Yosef, Esther, and Daniel/0

Yosef, Esther, and Daniel¹

Exilic Challenges

After centuries of sovereignty on their own land, the Jews living during the Babylonian Exile suddenly needed to confront the new situation of being strangers and guests in a foreign country and the concomitant risks of acculturation and assimilation. For Jews who were fortunate or unfortunate enough to be thrust into the king's service or palace, the challenges were even more formidable.  This is the shared backdrop of the exilic books of Daniel and Esther.  Each depicts the attempts of its protagonist to navigate the non-Jewish corridors of power and advocate for their nation.  And in each case, the central characters need to decide whether to risk their lives in order to continue to embrace their religion, or whether to give their religious identities a lower profile in order to better comply with the cultural expectations of their society.

The Yosef Model

In attempting to find the proper approach to their situation, Jews searched for a Biblical precedent and readily found the prototype of Yosef.  As the first of our nation to spend most of his life in exile, Yosef was a logical source to gain insight into how a Jew should behave in exile.

Yosef proved, though, to be a complex model, as the narrative of Bereshit allows for widely differing perspectives on Yosef's conduct in Egypt and his attitudes toward his Abrahamic heritage.  On the one hand, when interpreting the dreams of both the butler and baker and Paroh, Yosef consistently acknowledges that all comes from God:

EN/HEע/E

וַיֹּאמְרוּ אֵלָיו חֲלוֹם חָלַמְנוּ וּפֹתֵר אֵין אֹתוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם יוֹסֵף הֲלוֹא לֵאלֹהִים פִּתְרֹנִים סַפְּרוּ נָא לִי. (מ':ח')

וַיַּעַן יוֹסֵף אֶת פַּרְעֹה לֵאמֹר בִּלְעָדָי אֱלֹהִים יַעֲנֶה אֶת שְׁלוֹם פַּרְעֹה.  (מ':ט"ז)

On the other hand, there are also indications that Yosef did not maintain his religious identity in Egypt. Yosef married the daughter of an Egyptian priest, and in naming his firstborn son, Menasheh, he expresses his gratitude to God for enabling him to forget his father’s house ("כִּי נַשַּׁנִי אֱלֹהִים אֶת כָּל עֲמָלִי וְאֵת כָּל בֵּית אָבִי").  Yosef’s erasure of his original identity is so complete that when his brothers arrive in Egypt, they are unable to recognize him as a Semite because of his Egyptian garb and language.²

Diverging

Because of the ambiguity with regard to Yosef’s behavior in exile, the Babylonian Jews who looked to Yosef viewed his actions in different and perhaps contradictory ways. The books of Daniel and Esther, thus both draw carefully on the narrative of Joseph, but do so in divergent ways.

There are a number of similarities between the stories of Yosef, Daniel, and Esther. Yosef, Daniel, Mordecai, and Esther all began as lowly exiles, but ultimately reached great political positions within their foreign governments. Before reaching their highest points however, they each have a relatively respected position within their settings.  Yosef is promoted in prison, and both Daniel and Mordecai are described as sitting by the gate of the palace (Daniel 2:49, Esther 2:21) which suggests they were a part of the royal bureaucracy.
Interestingly, a turning point for these characters begins on a night in which the king cannot sleep. In the story of Yosef and the story of Daniel, the king cannot sleep because he is bothered by his dreams, while in the story of Esther, we are simply told that Xerxes cannot sleep. See back page for full comparison of the stories of Yosef and Daniel regarding their interpretation of the dream. See also the comparison of Yosef and Esther which highlights thematic and literary connections between the two stories.

¹ This topic draws on the book of Prof. Aaron Koller, Esther in Ancient Jewish Thought, (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

² For more on the conflicting images of Yosef, see Yosef's Religious Identity and Why Did Yosef Frame Binyamin.