Legends of the Jews, Volume 2 — Chap. 1-01 – Joseph

I JOSEPH

THE FAVORITE SON

Jacob was not exempt from the lot that falls to the share of all the pious.

Whenever they expect to enjoy life in tranquillity, Satan hinders them.

He appears before God, and says: "Is it not enough that the future world is set apart for the pious?

What right have they to enjoy this world, besides?"

After the many hardships and conflicts that had beset the path of Jacob, he thought he would be at rest at last, and then came the loss of Joseph and inflicted the keenest suffering.

Verily, few and evil had been the days of the years of Jacob's pilgrimage, for the time spent outside of the Holy Land had seemed joyless to him.

Only the portion of his life passed in the land of his fathers, during which he was occupied with making proselytes, in accordance with the example set him by Abraham and Isaac, did he consider worth while having lived,[1] and this happy time was of short duration.

When Joseph was snatched away, but eight years had elapsed since his return to his father's house.

[2] And yet it was only for the sake of Joseph that Jacob had been willing to undergo all the troubles and the adversity connected with his sojourn in the house of Laban.

Indeed, Jacob's blessing in having his quiver full of children was due to the merits of Joseph, and likewise the dividing of the Red Sea and of the Jordan for the Israelites was the reward for his son's piety.

For among the sons of Jacob Joseph was the one that resembled his father most closely in appearance, and, also, he was the one to whom Jacob transmitted the instruction and knowledge he had received from his teachers Shem and Eber.

[3] The whole course of the son's life is but a repetition of the father's. As the mother of Jacob remained childless for a long time after her marriage, so also the mother of Joseph.

As Rebekah had undergone severe suffering in giving birth to Jacob, so Rachel in giving birth to Joseph.

As Jacob's mother bore two sons, so also Joseph's mother.

Like Jacob, Joseph was born circumcised.

As the father was a shepherd, so the son.

As the father served for the sake of a woman, so the son served under a woman.

Like the father, the son appropriated his older brother's birthright.

The father was hated by his brother, and the son was hated by his brethren.

The father was the favorite son as compared with his brother, so was the son as compared with his brethren.

Both the father and the son lived in the land of the stranger.

The father became a servant to a master, also the son.

The master whom the father served was blessed by God, so was the master whom the son served.

The father and the son were both accompanied by angels, and both married their wives outside of the Holy Land.

The father and the son were both blessed with wealth.

Great things were announced to the father in a dream, so also to the son.

As the father went to Egypt and put an end to famine, so the son.

As the father exacted the promise from his sons to bury him in the Holy Land, so also the son.

The father died in Egypt, there died also the son.

The body of the father was embalmed, also the body of the son.

As the father's remains were carried to the Holy Land for interment, so also the remains of the son.

Jacob the father provided for the sustenance of his son Joseph during a period of seventeen years, so Joseph the son provided for his father Jacob during a period of seventeen years.

[4] Until he was seventeen years old, Joseph frequented the Bet ha-Midrash,[5] and he became so learned that he could impart to his brethren the Halakot he had heard from his father, and in this way he may be regarded as their teacher.

[6] He did not stop at formal instruction, he also tried to give them good counsel, and he became the favorite of the sons of the handmaids, who would kiss and embrace him.

[7] In spite of his scholarship there was something boyish about Joseph.

He painted his eyes, dressed his hair carefully, and walked with a mincing step.

These foibles of youth were not so deplorable as his habit of bringing evil reports of his brethren to his father.

He accused them of treating the beasts under their care with cruelty—he said that they ate flesh torn from a living animal—and he charged them with casting their eyes upon the daughters of the Canaanites, and giving contemptuous treatment to the sons of the handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah, whom they called slaves.

For these groundless accusations Joseph had to pay dearly.

He was himself sold as a slave, because he had charged his brethren with having called the sons of the handmaids slaves, and Potiphar's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph, because he threw the suspicion upon his brethren that they had cast their eyes upon the Canaanitish women.

And how little it was true that they were guilty of cruelty to animals, appears from the fact that at the very time when they were contemplating their crime against Joseph, they yet observed all the rules and prescriptions of the ritual in slaughtering the kid of the goats with the blood of which they besmeared his coat of many colors.

[8] JOSEPH HATED BY HIS BRETHREN

Joseph's talebearing against his brethren made them hate him.

Among all of them Gad was particularly wrathful, and for good reason.

Gad was a very brave man, and when a beast of prey attacked the herd, over which he kept guard at night, he would seize it by one of its legs, and whirl it around until it was stunned, and then he would fling it away to a distance of two stadia, and kill it thus.

Once Jacob sent Joseph to tend the flock, but he remained away only thirty days, for he was a delicate lad and fell sick with the heat, and he hastened back to his father.

On his return he told Jacob that the sons of the handmaids were in the habit of slaughtering the choice cattle of the herd and eating it, without obtaining permission from Judah and Reuben.

But his report was not accurate.

What he had seen was Gad slaughtering one lamb, which he had snatched from the very jaws of a bear, and he killed it because it could not be kept alive after its fright.

Joseph's account sounded as though the sons of the handmaids were habitually inconsiderate and careless in wasting their father's substance.

[9] To the resentment of the brethren was added their envy of Joseph, because their father loved him more than all of them.

Joseph's beauty of person was equal to that of his mother Rachel, and Jacob had but to look at him to be consoled for the death of his beloved wife.

Reason enough for distinguishing him among his children.

[10] As a token of his great love for him, Jacob gave Joseph a coat of many colors, so light and delicate that it could be crushed and concealed in the closed palm of one hand.

The Hebrew name of the garment, Passim, conveys the story of the sale of Joseph.

The first letter, Pe, stands for Potiphar, his Egyptian master; Samek stands for Soharim, the merchantmen that bought Joseph from the company of Ishmaelites to whom his brethren had sold him; Yod stands for these same Ishmaelites; and Mem, for the Midianites that obtained him from the merchantmen, and then disposed of him to Potiphar.

But Passim.

has yet another meaning, "clefts."

His brethren knew that the Red Sea would be cleft in twain in days to come for Joseph's sake, and they were jealous of the glory to be conferred upon him.

Although they were filled with hatred of him, it must be said in their favor that they were not of a sullen, spiteful nature.

They did not hide their feelings, they proclaimed their enmity openly.

Once Joseph dreamed a dream, and he could not refrain from telling it to his brethren.

He spoke, and said: "Hear, I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed.

Behold, you gathered fruit, and so did I. Your fruit rotted, but mine remained sound.

Your seed will set up dumb images of idols, but they will vanish at the appearance of my descendant, the Messiah of Joseph.

You will keep the truth as to my fate from the knowledge of my father, but I will stand fast as a reward for the self-denial of my mother, and you will prostrate yourselves five times before me."

[11] The brethren refused at first to listen to the dream, but when Joseph urged them again and again, they gave heed to him, and they said, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us?

or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us?"

[12] God put an interpretation into their mouths that was to be verified in the posterity of Joseph.

Jeroboam and Jehu, two kings, and Joshua and Gideon, two judges, have been among his descendants, corresponding to the double and emphatic expressions used by his brethren in interpreting the dream.

[13] Then Joseph dreamed another dream, how the sun, the moon, and eleven stars bowed down before him, and Jacob, to whom he told it first, was rejoiced over it, for he understood its meaning properly.

[14] He knew that he himself was designated by the sun, the name by which God had called him when he lodged overnight on the holy site of the Temple.

He had heard God say to the angels at that time, "The sun has come."

[15] The moon stood for Joseph's mother, and the stars for his brethren, for the righteous are as the stars.

[16] Jacob was so convinced of the truth of the dream that he was encouraged to believe that he would live to see the resurrection of the dead, for Rachel was dead, and her return to earth was clearly indicated by the dream.

He went astray there, for not Joseph's own mother was referred to, but his foster-mother Bilhah, who had raised him.

Jacob wrote the dream in a book, recording all the circumstances, the day, the hour, and the place, for the holy spirit cautioned him, "Take heed, these things will surely come to pass."

[17] But when Joseph repeated his dream to his brethren, in the presence of his father, Jacob rebuked him, saying, "I and thy brethren, that has some sense, but I and thy mother, that is inconceivable, for thy mother is dead."

[18] These words of Jacob called forth a reproof from God.

He said, "Thus thy descendants will in time to come seek to hinder Jeremiah in delivering his prophecies."

[19] Jacob may be excused, he had spoken in this way only in order to avert the envy and hate of his brethren from Joseph, but they envied and hated him because they knew that the interpretation put upon the dream by Jacob would be realized.

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