Thursday, November 25, 2021

sound of silence

Yosef has a dream in which he sees his brothers harvesting sheaves of wheat, "v'hinei kamah alumasi v'gam nitzavah," and his bundle stood up from among theirs.  The Midrash does a play on words here and connects the word "alumasi" with the word ileim, (aleph-lamed-mem), a person who is mute, silent.  Yosef was telling his brothers that because his mother Rachel was silent in order not to cause embarrassment to her sister when Leah took her place under the chuppah, he would rise above them.

 וּמַאן קָאֵים לֵיהּ מִשְׁתִּיקוּתָא דְּאִמָּא. קָמָה, וְהִנֵּה קָמָה אֲלֻמָּתִי וְגַם נִצָּבָה

What's the connection between Rachel's silence and the story of Yosef and his brothers?

The brothers misread Yosef's intentions as being hostile and saw eliminating him as the only way they could enjoy the good graces of their father's attention.  

The story of Rachel and Leah proves that they miscalculated.  As far as Rachel knew, if Yaakov married Leah, it would come at the cost of her being his bride.  Nonetheless, when Rachel saw Lavan lead Leah to the chuppah in her place, she kept silent, potentially sacrificing everything rather than throwing her sister under the bus.  In the end, however, Rachel did end of marrying Yaakov, and in fact was the akeret ha'bayit.

Yosef was telling his brothers that the choice his mother faced was a mirror of their own -- risk losing everything by supporting a brother/sister who stood to usurp their own place, or throw that brother/sister under the bus -- and by choosing the path of silence, she came out ahead in the end.  By making the wrong choice in the same situation, rather than gain the upper hand, they would lose it.  

No comments:

Post a Comment