Parashat Vayeshev brings readers together with two stories about women - Tamar, Yehuda's bride, and Potiphar's wife. Women, whose decisions and actions create reality and change world orders. The stories, which differ in nature and essence, appear in successive chapters (Chapters Moist and Let respectively), even though chronologically, Tamar's story took place before the story of the sale of Joseph that appears in chapter seven. The deliberate closeness between the stories leads to an inevitable comparison between the motives and actions of the two female characters.
Tamar's story is a story of a widowed bride, waiting in vain to be betrothed to Judah's little son. As someone who is legally forbidden to marry, she finds herself imprisoned in the clothes of her widow at her father's house, with no future for starting a family and having children of her own. To change her fate, Tamar takes a bold step and disguises herself as a prostitute in order to meet Judah, entice him to sleep with her and conceive him.
The story of Pharaoh's wife Potiphar's wife, which takes place in Egypt, is a story of abuse of power, use of force and sexual harassment. Potiphar's wife lusts after Joseph, her maid, and persuades him to have sex with her. Joseph, who is tempted, refuses her demands and is therefore accused by her of "sexual harassment" and sent by Potiphar to prison.
Allegedly, both Tamar and Potiphar's wife serve as a problematic female model. Their story is about women who use their sexuality to get what they want. But while Tamar acts out of the need to get out of the "prison" imposed on her, to worry about the future of her family (without forcing herself on Judah), Potiphar's wife acts out of a desire to satisfy her desires and passions, ignoring Yosef's repeated rejections, and using her power Control his fate.
Tamar is a figure worthy of praise and appreciation.
Her actions testify to courage, readiness for self-sacrifice and a high ability to understand, act and influence from existing laws.
At no point does Tamar forcibly take what is not hers, and in her wise way manages to achieve what she wants.
In contrast, the behavior of Potiphar's wife is reprehensible and should better serve as a warning sign for anyone acting out of a position of power, and raping the will of his subordinates to satisfy his needs.
Vocabulary
Birthday
"And it came to pass on the third day of Pharaoh's day of birth, that he made a feast unto all his servants" (Genesis 20:20).
On his birthday, the Minister of Economy was pardoned, and the Minister of Bakers, alas, was hanged.
The kings of the ancient world used to celebrate their birthdays in great amazement, so did Pharaoh king of Egypt.
From Pharaoh's birthday we have the special linguistic combination "birthday", a form that is based on the verb hold, and we also have the celebration that accompanies the event.
Besides that we also have a nice rhyme - "Nice birthday celebration".
Congratulations!
Writing: Daniel Shereshevsky
In collaboration with 929 - an Israeli cultural project led by Rabbi Bnei Lau, which makes the Bible accessible in open discourse www.929.org.il
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