Shabbat Table Topics – Parashat Vayeshev/0/en
Shabbat Table Topics – Parashat Vayeshev
Did the Brothers Really Sell Yosef?
Debate the approaches of Rashi and Rashbam regarding the culpability of the brothers in the sale of Yosef (see Who Sold Yosef?).1 While Rashi claims that all of the siblings (excepting Reuven and Binyamin) participated in the sale, Rashbam maintains that though the brothers planned to do so, the Midianites beat them to it.
- Do you think that Rashbam is motivated to read the story as he does due to textual reasons or from a desire to exonerate the brothers?
- Is someone who plans on committing a crime, and is only prevented from doing do due to technicalities, any better than a person who was able to carry out their initial intentions?
- What difficulties in the text does Rashbam solve through his reading of the story?
Marrying Canaanites
According to the simple reading of the verses,2 both Yehuda and Shimon married Canaanite women. See Did Yaakov's Sons Marry Canaanites?
- Considering that Avraham had gone to great lengths to ensure that Yitzchak did not marry a Canaanite,3 how do you understand why Yaakov does not seem to share similar concerns when his children reach marriageable age? Is there a difference between the generation of Yaakov's sons and earlier ones, that now made the prospect of marrying a Canaanite less problematic?
- The text never explicitly condemns the brothers for their action. Can that be taken as evidence that they must have done no wrong? If so, are we to conclude that Hashem did not find their Canaanite marriages problematic, or that despite the simple reading of the verses, no such marriage actually took place?
- What might the different possibilities suggest as far as the question of whether the forefathers observed future commandments before they were given at Sinai? See Avot and Mitzvot.
Yosef in Torah and Music
Looking at later reworkings of the Biblical story, whether in art, theater, or literature, is often a great way to highlight questions and contrast variant interpretations of the original text. Compare how Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber depict the relationship between Yosef and his family in their musical, "Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat" with what emerges from the Biblical text. See Joseph in Music for many examples:
- Did Yaakov love Yosef because ""Rachel was his favorite wife" as stated in the musical, or because "בֶן זְקֻנִים הוּא לו", as Bereshit 37 suggests? Was Yosef really a son of Yaakov's old age? How much younger than his siblings was he? See The Relative Ages of Yaakov's Children.
- The musical asserts Yaakov gave Yosef the special cloak "to show the world he loved his son, To make it clear that Joseph was the special one." Did the brothers interpret the gift as a sign that were the rejected sons, and only Yosef would continue the line? How might the assumption that the siblings did not know that they were all to be chosen affect how you read the story as a whole? See Yosef's Treatment of his Family.
