Vayehi 5769: Getting Away

As we read both this week and last week, Joseph made and incredible turn around. From the bratty tattletale to the viceroy of Egypt who could forgive his brothers and humble himself before God, there was quite a transformation. How did this happen? This week’s portion begins with another question, which might lead to an answer.

28. And Jacob lived in the land of Egypt seventeen years; so the whole age of Jacob was a hundred and forty seven years. [Genesis 48]

This week we read of the last days of both Jacob and Joseph. This ends the book of Genesis, and the Story of Joseph. Interestingly the Story of Joseph starts with this verse:

2. These are the generations of Jacob. Joseph, being seventeen years old, was feeding the flock with his brothers; and the lad was with the sons of Bilhah, and with the sons of Zilpah, his father’s wives; and Joseph brought to his father their evil report. [Genesis 37]

In both verses is the number seventeen. Joseph lived in Jacob’s house seventeen years, and Jacob lived under Joseph’s reign seventeen years. The symmetry is striking, and may not be coincidental. Such symmetry is rampant in the story of Joseph according to Midrash. Potiphar's wife attempts to seduce Joseph, but Joseph marries Potiphar’s daughter. There is a midrash describing the young Joseph that begins to explain the symmetry of seventeen years:

7. JOSEPH, BEING SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD, etc. He was seventeen years old, yet you say, BEING STILL A LAD! It means, however, that he behaved like a boy, pencilling his eyes, curling his hair, and lifting his heel. [Midrash Rabbah - Genesis LXXXIV:7]

Joseph was a seventeen year old behaving like a ten year old, but why? One answer may be that Jacob wanted him to be that way. We know from later texts in I Kings that the coat of stripes that Jacob gave Joseph was the garb of princesses. Jacob was the one forcing Joseph to act a certain way, possibly to be the little boy he was at the time of the death of his mother, Jacob’s beloved Rachel. Here was a seventeen-year-old unable to act like a man, but only like a little boy. If so this was a painful, powerless, humiliating experience for Joseph. Joseph only recourse in behavior was his tale bearing and dream of a time when he will have power.
Joseph was a slave in the house of Potiphar, but he was considered an adult, and much of his physical appearance changed to that appropriate to his age, yet he really wasn’t free either to decide what he wanted to do, to make his own decisions. He changed more in prison when he volunteers to do things. He could have just sat in his cell whimpering, but he doesn’t. . Ironically he has more freedom in prison than he had at home. By the time Pharaoh appoints him viceroy, he in no daddy’s boy. He undertakes a position very different than his world in Canaan. He has unlimited freedom, to make decision, second only to Pharaoh’s.
It is the Joseph with incredibly adult responsibilities, making decisions for an entire nation, that Jacob meets. Even the father of a power figure is still not a powerful as that figure. That explains what Jacob says when he embraces Joseph:

30. And Israel said to Joseph, Now let me die, since I have seen your face, because you are still alive. [Genesis 46]

While Joseph may have gotten over what his brothers did, he did not get over what his father did to start the whole mess. Jacob knows this too and is asking for mercy for what is to come. Joseph’s, and very likely God’s retribution was subtle but again, symmetrical. Jacob, the free living powerful Patriarch of Caannan, would have to live as a squatter completely under the power of Joseph for the same amount of time Joseph had to wear those ridiculous outfits for the pleasure of his dad.

Joseph changed in Egypt. He became a different person because the negative influences of his home were no longer there. Joseph’s story, like many Biblical stories are magnified in order to give us a view of our own weaknesses and personalities. In today’s world making one’s 17 year old son dress up like a five-year old would probably be considered Child abuse. Hopefully many of us have not had experiences from their parents that hurt them that deeply, that forced them into a powerless place. Unfortunately it does happen. It happens in relationships too, as I experienced twenty years ago. There can be many possibilities for toxic relationships.

The best thing to do is get away, sometimes for a short time, sometimes for a long one. Each of us heals from the trauma differently, and each trauma is different. When Joseph names Menasseh, he admits that God gave him the gift of forgetting his old life.

51. And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh; For God, said he, has made me forget all my toil, and all my father’s house. [Genesis 41]

Sometimes it is not just a place we need to forget but the patterns we learned there. It’s too easy to transmit abuse from generation to generation, or from partner to partner. We have to unlearn the patterns somewhere new that challenges us differently, and challenges the correctness of the old patterns. Joseph may not have known of his real problems but his time in Egypt changed him to the person he became. Next week we begin the main story of Torah -- what happens when a family of seventy is forged into a nation in the same crucible as Joseph?