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Vayeshev
Genesis 37:1-40:23
As heirs to a grand tradition of laws and leaders, the Jewish people should be proud of our trail-blazing ancestors. We should look back to our forerunners’ stories and see only nobility, restraint and morality.
Shouldn’t we?
As the Joseph story begins in this week’s Torah portion, we instead recoil at the murderous intentions of Jacob’s sons toward their dream-sharing brother in his extravagant coat, a gift for that favored son from their overindulgent father. These fratricidal young men and undisciplined teenagers are our forebearers, and the Torah portrays them in all their glorious guilt and shame.
Jacob and Leah’s fourth son Judah/Yehudah (from whom we get our name Yehudim/Jews) speaks for the first time in this portion as Joseph languishes in the pit his brothers threw him into. Judah’s words are disgraceful and sneering: “How will we profit if we kill our brother and cover up his blood? Let’s go and sell him to the Ishmaelites… after all, he is our brother, our own flesh.” (Genesis 37:26-27)
Judah’s charisma and sway are evident immediately. The brothers heed him, and Joseph is sold into slavery. Jacob is utterly bereaved, believing Joseph to have been gored by a wild animal after viewing his son’s coat, soaked by the brothers in the blood of a kid goat.
And then, Judah parts from his brothers.
At first, chapter 38 seems a sharp deviation from the story we know so well from religious school and the Broadway stage. For many years, Judah creates an entirely different identity, raising a family of his own among people not of his clan and kin.
Thousands of years before Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), Swiss psychologist and the founder of analytical psychology, coined the term “individuation,” the Torah showed us exactly what that process looks like. Individuation is the quest toward “becoming your true, integrated self.” It “isn’t about becoming perfect or ‘self-improved’ in a superficial sense. It’s about discovering who you really are beneath social masks, habits, thoughts, and fears, and bringing hidden parts of yourself into harmony,” writes Dr. Erlend Slettevold.
The path can take decades or even a lifetime, and is often uncomfortable, since meaningful change usually is. Totally different from “individualism,” which technically refers to a self-centered rejection of past and society, individuation integrates the “shadow” or negative parts of one’s history and ingrained traits as the seeker learns to live with balance, self-awareness and curiosity. It almost always requires deep reflection and growth, usually with significant time away from the home and family of origin.
“Shalom,” our word for wholeness, is the ultimate goal of a life lived with individuation. Through it, a person comes to appreciate humanity and one’s unique contribution to it, and to know, in Jung’s words, that “the privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.”
The genius writers of the Torah knew that Judah, the powerful, emerging leader, had to leave his family and forge an identity of his own to become fully realized. His life among the Adullamites and Canaanites is, crucially, far from easy. He marries and sires three sons, and in a wink, they are grown and wed, the eldest to a woman named Tamar.
Judah’s first-born dies, leaving his daughter-in-law Tamar childless. Judah gives his second son to Tamar to try for offspring, but he dies too. Judah then refrains from giving his third son to Tamar, for fear he would meet the same fate.
After his own wife dies, Judah makes a trip. Tamar famously dresses as a prostitute and stations herself along the road to seduce her unwitting father-in-law. She secures a ransom of his signet ring, cord and staff until he would send a payment of a kid goat for her services. The kid is sent, but Tamar is nowhere to be found.
When she falls pregnant by Judah, Tamar is accused of harlotry, with her father-in-law calling for her execution. She discreetly sends to Judah the items he left behind, saying “the man to whom these belong made me pregnant.” (Genesis 38:25) Judah, who must have been stunned and horrified, declares “‘She is right — they came from me, since I did not give her to my (third) son.’ And he was not intimate with her again.” (Genesis 38:26)
Remarkably, some modern teachings on individuation include the need to leave “a ransom,” some kind of substitute as a person steps away to work on other key parts of their character. It’s a complex idea, but it’s astonishing that the Torah has Judah leaving unique pieces of himself with Tamar while he continues, even unconsciously, his journey of self.
Tamar and Judah have twins, the elder of whom is Perez, the ancestor of both King David and the future messiah. But what resonates so strongly is that the authors of the Torah needed us to see Judah in this light — a man wrestling with his past and his shortcomings, branching out to make his own choices and mistakes, coming to terms with the consequences of his words and deeds.
As Genesis moves forward, Judah will prove his worth to his father, his brother and to all of us, the Yehudim who bear his name. In his journey of individuation, when confronted by Tamar, he does not deny, deflect, delay or denigrate. He faces the totality of who he is at that moment, owns his responsibility and demonstrates growth, maturity and sobriety. He is becoming the kind of leader we deserve, and an ancestor of whom we can be very proud. May we merit to have more humble and courageous leaders like Judah (and Tamar) to carry us forward.