An Unfinished Dialogue with My Sister: Parshat Vayeshev |
It is exactly a year ago that my beloved sister, Menorah Rotenberg died. By chance, when I taught my Genesis Bible class last week, we talked about the Joseph Cycle. I dedicated the class to my sister’s memory. She was obsessed with the Joseph story. I brought to their attention the analogies of the Joseph story with the Akedah. While teaching, I realized how my sister’s thoughts and writings had permeated my own thinking. She focused on the genotype—the passing on of trauma from one generation to the next. You can read the d’var torah she wrote in 2003, which appeared in the Forward. Here is a summary of her article entitled, “A Hidden Master Plot,” by Menorah Rotenberg.
In my sister’s article she points to the fact that the Joseph narrative, echoes many recurring themes from Genesis. One of the most prominent motifs—expulsion—reappears immediately, this time with Joseph as the outcast. Yet the Joseph story also mirrors the Akedah, the Binding of Isaac. Joseph, like Isaac, is a cherished child: Jacob favors him above all his sons and gives him a special tunic, provoking his brothers’ hatred. This raises the question of where such excessive parental love will lead, given that the last time it appeared, it culminated in the near-sacrifice of Isaac. She points out that rereading this portion reveals numerous echoes of the Akedah’s language and imagery. Jacob sends Joseph to check on his brothers’ welfare. Menorah writes:
Even if Joseph’s narcissism had blinded him to his brothers’ hatred for him, and even if he hadn’t grasped the exasperated irony of Jacob’s precipitous send-off, he would have recalled that Shechem reeks with the butchery and violence associated with the rape of Dinah (Genesis 34). Joseph agrees to seek out his brothers and, in a striking parallel, he uses the terminology of the Akedah, echoing his great-grandfather........