Only a few weeks ago I was standing here talking about brothers’ rivalry and the fateful meeting of Jacob and Esau. After the sermon some of you approached me to say that you were hoping that as a mother of three boys, I will be able to share some ‘real life’ insight into brotherly feuds today. Despite the many dramas in our household, and we do have our fair share of those, thankfully none come close to what Genesis has to offer…
But rather than try and explain the complex inter-family relations between Joseph, his father Jacob, and the siblings, particularly Judah, I would like to look at Joseph himself and one particular aspect of his character that might be a key to reading his behaviour or actions in many of the episodes in this intriguing story.
In Genesis 30 we read about Joseph’s birth. His mother, Rachel, was barren, and therefore she offered her maid to Jacob in her stead, and the maid Bilha bore Jacob two sons. When eventually Rachel conceives and Joseph is born, he is named after his mother’s wish to have yet another son; ‘and she called his name Joseph, saying: The Lord add to me [יוסף] another son.’ (Genesis 30.24) There are two mother figures and two sons, all part of Joseph’s very beginning. And his birth results in a dramatic change for the whole family, as we read in the next verse: ‘And it came to pass, when Rachel had borne Joseph, that Jacob said unto Laban: Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country’ (Genesis 30.25).
And thus Jacob, his wives and children set off to Canaan, and as Joseph grows up we see that he also takes his brothers out of Canaan and down to Egypt.
As a youth Joseph stands out as Jacob’s favourite son, as the one in the coat of many colours and the one to share his dreams of grandeur and superiority. Genesis 37 tells of the envy and hatred of the brothers and their decision to sell him, as a slave. Who is Joseph here? We have the loved son dressed in a coat, and the despised brother whose coat is taken from him; we have the youngest sibling who images himself as greater than his older brothers; we have a free man sold as a slave. Joseph seems to appear in different forms and guises, and so he continues in Egypt. He is a slave in Potiphar’s household, but he stands out for his success as well as his beauty. He is seduced, but accused of seducing, and from slave he becomes a prisoner. Once again he changes his clothes, no longer wearing the coat his father made for him and which his brothers took and stained with blood; he is stripped of his dress by Potiphar’s wife and as a result, we can assume, he is now wearing a prisoner’s garb.
Joseph spends over two years in jail, despite having successfully interpreted dreams, he was forgotten, until finally Pharaoh hears of him and calls for him to decipher his enigmatic dream. When Joseph is brought out of jail, ‘he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came in unto Pharaoh’ (Genesis 41.14), and when Pharaoh recognises his ability to decipher dreams, he makes him his closest aide and ‘arrayed him in vestures of fine linen, and put a gold chain about his neck (Genesis 41.42).
Three words are used in the Hebrew to describe Joseph’s different clothes: כותנת, שמלה, בגד and they repeat throughout. Joseph’s is the only Biblical figure whose attire is described so often, he is being dressed, and undressed, dressed up and thus changing forms and changing fortunes. Note too that clothes are the first item he gifts to his brothers, before loading their wagons with food, even at a time of famine.
Bereshit Raba interprets Joseph’s otherness among his siblings in gender terms, ‘שהיה עושה מעשה נערות [או נערות], משמשם בעיניו, מתקן בשערו, מתלה בעקיבו.’ ‘he would engage in deeds of girls [or boyish deeds], apply makeup to his eyes, fix his hair, dangle his heels.[1]
There is a long rabbinic tradition that focuses on Joseph’s femininity and possible undefined gender identity to explain his otherness.
An Israeli poet, Nurit Zarhi, born 1941, takes this point further in her retelling of Joseph’s live in Genesis, in a ‘what-if’ poem.
In the tent sits Rachel
Collecting one strand of hair and then another
To hide under a silk cap
The hair of her daughter, Joseph
For if a son you wished for
And your days are waning
Only with falsehood can
God’s decision be turned
The little girl sits in the tent
Dressed in her colourful stripy coat
When outside – she is a boy
And in secret, she’s a maid
And now the whole world knows
For her shame was taken from her
Rachel gave birth to a male heir
And she is her daughter
The mother looks at her daughter’s hair
Reading the future in the darkness of her hair
Dreams, my girl, will throw you to the pit
And from there to a foreign court
The little girl sits in the tent
Hearing her mother’s words
And she is taken by wonder
And she is taken by fear
And Rachel continues, flustered
The blows have just begun
You will be put in prison
And by dreams you will be freed
And now the whole world knows
For her shame was taken from her
Rachel gave birth to a male heir
And she is her daughter
The little girl sits in the tent
Listening attentively
When outside – she is a boy
And in secret, she’s a maid
When Joseph finally reveals his/her true identity in the section we just heard, there is a curious detail that helps convince his brothers that this Egyptian official is their long-lost brother. To prove to them that he is the Joseph he claims to be he says, ‘and behold, your eyes see, and the eyes of my brother Benjamin, that it is my mouth that speaketh unto you’ (Genesis 45.12). Why is the mouth more recognisable than the rest of him? Does he not dress/paint his lips? Rashi explains that Joseph here speaks in Hebrew, בלשון הקודש. Under all the different guises and dresses, Joseph reveals himself in his mother tongue, so his brothers can now finally consider him as one of their own.
[1] For more on Joseph’s sexuality and gender see Robert A. Harris, ‘Sexual orientation in the presentation of Joseph’s character in Biblical and Rabbinic literature,’ AJS Review 43.1 (April 2019), 67-104.