44 | DECEMBER 14 • 2023
S
omething extraordinary
happens between the
previous parshah and
this one. It is almost as if the
pause of a week between them
were itself part of
the story.
Recall last
week’s parshah
about the child-
hood of Joseph,
focusing not
on what happened
but on who made
it happen. Throughout the entire
rollercoaster ride of Joseph’s early
life, he is described as passive,
not active; the done-to, not the
doer; the object, not the subject,
of verbs.
It was his father who loved
him and gave him the richly
embroidered cloak. It was his
brothers who envied and hated
him. He had dreams, but we do
not dream because we want to
but because, in some mysterious
way still not yet fully understood,
they come unbidden into our
sleeping mind.
His brothers, tending their
flocks far from home, plotted to
kill him. They threw him into
a pit. He was sold as a slave. In
Potiphar’s house he rose to a
position of seniority, but the text
goes out of its way to say that this
was not because of Joseph him-
self, but because of God: “God
was with Joseph, and he became
a successful man. He lived in the
house of his Egyptian master. His
master saw that God was with
him, and that God granted him
success in all that he did.
” Gen.
39:2–3
Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce
him, and failed, but here, too,
Joseph was passive, not active.
He did not seek her, she sought
him. Eventually, “she caught
him by his cloak, saying, ‘Lie
with me!’ But he left his garment
in her hand, and fled and ran
outside” (Gen. 39:12). Using the
garment as evidence, she had
him imprisoned on a totally
false charge. There was nothing
Joseph could do to establish his
innocence.
In prison, again he became
a leader, a manager, but again
the Torah goes out of its way to
attribute this not to Joseph but to
Divine intervention:
“God was with Joseph and
showed him kindness, granting
him favor in the sight of the
prison warden … Whatever was
done there, God was the one
who did it. The prison warden
paid no heed to anything that
was in Joseph’s care, because God
was with him; and whatever he
did, God made it prosper.
” Gen.
39:21–23
Then Joseph met Pharaoh’s
chief butler and baker. They
had dreams, and Joseph inter-
preted them, but insisted
that it is not he but God who
was doing so: “Joseph said to
them, ‘Interpretations belong to
God. Tell me your dreams.
’” Gen.
40:8
There is nothing like this any-
where else in Tanach. Whatever
happened to Joseph was the
result of someone else’s deed:
those of his father, his brothers,
his master’s wife, the prison war-
den or God Himself. Joseph was
the ball thrown by hands other
than his own.
IT TAKES TWO
Then, for essentially the first
time in the whole story, Joseph
decided to take fate into his own
hands. Knowing that the chief
butler was about to be restored
to his position, he asked him to
bring his case to the attention of
Pharaoh: “Remember me when
it is well with you; please do me
the kindness to make mention
of me to Pharaoh, and so get me
out of this place. For indeed I
was stolen out of the land of the
Hebrews; and here also I have
done nothing that they should
have put me into prison.
” Gen.
39:14–15
A double injustice had been
done, and Joseph saw this as
his one chance of regaining his
freedom. But the end of the par-
shah delivers a devastating
blow: “The chief cupbearer did
not remember Joseph and for-
got him.
” Gen. 39:23
The anticlimax is intense,
emphasized by the double verb,
“did not remember” and “forgot.
”
We sense Joseph waiting day
after day for news. None comes.
His last, best hope has gone. He
will never go free. Or so it seems.
To understand the power of
this anticlimax, we must remem-
ber that only since the invention
of printing and the availability
of books have we been able to
tell what happens next merely
by turning a page. For many
centuries, there were no printed
books. People knew the biblical
story primarily by listening to
it week by week. Those who
were hearing the story for the
first time had to wait a week
to discover what Joseph’s fate
would be.
The parshah break is thus a
kind of real-life equivalent to
the delay Joseph experienced in
prison, which, as this parshah
begins by telling us, took “two
whole years.
” It was then that
Pharaoh had two dreams that no
one in the court could interpret,
prompting the chief butler to
remember the man he had met
in prison. Joseph was brought to
Pharaoh, and within hours was
transformed from zero to hero:
Rabbi Lord
Jonathan
Sacks
To Wait
Without
Despair
SPIRIT
A WORD OF TORAH