| "She is more in the right than I, inasmuch as I did not give her to my son Shelah". And so arrives the moment of epiphany for Judah, changing him forever as perhaps this week's parshah, Vayeshev, indicates.
It is often impossible to predict which are the experiences that will forever change us. The most important and life-altering experiences so often come "out of the blue", shocking us with their impact for months or years thereafter. We describe the life-altering event as unprecedented, seemingly unrelated and unpredictable, offering us a new perspective or freedom from our limited perspective.
This is precisely what happens to Judah in the Torah reading this week. |
| In the beginning of Parshat Vayeshev, we meet a callous, jealous, conniving older brother whose plan to sell Joseph into slavery and then to lie of his demise to their father sets the entirety of the narrative ultimately resulting in the Israelite enslavement in Egypt into motion. By the end of this narrative, Judah defends his brother, Benjamin, refusing to allow him to be taken into custody for fear that this loss would destroy their father. This Judah understands responsibility, family, and knows that there can be dire, unforeseen consequences to impulsive decisions made in one's own self-interest.
Between these two vignettes concerning Judah and his brothers is a seemingly unrelated story, interrupting the flow of the narrative about Joseph. In this seeming aside, we read about Judah's encounter with Tamar, his daughter-in-law twice widowed. Judah's two sons - both married to Tamar - have died. One of the greatest mitzvot of this time was to continue the familial line of one's deceased spouse so that his line might be carried forward. By this logic, Tamar should be allowed to marry the third son. Judah tells Tamar to go home to her father's house to wait for the third son. However, the text indicates that he has no intention of allowing them to marry, as he feared that the third son might also die if he were to marry Tamar. Time passes and Judah's wife, too, dies. Faced with no other options, Tamar dresses up as a harlot and seduces Judah so that she might become pregnant with a child carrying her deceased husbands' genes.
When he realizes that he (the original deceiver) has now been deceived, Judah realizes that Tamar's wisdom exceeds his own and acknowledges that her actions were more righteous than were his. Through the encounter with Tamar, who not only intervenes, but also acts as a mirror to Judah, that he is able to see and admit his shortcomings, allowing him to learn about the importance of fulfilling obligations to one's family, the cost of deception, and how to be a responsible adult, even in the most trying of circumstances.
After this encounter, Judah is transformed, re-dedicating himself to the lineage of his future family with Tamar and healing the chasm in his family, setting a new course for the Children of Israel. |
