Joseph's intense family dynamics took over last week's column; I couldn't wait to continue my quest into Vayigash (Genesis 44:18-47:27) even while the Torah scroll was still open at Miketz (41-44:17). I dreamt last week (I'm being serious)...there's a lot on my plate...but that's not what I thought Netivoteha Shalom was for; and sure enough, this week we're back to a wider, inter-ethnic perspective, and with a vengeance (unfortunately, quite literally).
It seems that Joseph's prediction of a seven year famine was a well-kept secret known only to Jacob's family and Pharaoh's court, and that while Pharaoh prepared for it by stockpiling food during the seven years of plenty, the Egyptian people did not budget for it; thus we learn (Gen. 47:14) that they are starving but have no more money to purchase the food Joseph has stored. When they come pleading to him, he tells them he'll feed them in exchange for their livestock. After they have expended this resource, they return to Joseph saying, “We have nothing left but our carcasses and our land; why should we die , we and our land? Buy us and our land for food, we and our land will be enslaved to Pharaoh; give us seed, so that we live and not die, and the land won't be desolate (47:18-19).” Joseph accepts this offer and implements the arrangement.
Now all this is told within an envelope of preceding and following verses (47:11-13 and 47:27) that tell us that Joseph is looking after his family, settling them in Goshen and feeding them, and it ends with the formula ויפרו וירבו מאוד they were fruitful and multiplied greatly – reminding us of the idyllic blessing of Genesis 1, but more importantly, recalling the language of Exodus 1, which introduces the enslavement of Joseph's descendents. I began to wonder whether the connection between these two enslavements goes beyond the shared phraseology. Would it not add an unstated motive of revenge to the paranoia that is brought in Ex. 1:9-10?
An online search of traditional commentaries I use, and recommend, the Feinburg E-collection at www.Spertus.edu, pulled up the following comment by Siftey Cohen:
הוגד לי בחלום, שתם הכסף מארץ מצרים כדי שלא יהיה להם כסף, כדי שלא יקנו בני ישראל וישאו ויתנו בהם ויעשו סחורתם ויקשה עליהם יציאתם מאחר שלקחום בדמים, אם כשהיו בחנם רדפו אחריהם כל שכן כשהיו קנוים בדמים-- I learned in a dream (!) that "there was no money left in Egypt" (verse 15) kept them from purchasing the Israelites and trading in them, which would have made the Exodus more difficult; as it was, they pursued them, but had they paid for them, all the more so. I found this comment striking in its perception of Israelite vulnerability in a passage where Joseph's family is living in the lap of privilege; evidently, the memory of our enslavement in Egypt was so strong that it obscured the plain message of the text. But if this statement required some indulgence, what I found in the khumashim (Torah texts) that we put in our congregants hands really threw me for a loop.
Plaut (The Torah, A Modern Commentary, UAHC, 1981) provides the following introduction to this section (p. 293):
"We learn about the effects of the famine and, so it seems to many, the morally puzzling aspects of Joseph's economic and political management. Israel now dwells in Goshen, and a new chapter in his people's history is about to begin."
He is somewhat more explicit in his expansive afterword (page 298): "Because of the careful and unemotional accounting of the disenfranchisement of the Egyptian people and the apparent approval of Joseph's role in it, this section has been made "a show piece of anti-Semitic polemic" [von Rad]. Here is the Bible, it has been said, Jewry's sacred book, and look at the morality that, by its exaltation of Joseph, it obviously endorses [e.g., Gunkel]."
Plaut then proceeds to put Joseph's behavior in the context of the proper functioning of a civil servant in ancient Egypt, which brings him to conclude (p. 299): "To superimpose 20th century ideas of social and political morality on this story is, therefore, not helpful. Joseph served Pharaoh in his struggle with the Egyptian hierarchy. In so doing he saved the multitudes from starvation, and, apparently this was worth any price to them -- including a mortgage on their freedom. And it is altogether possible that they thought little of their freedom anyway. Jewish tradition sensed, long ago, that Joseph's actions might not have met with the same success had the Egyptians valued their freedom more highly. The Bible calls Egypt the "house of bondage" not only because Israel was enslaved there but also because its people accepted their own bondage as a normal condition of life." [In a footnote, Plaut gives a little in the other direction, stating, "Joseph's participation in bringing about this condition left later generations with a sense of uneasiness" and cites examples of positive attitudes to Egyptians elsewhere in the Bible.]
I am indebted to Plaut for sending me to von Rad, who opened my eyes to a hint of irony in the Egyptians' proclamation in verse 25: “You have kept us alive! we are grateful to my lord for making us slaves to Pharaoh." But aside from that, I'm left bewildered: I'm very sorry that anti-Semites go to town on this text, but this defence of the text and Judaism reeks of racism and blame-the-victim; and I can't find sources that corroborate his defamation of the Egyptians.
Sarna (The JPS Torah Commentary, 1989), too, seems ambivalent. On the one hand, ”Joseph's actions cannot be measured by the moral standards that the Hebrew Bible, especially the prophetic tradition, has inculcated in Western civilization. (p.322).” But then he goes on to suggest that the author of this story comes from another literary tradition/value system: “Rather, they must be judged in the context of the ancient Near Eastern world by whose norms Joseph emerges here as a highly admirable model of a shrewd and successful administrator (Sarna, JPS, pp. 322-323).”
I don't doubt that the Joseph story originates in wisdom literature, but looking at the broader context, not only the prophetic tradition but also the narrator here is indeed critical of Joseph, who saves one generation but enslaves many more; serving Pharaoh is not the same as serving God, or, in business terms, ethical behavior is ultimately profitable. When the Egyptians plead for their lives, למה נמות נגדך/לעיניך (“Why should we die in your presence/before your eyes”-- Gen. 47:15,19) we hear the echo of Esau's desperate הנה אנכי הולך למות, ולמה זה לי בכורה (“I'm about to die, what good will the birthright do me?”-- Gen. 25:32 ) made in trading his birthright for a stew. Yet, that transaction had limited validity, because otherwise, Jacob would not have had to deceive his father to receive Esau's blessing. It's shocking for Joseph to be denying the lesson his brothers learned when they realized their heartlessness which led to his sale: אשר ראינו צרת נפשו בהתחננו אלינו ולא שמענו (“We saw his desperation when he pleaded before us, but we didn't listen” – Gen. 42:21).
What it all boils down to is that we all find the Joseph we need: if we're looking for a devoted son and brother, we'll find it in the text (and even more easily in the Midrash), but it will also offer us someone struggling to find his place as a family member, and who is still locked in destructive patterns of selfish behavior; if it's a national savior, we'll find that, too, but if we're wary of being too close to Pharaoh (in his many manifestations) we'll also be able to see the long-term effects of selfishness on a national level, and the xenophobia that keeps us from commiserating and co-existing with the Other. The text is a magical mirror, to be handled with great care.
posted for Rabbi Jeremy Milgrom
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