Topsy turvy

This week's parashah invites us to ask challenging questions as to why we sometimes appear to be rewarded for our misdeeds or punished for our good ones. Our member Rabbi Steven Ettinger investigates.

Viewed simplistically, our religion is binary: blessings are good, curses are bad. Mitzvot are good, sins are bad. Morality is good and immorality is bad. As Moshe reminds us time and time again throughout Sefer Devarim, we should choose life. The choice is obvious since the path is clear – it’s black and white.

Life however is full of grey tones and the Torah itself, at least as literally written, at times represents a confusing guide. Men who are the foundations of our faith are depicted in dubious or compromising situations. There is, at the very least, ambiguity regarding Reuven’s actions with Bilhah. Shimshon’s behavior put the nation at risk. Eli HaKohen’s sons’ treatment of women was less than exemplary. Both David and Shlomo faced Divine punishment because of their conduct with women.

There is no need to highlight other examples. Suffice it to say, passion and desire are powerful human emotions.  We cannot understand what Hashem expects from us, how to serve him or who we are without understanding these complex drives.

In Parashat Vayeshev we encounter two of the greatest figures in Jewish history facing what most would consider extremely compromising moral choices. For each, the outcome is different. The respective consequences are counterintuitive. Thus, in the micro, it is difficult to understand how to interpret the moral lesson, at least on the surface.

These are familiar narratives. Out of guilt for selling Yosef, Yehudah exiles himself, then marries and has children. As events unfold, his first two sons each marry the same woman, Tamar. They die childless, leaving a third younger son.  Yehudah sends her away to delay yibum. Years go by, she sees that she has been abandoned, so she decides to dress as a harlot to seduce Yehudah. She succeeds and gets pregnant.

Drama unfolds as she is accused of infidelity by Yehudah, who actually demands she be executed), but she is saved when he admits his culpability after she produces, among other things, the items he left with her as security for payment. In the end she gives birth to twins, one of which is the ancestor of the Davidic line (and hence the Mashiach). Bottom line, he knowingly interacts with a harlot and the result seems to be the greatest of rewards!

Simultaneously, Yosef begins servitude in Egypt. After a period of years facing harsh conditions, he rises to a position of responsibility in the home of an Egyptian nobleman. Unfortunately for him, the nobleman’s wife becomes interested in him. She repeatly attempts to seduce him numerous times, culminating in an incident where she manipulates events to make a very aggressive effort to entice him.  As he refuses and runs out, she grabs his garment and uses it as evidence of her claim that he attempted to sexually assault her. He is imprisoned for several years before he is released to interpret Pharoh’s dreams and as a result promoted to viceroy.

Yehudah succumbs to his baser nature and is enticed by a harlot. The consequence he faces is… a set of newborn twins, one of which is the progenitor of a royal dynasty and the ultimate redeemer.

Yosef is a Tzadik.  He endures suffering because time after time he resists temptation, ultimately at great peril—yet he pays a significant price. While, perhaps, there was a short-term benefit (he becomes viceroy of Egypt), effectively this benefited his father and brothers almost as much as it did him. Moreover, he certainly does not have the same historical importance (yes, there will be a Mashiach ben Yosef, but his role seems limited in function and is rather ambiguous).

Yehudah, the one who made the immoral choice (actually two, if you include the sale of Yosef) comes out the big winner. Where is the fairness?  What does this teach about morality? Topsy, turvy. V’nehafoch hu!

Perhaps the key to the answer is a word or concept that characterizes Yehudah more than any other. A quick word association with him would likely yield terms like: leader, majesty, spokesman, warrior, or (as his mother proclaimed) praise to Hashem. However, perhaps the most accurate word is “arev” or “eravon” – a guarantor or security. When someon

e defaults on a loan he received or on a loan he agreed to guarantee, when there is a default, then the borrower can collect from the security (eravon) given by the borrower or from the guarantor (arev).

When Yehudah negotiated with Tamar but did not have the fee (two goats) she asked for an “eravon” – and he inquired: “what is the ‘eravon’ I should give you?” (Gen 35:17-18). It was that very security that saved her when Yehudah was willing to admit that he acted immorally and accepted responsibility for his poor moral choice in engaging with her. Likewise, when confronting Yosef to plead for the release of Binyamin, his main argument—and the one that succeeded—was that he committed to Yaakov that he would be the arev for him (Gen. 44:32). Effectively, Yehudah was again accepting responsibility for his earlier immoral choice (in this instance, selling Yosef).

Yosef was good. Black and white. If he saw an iniquity, if he thought his brothers sinned, he would report it – even if they would hate him. Likewise, when faced with a seduction, he would not succumb, regardless of the consequence. This is certainly meritorious. But this is how he was hard-wired. He is a Tzadik.

However, life is grey.  For the rest of us (at least most of us) it is complex and confusing, Like Yehudah we fall, sometimes in extreme and calamitous ways. Knowing this, Yehudah is the paradigm for finding our way back to the path of morality and service of Hashem after we fail.  We are security for something precious. That might be for our family values (Yaakov for Yehudah), to our underlying sense of honor and responsibility (Yehudah’s need to fulfill his commitment – even in the face of shame), most certainly to the teachings of the Torah, to our neshamot and to the version of ourselves we strive to be.

Another word related to the root of Yehudah is to be modeh, to admit or acknowledge.  Yehudah was able to look inward and acknowledge his actions and to take responsibility.  He could then take the appropriate corrective action. We are not perfect. We are not expected to be tzadikim. We simply must be able to acknowledge who we are and what we do so we can turn things around.