VaYeshev 5767 -- The Binding of Joseph and the Tragedy of Jacob

Jacob’s sending of Joseph to go find his brothers shepherding in Shechem is strangely, and strongly, evocative of the Binding of Isaac. In each instance a father is asked to sacrifice, or asks to sacrifice, the life of a favorite son. An extensive list of similarities, as well as a few differences is presented below. Given that there are all these parallels between the stories of the binding of Isaac and the sending of Joseph, it seems appropriate to ask who is playing which part in the Binding of Joseph, and how this similarity informs our understanding of this later event.

The uniquely favored son is chosen:
> It is through Yitzchak that Abraham’s Jewish line continues (ki b’Yitzchak yikareh lekha zera) > Although Jacob’s line continues through all his children, Yosef is favored to such an extent that he is referred to as Toldot Yaakov, the generations of Jacob.

Hineni
>When called upon, Avraham says Hineni (to God, to Yitzchak, to angel)
>When called upon by Jacob, Yosef says Hineni

Zrizut – zeal to fulfill the command:
> Avraham (Vayashkem Avraham baboker) desires to do God’s will.
> Yosef (see Rashi – hineni is lashon zrizut) desires to do his father’s will.

What almost happens:
>Avraham kills Yitzchak
> Brothers kill Yosef

The blood of an animal is shed instead:
> “And behold there was a ram,” which Avraham slaughters in place of Isaac
> Brothers kill a goat in place of actually killing Yosef (and dip coat into it)

The eating and ripping of flesh:
> The knife with which Avraham is to slaughter Yitzchak is called a maakhelet – an ‘eater’ – because, as Rashi notes, a knife eats its way through flesh as it cuts.
>The brothers claim that a wild animal came along v’akhalat’hu, and ate Yosef. When Jacob sees the bloody coat he wails hayah ra’ah akhalat’hu, tarof toraf Yosef – a wild animal has eaten him, Yosef has been ripped apart!

Angelic Intervention
>Angel ensures that the deed is not realized: calls on Avraham to make sure that he does not slaughter Yitzchak.
> Angel (Rashi; but see Ibn Ezra who disagrees) ensures that the deed is realized: Gabriel intervenes to make sure that Yosef does find his brothers.

Who is anointing the task?
> God’s direct command to Avraham, seemingly in contravention of the covenant.
> God’s covenant with Avraham that promises Jewish descent from Canaan.

Who is being tested?
>Avraham – (‘v’HaElokim nisah et Avraham’)
>Yosef. After all, he is the one who is called upon. Or perhaps also Jacob, who knows that he is sending his favorite son to suffering, if not death.

What would Success mean for Jewish history?
> The end. Avraham could not be allowed to succeed: the slaughter of Isaac would have prevented Jewish history from occurring.
> The continuation. Yosef could not be allowed to fail: he needed to find his brothers, and to be sold by them. Otherwise the descent to Egypt would not begin and Jewish history would not play itself out. (See Rashi on "Me'emek Hevron" for this idea).

Who goes into the task knowing full well what it means?
>Avraham -- But Yitzchak catches on.
> Jacob (see Rashi who explains he was fulfilling the covenantal promise above). Also Yosef (see Rashi explaining that Yosef knew how much his brothers hated him and could not fail to realize that this errand would endanger him)

Perhaps the most natural way to map the Binding of Isaac unto the Sending of Joseph is to match the father-son roles. Jacob is sending Joseph to what he believes is his death, just like Abraham did with Isaac. Joseph is therefore an Isaac character, and Jacob is like Abraham.

There are several problems with this reading. First, Rashi describes Joseph as having zrizut to do the mitzvah, the same characterization Rashi gave to Abraham, but not Isaac. Second, as Rashi points out, Joseph had zrizut even though he knew what was being asked of him – it was as though Joseph was being tested. In the Binding of Isaac we read that God tested Abraham, not Isaac. Therefore, Rashi suggests that Isaac did not initially know what was in store, but that he caught on as they drew near. But Joseph, according to Rashi, understood the threat immediately and still set off on his journey.

This suggests perhaps that Joseph is an Abraham character. But where does that leave Jacob? This seemingly puts him almost into the position that God was to Abraham. Just as God knew that Isaac would survive, so too Jacob knows that his descendants must descend to Egypt (See Rashi to ‘me-emek hevron’) in order to fulfill God’s covenant with Abraham, ki ger yihiyeh zarakha . That is, he ought to know that Joseph won’t be killed by his brothers.

Jacob, unlike Abraham, is not being asked to sacrifice a life (he won’t actually threaten Joseph, and he knows that Joseph won’t actually die), but is rather asking Joseph to sacrifice what Joseph fears may be a life – his own. In this way the relationship between Jacob and Joseph is like that between God and Abraham. God knew what He was asking, and how it would come out, and Abraham knew what he was being asked, and was willing to see it through any way it happened. Likewise, Jacob knows that he is putting Joseph into danger but knows that Joseph will not be killed by his brothers if the covenant is to be fulfilled. Joseph understands what is being asked of him, that he endanger himself, and is willing to see it through either way. Isaac, on the other hand, does not, at least initially, understand what is being asked of him.

But there is a problem with this as well: if Jacob really knows what will happen to Joseph, and knows that he is sending him in fulfillment of a divine covenant, why would he be fooled by the brothers’ representations that Joseph was dead? In other words, while Joseph, like Abraham, understands what is being asked from him, but not how it will turn out, Jacob, like the Almighty (and relying on the Almighty), presumably knows that everything will turn out, more or less, all right.

I believe that this is what was bothering Rashi when he wrote his comment to “hayah ra’ah akhalat’hu, tarof toraf Yosef – a wild animal has eaten him, Yosef has been ripped apart!” Bereishit 37:33. There Rashi says that Jacob did not mean this literally. Rather, he was seized by the ruah hakodesh and saw that Joseph would eventually suffer from the affections of the wife of Potifar – an evil beast as it were – who would rip Yosef’s garment as he escaped from her. Why is it necessary to find this temporally distant meaning to Jacob’s statement?

One commentary, the siftei hahamim, explains by asking how Jacob could know that this is what happened to Yosef, since the brother’s had not yet told him their story. Therefore, Jacob must be thinking of something else. But this is not compelling, as the brothers had already laid out convincing evidence – Joseph’s blood stained coat – that would naturally lead Jacob to the conclusion that Joseph had been eaten by wild beasts; they didn’t need to tell him.

Rather, Rashi’s problem is that Jacob must have known that Joseph simply would not be killed on this mission. As we noted above, Jacob is arguably in the same position as God was to Abraham, l’havdil, the puppet master, and so knew that just as Isaac would not die, Joseph would not die. Therefore, Rashi asks, why did Jacob exclaim with apparent pathos that Joseph had been consumed and ripped apart?

The answer is that, no matter the parallelism, Jacob is not God. While it was given to Jacob to understand that Joseph would not die at the hands of his brothers, Jacob was not blessed with omniscience. He therefore did not know of all the unpleasant consequences of Joseph’s descent into Egypt – such as the advances of Potifar’s wife and Joseph’s imprisonment – before sending Joseph on his way, and so was genuinely surprised and upset by the revelation of Joseph's future suffering derived from Eshet Potiphar.

But this begs the question: Why did God choose to reveal Joseph’s future suffering at the hands of Potifar’s wife to Jacob immediately after Joseph is sold? I want to suggest that this represents a divine rebuke of Jacob’s cavalier (puppet-master, if you will) attitude towards Joseph. Just as Jacob is kicking up his heels and congratulating himself on a job well-done in facilitating the progression of Jewish history (and probably thinking, that since the brothers wouldn’t kill Joseph “no harm, no foul”), he receives a divine news-flash that Joseph will not just be a ger, a sojourner, in Egypt but will also suffer hatred and imprisonment.

In certain ways, this is ironic and tragic, and seems quite reminiscent of Shakespeare or the Greeks – the great man at his moment of triumph realizes that he has erred terribly. And I'm attracted to this reading in part for that dramatic reason. But there is an important moral message as well. Even when we think that we are doing the right thing, implementing a divine precept even, we should be careful not to take lightly the possible, and sometimes unpredictable, consequences for others.