This is the sermon I am delivering tonight at Temple Sinai in Cranston, Rhode Island.

I don’t know too many people who live with the feeling that God is right there, standing behind them, all the time. I don’t know many people who would say that they spend their days imbued with the awareness of God’s presence in their lives. I am envious of such people and, I have to admit, a little bit suspicious of them, too. God’s presence, for me, is something that I can find when I focus my attention on it, and it is something that sometimes barges into my life at unexpected moments. I think that’s the way that most people experience God – at moments when our hearts are opened to God, and at moments when we least expect God.

This week’s Torah portion, Vayeshev, begins the story of Joseph, the eleventh of Jacob’s twelve sons. In the whole Joseph saga, which we will be reading for the next four weeks in the Torah, God is famously absent. Throughout the Joseph story, people talk about God and they pray to God, but God does not appear directly and none of the characters – not even Joseph – ever communicates with God. It is as if, at the end of the book of Genesis, God has stepped into the background and let the human beings take control of the story.

Except that, here and there in the Joseph story, there are moments when God’s presence is hinted at. Quietly and unexpectedly, God shows up in obscure ways throughout the story. Here is an example from this week’s Torah portion:

“One time, when [Joseph’s] brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem, [Jacob] said to Joseph, ‘Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them.’ [Joseph] answered, ‘I am ready.’ And [Jacob] said to him, ‘Go and see how your brothers are and how the flocks are faring, and bring me back word.’ …When [Joseph] reached Shechem, a man came upon him wandering in the fields. The man asked him, ‘What are you looking for?’ He answered, ‘I am looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?’ The man said, ‘They have gone from here, for I heard them say: Let us go to Dotan.’ So Joseph followed his brothers and found them at Dotan. They saw him from afar, and before he came close to them they conspired to kill him. They said to one another, ‘Here comes that dreamer!’”  (Genesis 37:12-20)

Now, if you are familiar with the story, you will recognize that this is a critical moment in the plot of the entire Torah. The brothers, who are furious with Joseph, will throw Joseph into a pit and then decide to sell him into slavery. Joseph will be taken down to Egypt where he will be the trusted servant of a powerful member of Pharaoh's court, but then he will be thrown into prison when he is falsely accused of raping the courtier's wife. After that, because of his gift for interpreting dreams, Joseph will rise from his prison cell and become the second-in-command of all Egypt, and, yada-yada-yada, he will end up saving his entire family and preserving the future of the Jewish people. All of that happens in this week's Torah portion and the portions that follow, but, first, Joseph has to be able to find where his brothers are grazing those sheep.

Do you notice something odd about how he gets there? The Torah tells us that there was a man – we’re not told his name, or anything else about him – who sees Joseph wandering aimlessly in the fields and he asks Joseph if he needs some help. Joseph tells the man, “I’m looking for my brothers. Could you tell me where they are pasturing?”

How on earth would this man know? If you went up to a perfect stranger at Providence Place and said, “Excuse me, I seem to have lost my brothers. Could you tell me where they are?” what kind of response do you think you’d get? A few odd looks and a few curt replies? “Hey, buddy, how the heck should I know?” You might get someone to take pity on you and ask you where you last saw them, or what they look like. You might even get someone to you ask the question, “Who are you?” But the man in Shechem, the nameless man in the story, does not do any of those things. He just says, in effect, “They went that-a-way.”

Why is this detail even in the story? How does the reader benefit from the interlude of Joseph being lost in a field and needing the help of a nameless person who tells him where to find his brothers and how to get on with his life? I think it’s one of those moments. It’s like one of those moments in life when we are searching for something – maybe we don’t even know what it is we are searching for – and a presence appears to us and helps us find the right path – the path that is waiting for us to fulfill. Maybe it’s God’s presence popping up in Joseph’s life at a moment when he really needs to feel it, or a moment that takes him utterly by surprise.

Have you had an experience like that in your life? Take a moment now to remember the time when God’s presence came to you in some unexpected form, to help you when you needed help, or came to you when you least expected it. Got it? Good.

This week’s Torah portion, which kicks off the Joseph story, is read every year during, or (as this year) right before, Chanukah. I find the this story about God’s hidden presence to be a perfect fit for Chanukah.

Think about it. Who is the hero of Chanukah? If you ask most students in our Religious School, they will tell you immediately who they think it is. They will say that it was Mattathias, the brave priest of Modi’in who refused to offer a sacrifice to the Greek gods after he was ordered to do so. Or, they will say that it was Judah Maccabee, the son of Mattathias, who led the rebellion against the Seleucid Empire and drove the Greeks out of the Temple. Or, maybe, they will say that it was whoever found that cruse of oil that was used to light the Temple Menorah – the oil that was only expected to last one day, but lasted eight.

The rabbis of the Talmud knew this about the Chanukah story. They knew that it was a story that seems to point to a human hero, and that made them uncomfortable. For that reason, they assigned a haftarah portion for the Shabbat that falls during Chanukah that says, pointedly, “‘Not by might, and not by power, but by My spirit,’ says Adonai Tz’vaot!” (Zechariah 4:6). They wanted to make sure that everyone understood that God was the real hero of the Chanukah story.

But I won’t correct the student who says that the hero was Mattathias or Judah Maccabee, or even the person who found the oil. Those answers are all correct, too. When we feel God’s presence in our lives, God doesn’t do it alone. It is always people – human beings – who serve as God’s eyes, God’s ears, and God’s hands in making miracles happen.

Remember that moment when you felt God’s presence come to you when you needed help? In what form to God appear? Who served at that moment as God’s eyes, ears, and hands? Who was the unnamed stranger, or the intimate friend, who gave you what you needed to fulfill your destiny at that very moment?

Chanukah is a holiday of noticing miracles and noticing the way that they are sometimes hidden and unexpected. God does not always enter into our lives as the gigantic special effects moment of the parting of the sea. More often, God comes as softly flickering lights in the darkness that help us remember who we are and where we are going.

You know, there is a song we sing during Chanukah that goes like this:

“Who can retell the things that befell us? Who can count them? In every age a hero or sage came to our aid!”

Who is the hero of that song? Who is the song talking about when it praises heroes and sages?

The opening line of the song is actually a paraphrase of a Psalm. It’s Psalm 116, which opens:

Mi yimalel g'vurot Adonai, yashmia kol t'hilato!
Who can retell the mighty acts of Adonai, proclaim all God’s praises!

Even when we sing our songs, just as in this week’s Torah portion, we sometimes let God’s presence step into the background. We sometimes let the human beings take control of the story. That is as it should be. We need to live our lives as if our fate is in our own hands. We need to take responsibility. We need to learn to be the heroes of our own lives.

But we also need to remember, once in a while when we really need it, or when it comes crashing down upon us in a moment of crisis, that there is a Presence ready to help us. We need to notice the quiet and unnamed character at the edges of our story, guiding us, loving us, bringing light into our darkness.

Shabbat shalom.

There are two dreams in this week's Torah portion (Vayeshev). One that is dreamed by a bread baker and one that is dreamed by a wine steward. The bread baker's dream foretells his death. The wine steward's dream foretells his success (Genesis 40:1-22). The inclusion of these two professions in the story is not a coincidence. They are highly symbolic. Bread represents Egypt and its destruction. Wine represents Israel and its eventual redemption.

To understand this, you need to know who drank what in the ancient world.

Egypt is a land is well suited to growing and storing grain. (At least, it was until the Aswan Dam was built in the 20th century). It is a flat land that has the Nile flowing through it to provide water for irrigation. Egypt became a centralized, urbanized society in the second millennium BCE by taking advantage of its geography to produce large surpluses of grain that could be placed in central storage facilities controlled by a ruling elite who would distribute the food to the people in times of famine. Even before the story of Joseph, Genesis refers to Egypt as a good place to go when food is scarce (12:10 and 26:1-2).

The idea that Joseph taught Pharaoh how to store grain is an obvious anachronism in the story. Thousands of years before Joseph, grain storage was the technology that made Egypt, and its pharaohs, a powerhouse in the ancient world.

Egypt's pharaohs did not use their stored grain only as a safeguard against hard times. They also used it as a way of controlling their large urban population. They did this – of course – by feeding their workers bread made from the grain, but they also turned that grain into beer.

Now, you may think of beer as a luxury item that one enjoys as a repast while filling up on other foods. However, that is not the way that beer was consumed in ancient Egypt. Beer made from barley was a staple in ancient Egypt. Most Egyptians, even children, drank what would be considered today enormous amounts of beer every day.

Consider also that, in the ancient world, bread and beer were made, more or less, in the same way. Water was added to the grain to create a mash that would begin to germinate, making it sweet. A process of fermentation from naturally occurring yeast would begin, which made bread dough rise and which gave beer its alcohol. Bread and beer in the ancient world were really just the solid and liquid forms of the same food.

Beer, of course, had the advantage of providing a pleasant sensation of intoxication (which the Egyptians thought was a marvelous, inexplicable gift from the gods). Beer also kept people alive in the heat of Egypt. Once people started living in cities, finding safe drinking water became more difficult as local water supplies were fouled by human waste. Drinking water could kill you. Drinking beer – which was made in a process that included boiling – was a safe way to stay hydrated.

So why is beer mentioned so infrequently in the Bible if it was so important to the foundation of great ancient cities? The answer is that beer was not the drink of the ancient Israelites. They may have been Hebrews (get it?), but they did not have the geographical advantages of Egypt for the expansive development of growing barely for beer. Most of the Israelite population lived in the inland mountain ranges, an area that was advantageous for the development of a different drink. 

The Israelites used their relatively limited supply of grain to make simple flat breads. For drink, they used their grapes to make beautiful wines. To grow the best grapes, you need cool rainy winters, dry and warm springs, and long hot summers. You also need a hilly landscape for drainage and the right angle of sunlight. All of these qualities are exceptionally good in the land of Israel. The ancient Israelites thought of themselves as culturally and morally superior to the Egyptians because they drank wine – the drink of free and mighty shepherds in the mountains, and not beer – the drink of city folk controlled by an overbearing king who kept them controlled through intoxication. 

This moral distinction between mountain dwellers and city people appears throughout the Bible. In the story of Cain and Abel, for example, we see God favoring the offering of the shepherd Abel, who brought "the firstlings of his flock," and disfavoring the offering of the farmer Cain, who brought "from the fruit of the earth" (Genesis 4:2-3). The story never states directly why God prefers Abel's offering, but a knowledge of the cultural biases of the Bible makes it clear. God likes the shepherds who live in the hills and drink wine, and dislikes the farmers who live in the cities and drink beer.

​The dreams of the doomed bread baker and the successful wine steward in this week's Torah portion don't just give Joseph an opportunity to show off his ability to interpret dreams. They are symbols that foreshadow the real message of the story. The Egyptians will be destroyed because they are haughty like the bread baker and cruel like Pharaoh. Israel will triumph because they worship a just and moral God.

Which drink is for you, the brew or the vintage? Who will you follow, the king who built the mighty cities, or God who made heaven and earth?


Other Posts on This Topic:
Matzah and Chameitz
​Bo: Hitting Rock Bottom

This is the sermon I am delivering tonight at Temple Beit HaYam in Stuart, Florida.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, like millions of other people, I first heard the news of two airplanes flying into the towers of the World Trade Center in New York. My wife and I huddled around the television set, with our not-quite-three-year-old child. We stayed there for much of the rest of the day, watching the horrifying images, worrying about the people we knew in New York City. Were they okay? How had they been affected?

As I look around this room, I know that everyone here remembers that day and knows exactly where they were when those towers fell down. Where were you that day? What did you do, and how did you feel on that day?

Just before noon on January 28, 1986, I was rehearsing a play in the Theater Arts building at Oberlin College. I heard from a friend that there had been an accident. I watched on a small television in the department office to see images of the Space Shuttle Challenger exploding just a minute after launch. I tried to imagine the experience of the astronauts trapped in the explosion. When that became too painful, I stopped and just cried.

As I look around this room, I know that most of the people here remember that day and knows where they were when the Challenger exploded. Where were you? What did you do, and how did you feel?

On the morning of November 22, 1963, my mother and grandmother took me with them on a trip to a dress shop in Manhattan. While they were in a changing room, my mother heard commotion outside and knew something was wrong. She heard a woman say that the President had been shot. Immediately, my mother, grandmother and I went back to the apartment and spent the next three days watching the news, sobbing along with the rest of the country.

I have no memory of that day, exactly fifty years ago today. As I look around this room, though, I know that many of you do remember that day and know where you were when President Kennedy was shot. Where were you? What did you do, and how did you feel?

Each of these moments from the past half century was a moment of trauma — for our country and for the individuals who experienced them. Our world was turned upside down and shattered. At some level, a feeling of security that we had grown used to was taken away from us — the safety of our nation from attack within its borders, the pride we felt in our nation’s space program and our ability to reach out into space, the reassuring smile of a handsome young president whose smile sang of Camelot. All of that can be taken away in an instant leaving us feeling bereft, disoriented, and pained to imagine how the world will ever feel the same again.

Such moments can destroy us. They can make us sink into despair and withdrawal. However, they also can be moments of transformation that allow us to become better than we thought we could be.

Just after 9/11, it seemed like we would never be the same again. Some people felt that, if there are people in the world who hate us so much, we should not waste our time engaging them in any way. We should just let our bombs blow them out of existence. Some people said that. Some still do. But, as a society, we have decided that we can do better. The painful lesson of 9/11 has been that we must not put our heads in the sand and use our military strength as a substitute for thoughtful and open-eyed engagement. We must seek ways to create peace, not just war.

There was a moment after the Challenger disaster in which we did slip into despair. We grounded our space program for 32 months of investigation, recrimination and sorrow. Some said that the price for exploring space was just too high, both in dollars and in lives. Some said we should stick to more practical and earthbound pursuits. Some still do. But, as a nation, we have decided that we can do better. This past Monday, I stood in my driveway to watch the Maven spacecraft launch from the John F. Kennedy Space Center to explore the martian atmosphere. NASA now projects that manned flights to the International Space Station from U.S. soil will begin again in 2017. We have not stopped dreaming of the stars.

The Kennedy assassination was, in some ways the most traumatic experience of all during my lifetime. Adlai Stevenson said presciently at the time that, “All of us..... will bear the grief of his death until the day of ours.” 

The Kennedy assassination, too, might have been a moment in which America could have given up on its dreams. President Kennedy had stirred the country to hopes of Camelot and a better society. After his murder, it would have been easy to allow the spirit that Kennedy represented to be crushed. 

In some ways, it was. After the assassination, we became a bit embarrassed by the naivety of our talk of building a “great society.” Our politics became more crude and cynical. We began talking about foreign and domestic policies that were “realistic” and that “satisfied our narrow interests,” instead of talking about our ideals and reaching for our highest aspirations. A decade after Kennedy’s death, we thought we had hit the bottom when Watergate taught us just how low the politics of cynicism could take us.

However, another part of the truth of the past half century is that we have made some of our greatest progress through our determination not to let Kennedy’s murder also become the death of the dream he embodied. Lyndon Johnson got Congress to pass the Civil Rights Act, largely as a tribute to President Kennedy. We did put a man on the moon in 1969, just as President Kennedy told us we should. President Reagan’s declaration, “Mr. Gorbochov, tear down this wall,” contains an unmistakable echo of Kennedy’s call, “Ich bin ein Berliner.” And the very idea of electing the first African-American president has its roots in Kennedy’s determination to end legal barriers faced by Black Americans, once and for all.

When painful, disorienting, gut-wrenching tragedies come into the life of our nation, or into our own personal lives, there is always the temptation to withdraw and despair. Inevitably, tragic losses do affect us and they do scar us in ways that are difficult to understand until long after the fact. But they are also a moment to reassess ourselves and to rededicate ourselves to the things we believe in. 

This week marks another American anniversary. One hundred and fifty years ago this week, Abraham Lincoln stood at Gettysburg and gave one of the most memorable speeches in U.S. history. He said, “It is for us the living … to be dedicated here to the unfinished work…” Lincoln spoke, “From these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” 

Lincoln speech came at another moment of trauma, standing upon land that was still blood-stained from a horrifying battle. He used the occasion as a moment — not of despair — but of transformation. 

He said that this nation was “conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.” Was that actually true in 1776? Historians are doubtful. Few of the signers of the Declaration of Independence had any thought that the United States would be a nation that regarded equality as one of its founding principles. All of them were men. Most of them were aristocrats. Many of them were slave owners. Yet, 87 years after the founding of this nation, Lincoln created a new American identity built on the ideal of equality for all.

Tragedy and trauma scar us. They can make us doubt ourselves. They can make us wonder whether our dreams were too lofty or too unrealistic. Sometimes — as we have seen in recent history — they make us scale back our expectations. But the higher call, as Lincoln wrote 150 years ago, is to allow tragedy to become the foil against which we resolve to transform ourselves for the better.

That is also the story of Joseph in this week’s Torah portion. Joseph, the favorite son who was thrown into the pit and sold into slavery by his own brothers never once in the story fell into despair. Even after circumstances placed him in the dungeon, he looked for ways to transform his situation up from the depths, all the way to the heights. 

Today marks a dark day in the history of our country. It is one that tests our resolve and makes us wonder whether we have tried to do too much and whether our dreams have been too lofty. If you have been around long enough to remember the last fifty years, you can also be optimistic enough to hope for the best in the next fifty. If your years, like mine, fall short of remembering fifty years, let your gaze be extended even further forward.

We can overcome all kinds of sorrow in our private lives and in the life of our nation. We can be better — as individuals and as a society — than our regrets and our pain would ever allow. We can climb higher and aspire to greater achievements when we release ourselves from self-doubt and fear and allow ourselves to remain committed to the values of peace, discovery and hope.

Shabbat shalom.


Other Posts on This Topic:
The Pit, the Water, the Scorpion, and Being a Good Person
Vayigash: Finding a Way Out of the Pit
Hope after Despair

At the same time, though, I am committed to the idea that religion matters. (No surprise there). When people say they don't need religion to lead a lead a good life, I do wonder what takes the place of religion for them. What teaches them the skills of devotion, discipline, humility, gratitude and compassion? These are not simple ideas that a person acquires just by thinking nice thoughts. Life is more complicated than that. Devotion to religion does not guarantee that a person will be "good," but I believe it can provide an important foundation.

Let me also say that, I think, many of the "non-religious" have an overly-simplistic view of what religion actually offers. Religions, including Judaism, are often caricatured as providing little more than children's Bible stories, quaint rituals, and a few basic moral rules that can be summed up in cliches—"Love your neighbor," "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you," and "Thou shall not murder." 

There is so much more.

Torah not only teaches us to be kind, humble, grateful and giving, Torah is a path for spiritual growth throughout our lives. Life's questions only become more difficult after childhood, and childish notions of right and wrong may not help us face the challenges we encounter as adults. Torah does teach rules for doing what is right, but developing the habits of Torah also guides a person to grow throughout a lifetime. It helps us wrestle with questions about our purpose, develop appreciation for life's contradictions, deepen our devotion to our values, maintain the discipline to stay true to them, and expand in reverence for the source of our being.

Nobody learns all that as a child. It comes from living a life of questioning and searching for answers and deeper meaning. That is what Torah does. When we enter Torah—and when Torah enters us—we accept upon ourselves a set of rituals and beliefs that teach us again and again that our life has a purpose beyond merely pursuing our desires and feeding our appetites. 

In this week's Torah portion (Vayeshev), Jacob's ten oldest sons indulged in their darkest desires. They despised their younger brother, Joseph, and they imagined how delightful it would be to do away with him forever. In the middle of the wilderness, where they know they will not be seen by human eyes, the brothers devised a plan to kill Joseph and throw his body into a pit (Genesis 37:20).

The oldest brother, Reuben, worried about the implications of murdering Joseph. He tried to distract his brothers from their plan so he could save the boy and bring him back home. Yet, Reuben lacked the will to tell his brothers that killing Joseph would be wrong. The unloved firstborn son did not have the courage to say what he believed. He tried to act, but it was a feeble attempt. He saved Joseph's life, but he could not return him to his father as he intended.

The story challenges us. It forces us to ask questions about the choices we have made when we have had the opportunity to speak up against something wrong. The text asks us: When do we let our darkness get the better of us? When do we settle for half measures in facing life's moral imperatives? What gives us the strength to overcome our fears and our reluctance to take necessary action? These are tough questions for a tough world.

Eventually, the brothers followed Reuben's advice and threw Joseph alive into the pit. The text says, "The pit was empty; there was no water in it" (verse 24). Perhaps it is a metaphor for the dry, loveless relationship between brothers who were consumed by jealousy and hatred, and who had no leader among them to stand up for what was right.

The Talmud (B. Shabbat 22a, B. Chagigah 3a) observes a redundancy in the phrase. If the pit was empty, it should be obvious that there was no water in it. Why does the Torah need to say that there was "no water in it" after saying "the pit was empty"? The rabbis conclude that the text means to say that the pit was empty only of water, but it did contain other things—snakes and scorpions. 

Water, in the Jewish imagination, often is used as a symbol of Torah. Both water and Torah are sources of life in changing forms. The rabbinic interpretation of the verse becomes a lesson about our own lives: Where there is no Torah, there will be snakes and scorpions. When we don't take the time and energy to fill our lives with a tradition that teaches us, nourishes us, sustains us, and allows us to keep growing throughout our lives, we risk that our lives will be filled instead with things that threaten us and do us harm.

The contemporary Jewish thinker, Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi, puts it like this, "The mind is like tofu. By itself, it has no taste. Everything depends on the flavor of the marinade it steeps in." 
If we don't feed ourselves with Torah, we will be fed by something else. 

I do not claim that a person must be religious in order to be good. I do not teach that the Torah is the only path to living a life that is meaningful and fulfilling. But, if a person does not fill his or her life with a soul-broadening tradition that represents thousands of years of struggling and searching for the highest within the human spirit, what will fill that person's life? Many of the alternatives our society has to offer—television, video games, our work and leisure activities—can be as dangerous to our souls as snakes and scorpions are dangerous to our bodies. 

Torah is more than a collection of children's stories. Judaism is not just a collection of  antiquated rituals. Our tradition offers much more than a basic lesson in good behavior and moral development. It gives us life and a path to finding, meaning, fulfillment and joy.


Other Posts on This Topic:
Nitzavim-Vayeilech: Is There Such a Thing as a Religious Reform Jew?
Bereshit: First Crime, First Punishment

When I again approached my husband's father and asked to be given to his youngest son as wife, he was silent. I have worn a widow's garb now for four years and my womb cries out. My only wish is to bear a son who will establish the name of my husband who is dead. The agony of my soul is great. Please, grant me of your wisdom and inform me what I must do.

With respect,
Tamar

* * * * *

Dear Tamar,

God is so good! May the blessings of our Lord and Savior be upon you!

I was deeply moved as I read your letter. Your courage after the passing of your beloved husband is inspiring. I greatly admire your strength in wanting to be a mother. Our holy congregation has a support group for women, like you, who have lost their husbands. We also have a group for women who have been denied the blessing of children. You would benefit so much from this vital ministry.

I pray, Tamar, that God grant your wish to have a child! I know in my heart that the right man is out there, and with the Lord's help, you will find your soulmate. Our singles group, which we call "Partners in the Lord,"® is just the place for a righteous woman like you to find a life partner.

There's part of your letter that surprised me. It is probably just my own ignorance, so I want to ask you to explain it. Did you say that you are going to marry your late husband's brother? Wouldn't that be something! It must be a gift from God that the two of you have found love out of your shared loss. God bless you both! Also, so few people these days seem to understand the importance of asking a father's permission to marry. Good luck to the two of you! 

Still, I need to ask you something. How long after your husband's death did the two of you start dating? That seems awkward. Have you talked about this with a minister? I'd like to help.

Please accept my best wishes and hope for your future. May the love of the Lord be with you!

With God's love,
Pastor Scott

* * * * *

Dear Rev. Scott Goodheart,

Please forgive the presumption of your servant. I have not been in the presence of Shelah, my husband's youngest brother. My husband's father has not yet brought me to him. For this I weep bitter tears day and night, as I know my husband's name is left empty like the wind because of it.

You must not think that I, your servant, seek Shelah for my own benefit. My husband was a good and kind man. He did not beat me or mingle with the servant girls. While he died for his own sins, his memory should not be lost. In seeking to be sent to Shelah, I want only to make a name and a memorial for my husband. It is my dearest wish to be among Shelah's other wives. That is my duty and it is where I belong. 

I earnestly appeal to you. How shall I beseech my husband's father when he will not show his face to me? There is no man here who will speak to him on my behalf at the city gates. What shall I do?

With respect,
Tamar

* * * * *

Dear Tamar,

I must urge you to give up the idea of asking your father-in-law for permission to marry a man who is already married and whom you have not even met! I understand your grief at the loss of your husband, but marrying his brother won't bring him back. 

Marriage is a sacred institution, established by God, between one man and one woman. The purpose of marriage is to glorify God, and that can only happen when a husband and wife are joined in a holy covenant devoted to raising godly children. It is not right for you to try to have a child—with Shelah or any man—out of a selfish and futile desire to cheat death.

Forgive me for being so direct. I hope that you will understand how wrong it is for you to do this.

In this day and age, overrun by feminism and secularism, too many people are confused about the proper role of men and women. I see it all the time—people who think it's okay for men to marry men, women to marry women. I see people who think it's okay to have "open marriages" with multiple sex partners. God will judge them! Every perversion reviled by God has become acceptable as our society perverts the biblical foundation of marriage. 

With all the wimpified men in our society, I am not surprised that you have been so misled. For all I know, that's what you see in this man, Shelah. He sounds like the kind of guy who doesn't have the guts to say, "Back off, Tamar. I'm already married!" Believe me, Tamar, he is not for you. Find yourself a real, reverent man who will make you feel secure and help you get over your grief for your late husband.

You seem to me to be a God-fearing woman who is confused. I ask you to turn to your Bible for guidance and inspiration to help you find a marriage that will glorify God and bring you the children you seek, if you are so blessed.

May you find blessing and peace,
Pastor Scott

* * * * *

Dear Rev. Scott Goodheart,

Your most recent letter has confused me. Yet, I seek to follow the path of righteousness you teach. 

I have chosen, as according to your words, not to seek Shelah anymore. I see, as you have spoken, that this is a path that will not take me toward what is good and what God has commanded.

I have resolved, instead, to carry on the name of Judah, my husband's father, through his seed alone. I shall take off my widow's garb and cover my face with a veil. Thus wrapped, I shall station myself at the place called the Opening of the Eye, for it is you who have opened my eyes. There I shall meet my husband's father as he travels to Timnah for the sheep sheering. 

My husband's father is a man who lingers over covered women at the side of the road (his wife having died some years ago). I shall lay with him and get myself a child by him. Thus will I establish his name. I shall see that he does what is right in the eye's of the Lord, though he fears it.

I give great thanks to you, my honored lord, who has opened my eyes to the path of truth. 

With respect,
Tamar

* * * * *

Dear Miss Tamar,

I regret to inform you that, in light of your recent letter, I can no longer abide to offer you further counsel. You have clearly shown that you are not the person that you first presented yourself to be. You have clearly reviled the everlasting truth of our Lord and have embraced flagrantly the ways of a secular, permissive society run amok. 

For shame that you would scheme to seduce your father-in-law as a harlot! You do this only because he has tried to keep you from making lascivious advances on his married son. Have you no sense of decency?

I warn you not to seek further counsel from me until you amend your ways and seek forgiveness from the Lord who is ever merciful.

Sincerely,
The Rev. Scott D. Goodheart

cc: National Convention of Ministers of the Good Word

* * * * *

Dear Rev. Scott Goodheart,

It's a boy! Two of them!

With great gratitude,
Tamar


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This week's Torah portion (Vayeshev) begins the story of Joseph that will take us, over the next four weeks, to the end of the book of Genesis. The Joseph story is a true literary masterpiece. With a set of interwoven and recurring images—lost objects, false accusations, hidden identities, the pit, predictions, and, most of all, dreams—the Joseph story conveys a complex and very human message about the nature of forgiveness, transformation and redemption.

The first installment of the story begins and ends with dreams. In the opening verses, Joseph is the favorite son of his father, which earns him the envy and the malice of his ten older brothers. Joseph tells his brothers his dream in which a sheaf of gathered wheat, representing himself, stands up straight while the other sheaves, representing his brothers, bow down to his sheaf. In another dream, the stars, sun and moon bow down to Joseph in an omen that he would rule over his brothers and parents one day. 

Needless to say, Joseph's brothers did not like the dreams, or the dreamer, one little bit.

At the end of this week's parashah, the predictions of grandeur suggested by Joseph's dreams do not seem to be panning out. His life has been a series of ups and downs. He has gone from being the favorite son to being cast down into slavery. From there, he has risen to a position of authority and power, only to fall again into a dungeon cell. It is in this pit that we encounter the second set of dreams. The king's baker and wine steward have been sent down to the dungeon with Joseph and each of them has a dream which Joseph interprets correctly. The wine steward's dream augurs the restoration of his fortunes, while the baker's dream presages his execution.

What do all of these dreams mean? Like the story of Joseph itself (and, for that matter, like the entire Torah), the dreams seem to cry out for interpretation. Joseph is an interpreter of dreams and, so, he is like us when we read his story. It is entirely possible that the Torah, which was written to be interpreted, is having a meta-conversation about itself and the nature of interpretation. 

Is interpretation something that is imposed upon a dream/text, or are they one? Who is the dreamer/writer? Who is the interpreter? In the story, it appears that Joseph and we, the readers, are both dreamers and interpreters of the text that we call our lives, searching for meaning and for some comprehension that will answer the ultimate question: How shall we live?

Already, in this parashah, there are hints of the direction that the Joseph saga will take in answering these questions. We can apply all our intellect and discernment to the interpretation of our lives, but we cannot predict or control them. The twists and turns of life can take us from favorite son to slave, and from top honcho to bottom-dwelling prisoner—all despite our best efforts to understand what is happening to us. 

If we are wise, though, we will recognize that the dream we are dreaming in this life and its interpretation are not texts that we have written ourselves. As Joseph tells his fellow prisoners, "Is it not so that interpretation belongs to God?" (Genesis 40:8). 

We dream our lives, we interpret them, we live and we seek understanding, but we are not the authors. How do you resolve the paradox of the dreamer who interprets his dream while he is still dreaming it? It can only be understood by knowing that there is one Dreamer who dreams us all.


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