children” refers to your pupils. The Teacher must regard them as his own children, just as, for them, he is their father.

  (In the Talmud the law on ransoms is meaningful: if I have the choice of paying a ransom for my father or my teacher, the teacher takes precedence.)

  Also: “It is with high spirits, goodwill, and enthusiasm that we must study the Torah.”

  And this: it is incumbent on a student to respect his Teacher. To avoid embarrassing him, the student should withhold questions that the Teacher might not be able to answer, and then seek a new Teacher.

  Compassion

  When Rashi recalls Moses’s remarkable fate, he often refers to his great compassion for his brothers burdened and op pressed in Egypt.

  “He saw them suffer and wept.” And further on: “And he (Moses) saw them as they suffered,” Rashi adds, “and his heart became heavy.” For Rashi, the grandeur of the Teacher-Prophet lies in this ability to suffer with the victims.

  True, Moses could not endure the sight of his suffering brothers. Because they were Jewish, and hence his brothers? No, because they were suffering.

  The Pharaoh increased pressure on his Jewish slaves: he deprived them of the materials needed to build the pyramids and yet demanded a greater output. “Then the officers of the Children of Israel came and cried unto Pharaoh, saying, Wherefore dealest thou thus with thy servants?”

  Rashi’s surprising commentary: because the officers showed such compassion for their brothers, they were later rewarded by becoming members of the first Sanhedrin and were given some of Moses’s prophetic spirit.

  Here again, it is in Rashi’s assertion of his people’s distinctive characteristics that his universal reach can be found. One should read his Talmudic commentaries on the creation of the first man: why was he alone? As a way of telling us, for all time and for all places, that we have one common grandfather. But Rashi doesn’t mention this. Because the ethical conclusion is obvious? I will follow the example of Rashi, who admits on occasion (nearly a hundred times, in different instances) that he doesn’t know.

  Justice

  The Talmud combines justice and charity. Let us see what Rashi says about it:

  Shimon the Righteous says: the world rests on the three following things: the Torah, service to God, and deeds of loving-kindness.

  Commentary: deeds of loving-kindness can
be extended to the wealthy as well as to the poor, and to the dead as well as to the living; by giving money but also through actions—(but this is not justice), contrary to tzedakah, or almsgiving, which is an act of justice.

  Rabbi Akiba says, “‘And thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself is a great precept of the Torah.” Rashi: this law applies to all men, not just to Jews.

  Leadership

  Toward the end of his life Moses addresses the people and sums up their common experiences: exciting moments and other less inspired ones. He also speaks of himself: “How can I myself alone bear your load, and your burden and your strife?”

  Rashi: “This tells us that there were nonbelievers. When Moses went out early, they said: why is Amram’s son going out so early? Perhaps he isn’t happy at home? When he went out late, they said: why is Amram’s son late? It may be that he is spending time devising bad advice for us and nursing bad thoughts about us.”

  (Elsewhere the Midrash tells us that Moses’s situation in the camp was so unhealthy that husbands suspected him of having illicit relations with their wives.)

  The eternal problem of leaders: even the peerless Moses is not above suspicion.

  The Torah says: “Do not learn the abominations of the other nations.”

  Rashi: but understand these practices and guard against them.

  After the dark episode of the Golden Calf, God says to Moses: “Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.”

  Rashi, to protect the people, puts the blame on the erev rav, the others, who joined Moses in order to leave the land of slavery. “Thy people have corrupted themselves” means: God is not speaking of the people but of a people: the others whom you converted on your own without consulting me, saying to yourself, it’s good that they’re in the Shekhinah, and now they have corrupted themselves and corrupted others.