Hidden Goblets

The conventional wisdom regarding this week’s Torah reading and its placement in the Joseph cycle is as follows:

Having been thrown into the pit by his brothers, sold into slavery, and subsequently falsely accused and then imprisoned, Joseph, by way of his gift for dream interpretation, knack for self-promotion, and God-given boyish good looks, rises to a position of prominence in Egyptian society – second only to Pharaoh himself. Years later, in a time of famine, Joseph’s brothers (except for Benjamin) journey to Egypt for provisions and find themselves standing before their brother, whose true identity – hidden behind his Egyptian dress, tongue, and demeanor – remains secret. Reminded of his brothers’ misdeeds, Joseph sets into motion an elaborate plan, part vengeance, part test, to ascertain whether they have changed in the intervening years. Joseph accuses them of being spies and imprisons one brother, Simeon, sending the other brothers back home to Canaan with the stipulation that Simeon’s release is contingent on the appearance of Benjamin, Joseph’s younger and full brother (their mother being Rachel). When the brothers return to Canaan, their father Jacob refuses to let Benjamin go, reasoning that both Joseph and Simeon are no more and he is not about to lose another son. Time passes. The famine worsens. Judah vows that should anything happen to Benjamin it will be “on him.” Eventually, Jacob’s hand is forced. He reluctantly lets all the brothers, including Benjamin, journey to Egypt. The brothers return to Joseph and dine with him, and Joseph sends them on their way with provisions. The denouement occurs after Joseph has a goblet secretly placed in Benjamin’s bags and then sends his guards in pursuit of his brothers accusing them of theft. Benjamin is caught red-handed, and Joseph announces that he shall remain a slave for his crime. Our Torah reading this week begins with Judah approaching Joseph, stepping up to the moral plate, and delivering a carefully-wrought speech in which, among other things, he offers himself as a slave in place of Benjamin. At this point Joseph realizes that his brothers have learned their lesson, in that they are willing to put fraternal obligations before themselves and their own self-interest. Having demonstrated their contrition, they have passed the test. Joseph bursts out weeping, announcing: “I am Joseph! Is my father alive?” Joseph kisses all his brothers; Benjamin and Joseph embrace. The brothers are sent to retrieve their father Jacob, and, while I am leaving out a few key elements, they live happily ever after. This is a story about repentance, about forgiveness, and about reconciliation – a story for the ages, worthy of a four-part novel, and, some might say, even a Broadway show.

This morning, I want to invite you into my lifetime obsession with the Joseph story and offer the beginnings of an alternate, and, to the best of my knowledge, original interpretation of the text. While not undermining the  conventional read, it sheds new light on the age-old story and helps explains some of the more curious elements of my favorite biblical narrative.

I would like to begin by positing that a full appreciation of today’s Torah reading demands that one reach back not to the moment when Joseph was thrown into the pit, but even further back, to an often overlooked exchange involving Joseph and Benjamin’s mother Rachel. A few weeks ago, in parashat Va-yetzei, we read of how Jacob labored all those years in the house of Rachel’s father Laban the Aramean, fathering many children by several women until the arrival of Joseph, born to his beloved Rachel. Taking his wives, children, and property, Jacob eventually flees the house of Laban. Laban pursues Jacob and his family, catches up, and accuses Jacob of stealing not only his daughters and family, but also his household gods. Jacob insists that he has done no such thing, so indignant at the accusation that he proclaims, rashly as it turns out, that “Anyone with whom the idols shall be found, shall not live in the presence of our brothers. (Genesis 31:32). Little did Jacob know that Rachel had indeed taken the idols – proof positive of the adage that you can take the girl out of a house of idolaters, but you can’t take the idolatry out of the girl. Laban searches Jacob’s tents and belongings, but Rachel has hidden the idols well, and her father soon goes on  his way. The tragic coda to the story is that Jacob’s curse does prove prophetic, and Rachel dies soon thereafter as she gives birth to Benjamin.

For those with an appreciation for the Bible’s structural poetics, Jacob and his family’s flight from Laban’s house is significant both unto itself, and as a proleptic foreshadowing of the national narrative to come – the Israelites who would flee their Egyptian oppressors, but not without taking a bit of idolatry with them – an inner-biblical allusion made explicit in the Passover Haggadah. But one need not jump all the way to the Exodus to appreciate the reverberations of the Rachel/Benjamin story. Indeed one does not need to be a literary theorist of any great note to see the parallels between this earlier narrative and the narrative of this week’s Torah reading. The children of Jacob are on the move, and they are pursued by their former host. There is an accusation of stolen goods, and in response, a declaration that whosoever is found to be in possession of said objects, that person shall be punished. The parallels in literary structure, thematics, and even word choice are striking. And lest you think it is too much of a stretch: I am not the only one to have made the connection. A very long time ago, for very different purposes, the authors of a rabbinic compilation of midrash called the Tanchuma pointed out the connection between Benjamin’s cup and Rachel’s stolen idols (Tanchuma Buber, Miketz 13). Like mother, like son, the key difference of course being that Benjamin got caught and lived, while Rachel did not and died.

All of which I believe is very interesting: an inner biblical rhyme, no different than countless other moments of intertextuality, and a subject which I spent much time studying in graduate school. But it does not answer the all-important question of “so what?” “So what” if this week’s scene is an intergenerational, intertextual allusion to an earlier scene? “So what” if Joseph's choice to hide a cup in Benjamin’s sack appears to reference their late mother’s taking her father’s idols? Aside from being a wink to the reader that certain biblical tropes recur within the Bible, does the identification of this recurring theme impact our understanding of the broader story?

My answer: absolutely.

The Bible never makes explicit what the brothers knew about Rachel’s theft, Jacob’s vow, Benjamin’s birth, and Rachel’s passing. But we do know that all of Jacob’s children were present at that confrontation with Laban and most likely witnessed it all. We can safely presume that a family story like that doesn’t stay hidden forever – not from the brothers who were alive, nor from Benjamin, born soon thereafter. No different than in our own families when two siblings forever share a storehouse of childhood experiences, it seems altogether plausible that the children of Jacob were well aware not only of their flight from Laban’s house, but also Rachel’s theft and near discovery. All of which is to say that the audience of the inner biblical allusion is not just the reader, but the brothers themselves. To put it plainly, I think that when Joseph hid the cup in Benjamin’s bag, had his brothers pursued, and announced Benjamin’s fate, he did so not only to test their fraternal bonds or check on their level of contrition. Joseph was making an all but explicit inner family reference in order to drop a not so subtle hint that only they would understand, hoping that they too would remember and see the connection.

Why play games? Why not just reveal himself as Joseph without the cat-and-mouse tactics? Nobody knows for sure, but it seems to me that for whatever reason, Joseph had decided not to reveal his identity all at once. He took small steps, gaining confidence in himself and his brothers inch by inch. When the brothers feasted together, Joseph – identity still secret – sat his brothers in precise age order – much to their astonishment and no doubt arousing their suspicions. Benjamin, Joseph’s only full brother, received a portion that was exponentially larger than the others. Joseph was many things, but clumsy he wasn’t. I think Joseph wanted his brothers to know who he really was, but was understandably hesitant. He also, incidentally, needed a way to test his other brothers while keeping his beloved Benjamin safe from threat. I think Joseph was giving Benjamin a nod as to what was going on. The goblet in Benjamin’s sack was the final clue, the cue for the breakthrough to undo the damage that had been done so many years before.

And I believe that Judah, as he spoke to Joseph, knew. He knew that this Egyptian before him was a Jew. The clues were laid out in front of him, and he had learned along the way from his daughter-in-law Tamar – a story we don’t have time to get into right now – that sometimes there is more to the person in front of you than meets the eye. I think Judah knew who Joseph was because his speech all but says that Judah knew. Take a moment this morning to read it carefully. The focal point of Judah’s remarks is not what you would expect – a defense of Benjamin or a plea for lighter sentencing. Judah’s speech pounded away, again and again, at the one thing that could break Joseph’s veneer and, by extension, the stalemate, the one thing that the two brothers shared in common, that could turn the screws and pull on his brother’s heartstrings: their father, Jacob. Jacob is referenced no fewer than fourteen times in Judah’s speech. (All that is missing is Cat Stevens playing “Father and Son” in the background.) Furthermore, if nothing else, Judah’s speech makes clear for the first time that Jacob was not in any way complicit in Joseph’s descent to Egypt – a clarification that resolves one of the great conundrums of the entire story: Why, in all the years since Joseph’s release from prison, did he not communicate to his father – by person, by messenger, phone, email, or text – that he was alive! Judah knew that the Egyptian enthroned before him was Joseph, and he knew that somewhere deep inside, Joseph wanted Judah to know. Judah’s speech was not just a plea for mercy, nor merely a declaration of remorse. Its rhetorical brilliance is that he pried Joseph out of his Egyptian façade and emotional shell. Such a reading explains why a broken and weeping Joseph’s first Hebrew words to his brothers were ani yosef; ha-od avi hai, I am Joseph, is my father still living. At first blush Joseph’s response is nonsensical in that Judah has spent the previous sixteen verses speaking of his clearly living father and the consequences that would befall Jacob should Benjamin be detained. But knowing what we know now, it is clear that Joseph’s sputtering question, “Shall my father live?” was directed not at his brothers but at himself, an interrogative signaling that Joseph understood that his father’s continued well-being was contingent on whether he would bring this Kabuki dance with his brothers to a conclusion.

It is a lot, and there are still a few i’s to dot and t’s to cross, some loose ends yet to be resolved. Basically, my argument is that by the time of Judah’s speech before Joseph, Judah strongly suspected to whom he was speaking because Joseph had strongly hinted at who he was. Joseph was ready, even if he did not fully realize it, to reconcile – a fact that Judah intuited and dared to seize upon. As Joseph catches his breath, he tells his brothers that it is time to let bygones be bygones. The past is the past; there is a future to be shared; and it is the job of the living to embrace this tikkun – this mending – and make the most of the present. The language of Joseph and Benjamin’s tearful embrace mirrors the language of other fraternal embraces, a signal to the reader that the underlying message of this story is not only the reunion and reconciliation of these particular brothers, but an appeal to all siblings not to get mired in the wrongs of the past – a past that more often than not dates way, way further back than anyone cares to admit. It is a message that is also made explicit in this morning’s Haftarah. In what I believe to be one of the most beautiful images of all of biblical literature, the prophet Ezekiel’s describes bringing together two sticks, one inscribed “Judah,” and the other “Joseph.” It is a prophetic vision of redemption in which two siblings are brought together in one hand – as one family.

Friends, sometimes a cup is just a cup. And sometimes that cup . . . signals a whole lot more than meets the eye. You can read the story of Joseph and Judah for the story that it is on the surface, but you can also probe it in all its technicolor possibilities.  No different than our own family stories, the Joseph narrative teachers that our relationships can be mended if we are willing to do the hard work to acknowledge the past but not let that past be an obstacle to our future. We are all, after all, cupbearers sitting in prisons of one form or another. We are all waiting for the other to make the first move. The key to our freedom and the freedom of others is whether we will choose to use the gift of memory to unlock a future which is our right to enjoy. Those cups and goblets after all, are never quite as hidden as we say they are. They are there for anyone willing to take the time to find them. And you know what? If we do, we might just discover that those cups . . . they may just runneth over.