Increasingly I focus my attention on a paradox: the beautiful vision of Genesis 1-3 against a world filled with bloodshed and violence in the rest of the Torah, a world in which bloodshed is deliberately increased through animal sacrifice.

It is very difficult for me to imagine how the same “mind” that put forward the vision of Gen. 1-3 also put forward a project that included the terrified cries of a sacrificial animal and the stench of blood on the altar as a form of worship. How can this kind of worship express both joy and gratitude and act as atonement? Or as another writer put it, what was at stake that made this act that seems so horrific meaningful?

The first three chapters of Genesis offer an extraordinary and powerful vision of the spiritual unity of all being in a harmony of differences. Chapter 4 jolts us out of that vision as we begin the path into a world where violence and corruption overwhelm the intention of creation.

Human agency has a role in shaping that world of violence and bloodshed, and that agency brings with it blood guilt. I’m not sure that I can detail yet exactly how that happens in the text or what it means, but it does seem to produce an economy in which animal blood, representing life, pays what is due for human blood guilt.

Human beings are privileged over other animals because they are “in the image” of G-d. Taking a human life brings heavy consequences. In the economy of creation, taking a life requires payment with a life — a life for a life:

וְאַ֨ךְ אֶת־דִּמְכֶ֤ם לְנַפְשֹֽׁתֵיכֶם֙ אֶדְרֹ֔שׁ מִיַּ֥ד כָּל־חַיָּ֖ה אֶדְרְשֶׁ֑נּוּ וּמִיַּ֣ד הָֽאָדָ֗ם מִיַּד֙ אִ֣ישׁ אָחִ֔יו אֶדְרֹ֖שׁ אֶת־נֶ֥פֶשׁ הָֽאָדָֽם׃

But for your own life-blood I will require a reckoning: I will require it of every beast; of man, too, will I require a reckoning for human life, of every man for that of his fellow man! (Gen. 9:5)

This verse points not only to the idea that human life is sacred, that it is privileged above all other life because human beings are in the image of G-d, but that animals, like humans, are morally accountable for taking the life of a human being.  This week’s portion fills in the legislative specifics of those concepts.

Last year I explored the parallel themes of moral freedom and restrictions on freedom for the sake of relationship in Mishpatim.  This year I narrow my focus to the relationship between humans, specifically Israelites, and animals. These relationships are based on a balance between freedom and restrictions on freedom and, in that framework, moral accountability.

In Yitro, last week, I explored the idea of valuing lives. Following are the animal references in Mishpatim, a particularly rich portion for discovering how lives are valued, what are “correct” relationships, and the dimensions of moral accountability:

* * * * *

The first five passages below deal with domestic animals, primarily an ox. In all cases but the first, the ox is dealt with as property. In the first passage, the ox is morally accountable, subject to capital punishment if the ox takes a human life — whether that act was accidental (the ox was not in the habit of goring) or premeditated (that ox has been in the habit of goring).

The moral accountability of the ox is demonstrated in the consequence of its being stoned, a punishment meted out to human beings for offenses like blasphemy, idolatry, desecration of the Sabbath, witchcraft, rebelling against one’s parents, prostitution of a betrothed virgin, or deception of a husband at marriage with regard to one’s chastity. We might say these are offenses against the order of creation, as would be the offense of a homicidal ox.

Ex. 21:28-32 – “When an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be stoned and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is not to be punished. If, however, that ox has been in the habit of goring, and its owner, although warned, has failed to guard it, and it kills a man or a woman — the ox shall be stoned and its owner, too, shall be put to death. If ransom is laid upon him, he must pay whatever is laid upon him to redeem his life. So, too, if it gores a minor, male or female, [the owner] shall be dealt with according to the same rule. But if the ox gores a slave, male or female, he shall pay thirty shekels of silver to the master, and the ox shall be stoned.”

Ex. 21:33- 37 – “When a man opens a pit, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or an ass falls into it, the one responsible for the pit must make restitution; he shall pay the price to the owner, but shall keep the dead animal. When a man’s ox injures his neighbor’s ox and it dies, they shall sell the live ox and divide its price; they shall also divide the dead animal. If, however, it is known that the ox was in the habit of goring, and its owner has failed to guard it, he must restore ox for ox, but shall keep the dead animal. When a man steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, he shall pay five oxen for the ox, and four sheep for the sheep.”

Ex. 22:1-4 – “…the thief is seized while tunneling, and he is beaten to death, there is no blood guilt in his case. If the sun has risen on him, there is blood guilt in that case. –He must make restitution; if he lacks the means, he shall be sold for his theft. But if what he stole — whether ox or ass or sheep — is found alive in his possession, he shall pay double. When a man lets his livestock loose to graze in another’s land, and so allows a field or a vineyard to be grazed bare, he must make restitution for the impairment of that field or vineyard.”

Ex. 22:8 – “In all charges of misappropriation–pertaining to an ox, an ass, a sheep, a garment, or any other loss, whereof one party alleges, ‘This is it’ — the case of both parties shall come before G-d: he whom G-d declares guilty shall pay double to the other.”

Ex. 22:9-14 – “When a man gives to another an ass, an ox, a sheep or any other animal to guard, and it dies or is injured or is carried off, with no witness about, an oath before the Lord shall decide between the two of them that the one has not laid hands on the property of the other; the owner must acquiesce, and no restitution shall be made. But if [the animal] was stolen from him, he shall make restitution to its owner. If it was torn by beasts, he shall bring it as evidence; he need not replace what has been torn by beasts. When a man borrows [an animal] from another and it dies or is injured, its owner not being with it, no restitution need be made; but if it was hired, he is entitled to the hire.”

* * * * *

Ex. 22:18 – “Whoever lies with a beast shall be put to death.”

In Leviticus 20:15, this legislation adds that the animal should also be put to death:

וְאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֨ר יִתֵּ֧ן שְׁכָבְתּ֛וֹ בִּבְהֵמָ֖ה מ֣וֹת יוּמָ֑ת וְאֶת־הַבְּהֵמָ֖ה תַּהֲרֹֽגוּ׃

If a man has carnal relations with a beast, he shall be put to death; and you shall kill the beast. Both the human and the animal offend against creation, and both pay for this transgression with their lives.

* * * * *

These next three passages refer back to the vision of Genesis 1-3 in which animals and humans share the spiritual roundtable, a world that offers us an “extraordinary and powerful vision of the spiritual unity of all being in a harmony of differences.” We are not confronted with the image of human superiority to animals based on the idea that they are “in the image” of G-d — but with the requirement for justice and compassion in relation to all life:

Ex. 22:29-30 – “You shall do the same with your cattle and your flocks: seven days it shall remain with its mother; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. You shall be holy people to Me: you must not eat flesh torn by beasts in the field; you shall cast it to the dogs.”

Ex. 23:4-5 – “When you encounter your enemy’s ox or ass wandering, you must take it back to him. When you see the ass of your enemy lying under its burden and would refrain from raising it, you must nevertheless raise it with him.”

Ex. 23:11-12 – “…in the seventh [year] you shall let it rest and lie fallow. Let the needy among your people eat of it, and what they leave let the wild beasts eat. You shall do the same with your vineyards and your olive groves.”

* * * * *

Finally we return to the idea of animal sacrifice, leveling the field between human beings and other animals in another way, by reminding human beings that in this post-Genesis 1-3 world, they are also part of the cycle of prey and predator. They have a path toward a different life through no merit of their own but through the saving grace of G-d that offers the mechanism of animal sacrifice. Even as human beings, Israelites in particular, are distinguished — they are reminded of their obligation to show compassion to other animals and their obligation to G-d:

Ex. 23:18 – “You shall not offer the blood of My sacrifice with anything leavened; and the fat of my festal offering shall not be left lying until morning.

Ex. 23:19b – “You shall not boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”

Ex. 23:29 – “I will not drive them out before you in a single year, lest the land become desolate and the wild beasts multiply to your hurt. I will drive them out before you little by little…”

Ex. 24:5-6 – “He designated some young men among the Israelites, and they offered burnt offerings and sacrificed bulls as offerings of well-being to the Lord. Moses took one part of the blood and put it in basins, and the other part of the blood he dashed against the altar. Then he took the record of the covenant and read it aloud to the people. And they said, ‘All that the Lord has spoken we will faithfully do!’ Moses took the blood and dashed it on the people and said, ‘This is the blood of the covenant that the Lord now makes with you concerning all these commands.”

What is at stake in this system of animal sacrifice? The life of human beings. Animal sacrifice is payment for a human debt of both moral culpability for transgressions against life and joyful gratitude that their own lives are spared, that by fulfilling a covenant relationship which restricts their predatory urges, they can save themselves from becoming prey.

I am not yet fully satisfied with this understanding of the meaning of animal sacrifice, but I inch closer to a center of meaning as I work through these portions each year. Perhaps it is my own inability to derive meaning from this practice that prevents me from seeing what had to have been a powerful experience for those who participated in it, at least until it became routinized.

Last year’s analysis of Yitro revealed  a relationship theme and a 3-2-3-2 structure to the 10 Utterances:

The first three utterances refer to G-d: 1) I am the Lord your G-d; you shall have no others before Me,  2) No graven images,  and 3) Don’t take the Name of the Lord in vain.

The second two utterances refer to creation, G-d’s and human creativity: 1) Remember the Sabbath, and 2) Honor your father and mother. G-d created the world, nature and humanity and rested; and your mother and father created you, brought you into life. These two commandments are the only positive commandments of the ten.

The next three utterances refer to all of humanity, all of human society: 1) Don’t murder, 2) Don’t commit adultery, and 3) Don’t steal.

The last two utterances use the distinctive word “neighbor,” re-ah (resh-ayin-hay): 1) Don’t bear false witness against your neighbor, and 2) Don’t covet your neighbor’s house, wife, man-servant…etc. I expanded some on the possible meanings of “neighbor.”

These 10 Utterances serve to define parts of Cosmos and the relationships between the parts: G-d or Transcendence / G-d-Human Relationship / Human-Human Relationship / Relationships within a Society.  According to some rabbis, the idea of neighbor may extend beyond one’s immediate society to include a much wider “society,” even one’s fellow creatures, other animals.

Further, there is an epilogue to the 10 Utterances  in Exodus 20:21-23: “Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you. And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them. Do not ascend My altar by steps, that your nakedness may not be exposed upon it.”

The epilogue, in my opinion, elaborates on the idea of the “image of G-d” and its corollary, the “likeness of G-d.” I want to focus on this theme, the image of G-d, for this reason: In order for the author/s of the worldview expressed in the Torah to arrive at a conclusion that an animal can be sacrificed to redeem a human debt or that eating animals is permissible, there must first be an understanding  that the human has a higher value.

Two of the things I have wanted to understand through my study over the last year-and-a-half are 1) what is the sense of indebtedness or guilt requiring an animal sacrifice about? and 2) what criteria, exactly, allowed a conclusion that a human life has greater value than an animal life? The “image of G-d” theme helps me explore the value question.

There are three terms or phrases used to refer to human beings. Two of them refer also to animals: both animals and humans are בָּשָׂר (basar – flesh, meat, carcass, material substance) and נֶפֶשׁ (soul, flesh animated by the breath of G-d, a living being — most often translated “soul”). Only humans are נַעֲשֶׂה אָדָם בְּצַלְמֵנוּ כִּדְמוּתֵנוּ (b’tzelem Elokim, b’d’muto – “in our image, after our likeness”).

What, exactly, does “in the image” / “likeness” mean? Most commentaries suggest it refers to moral consciousness, a capability for moral decision-making.

And yet…there is a sense that something else is going on. Gn. 1:21 talks about the creation of other species in this way: “And God created the great sea-monsters, and every living creature that creepeth, wherewith the waters swarmed, after its kind, and every winged fowl after its kind…” And in Gn. 1:24: ‘Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after its kind.’ Human beings are in the likeness of G-d; and other living creatures are “after their kind.”

The birth of Seth in Gen. 5:1-3 creates more complexity around this idea of “in the image.” In parallel verses, G-d creates Adam — and Adam gives birth to Seth. The human action involves sexuality, G-d’s action does not. However, the result is the same: G-d’s creation is in G-d’s image and likeness. The child born to Adam is in Adam’s image and likeness: “In the day that God created Adam, in the likeness of God made He him…” (Gn. 5:1) – “[Adam] begot a son in his own likeness, after his image…” (Gn. 5:3). The obvious meaning of Adam begetting a son is his own image is that there is a physical resemblance between them. The relationship between G-d and Adam on the same basis must mean something similar, yet the presentation is nuanced.

There is yet another wrinkle in the idea that “in the image” refers, simply, to moral capacity in humans that animals don’t possess — and that is, that animals are held morally accountable, and animals are given specific moral instructions:

1. Animals are exiled from the Garden into life along with their human counterparts. Given the instruction for veganism along with humans in the creation stories, beyond the Garden they, like humans, are part of a cycle of predator and prey.
2. Animals, like humans (“all flesh,” which we recognize as a carcass without the animating breath of G-d), are wiped off the face of the earth in the Flood because of violence and corruption except for a saving remnant.
3. The new food instructions in this post-diluvial world of predator and prey include meat-eating but with an immediate and significant restriction: humans cannot eat the blood, and they are held accountable for human lives they take — but so are the animals: “And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it; and at the hand of man, even at the hand of every man’s brother, will I require the life of man.” (Gn. 9:5) – And more, a return to the “image of G-d” theme in this context: “…for in the image of God made He Adam.
4. In terms of the purity of the animals appropriate for sacrifice, for G-d to “eat,” and for kashrut, for humans to eat, the possibility that an animal might prey on humans makes an animal unacceptable. I first thought, all the animals permitted to eat were vegetarian, which seems counter-intuitive. This is close but not 100% consistent and not necessarily a concern of the priestly text. Then I thought, all the animals permitted to eat don’t eat blood. Closer, but I’m not sure that’s quite it either, and it’s not a fully tested hypothesis. Most recently, after reading the Flood story and the passage quoted above, I think perhaps kashrut excludes those animals that are known to kill human beings — because human beings are “in the image” of G-d.
5. Finally, I am considering the thought that an animal became the sacrifice in place of a human precisely because an animal was not “in the image” but was, rather, “after its kind.” Sacrificing the human whose debt was at the center of the sacrificial ritual would have been akin to sacrificing G-d. It was impossible. Thus understanding what, exactly, “in the image” means becomes critical to understanding the meaning of animal sacrifice.

So whatever “in the image” means, and I’ll fill that in more as I work my way through the portions this year, these phrases set out a foundation to look at the epilogue in this week’s portion, again: “Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being, your sheep and your oxen; in every place where I cause My name to be mentioned I will come to you and bless you. And if you make for Me an altar of stones, do not build it of hewn stones; for by wielding your tool upon them you have profaned them. Do not ascend My altar by steps, that your nakedness may not be exposed upon it.”

Keeping in mind my diverse and as yet unsettled thoughts related to “in the image,” I read the unadorned earth altar and the unhewn stone altar as places of purity, materials from G-d without human additions. This is the place where the pure sacrifice, the perfect animal, spills its lifeblood in exchange for human lifeblood.

To the extent the human being is “in the image,” it is clear why it is forbidden to expose nakedness by ascending up steps. It is unseemly, but it is something else: it reveals gender, which appearances of G-d never do in the Torah — and it is tied to sexuality, a process that G-d doesn’t require when G-d creates (Gn. 5:1-3) We might say it would disrupt the ritual “fiction” in which human beings experience that they are G-d like.

THE ANIMALS’ STORY

These are the specific references to animals in Yitro:

Ex. 18:12 – “And Jethro (Yitro), Moses’ father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and sacrifices for G-d; and Aaron came with all the elders of Israel to partake of the meal before G-d with Moses’ father-in-law.

Ex. 19:4 – “‘You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, how I bore you on eagles’ wings and brought you to Me.'”

Ex. 19:13 -“…no hand shall touch him, but he shall be either stoned or shot; beast or man, he shall not live.’ When the ram’s horn sounds a long blast, they may go up on the mountain.”

Ex. 19:16 – “On the third day…and a very loud blast of the horn; and all the people who were in the camp trembled.”

Ex. 20:10 – “…but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your G-d: you shall not do any work — you, your son or daughter, your male or female slave, or your cattle, or the stranger who is within your settlements.”

Ex. 20:14 – “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house: you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female slave, or his ox or his ass, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

Ex. 20:15 – “All the people witnessed the thunder and lightning, the blare of the horn…”

Ex. 20:21 – “Make for Me an altar of earth and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your sacrifices of well-being, your sheep and your oxen…”

COMMENTS

Ex. 19:4 offers a beautiful, tender image of G-d saving G-d’s people, listing them out of bondage, as if “on wings of eagles.” It has the effect of showing a seamless relationship between G-d, the Israelites and the rest of G-d’s creation. In a characteristically paradoxical image, birds of prey not permissible for sacrifice or food become the image of G-d’s tenderness.

Ex. 19:13 focuses our attention once again on an awareness that animals are held accountable along with humans for their infractions, intentional and unintentional. They, like the Israelites, will die if they encroach on the mountain  perimeter.

One of the most beautiful and possibly distinctive ideas in this section is in Ex. 20:10, the fourth commandment. As Israelites observe the Sabbath through ceasing their labor, rest…so they are required to release their animals for rest on the seventh day. The sabbath is a day of rest from work for all those under the care of an Israelite including their domesticated animals. They reflect G-d’s treatment of them in their own behavior toward their animals.

Finally, we see again that the animals’ story corresponds to their human counterparts. They are intimately connected in sacrificial worship with one standing in for the other, and they are intimately connected in life, working together during six days and resting together on the Sabbath.

I began my Torah Ecology project with this pair of Torah portions a year ago shortly after and because of the election of Donald Trump to the presidency. I mention that because today is one day after Trump once again showed us his deformed values in a particularly vulgar way with his comments about Nigeria and Haiti.

In my opinion, this pair of portions speaks directly to the Sitz im Leben in which we find ourselves in the United States today, inching toward destruction of the planet, of ourselves as a nation, of our neighbors and of other creatures who share the planet with us. The root of that destruction is our own failure to create a just and compassionate society, and for me, this president, while not wholly responsible for that failure, symbolizes it.

My project focuses on relationships — between ha-Aretz (the land), ha-Shamayim (the heavens) and ha-Yamim (the seas), that is, the environment, and all that lives in the environment. It also deals with relationships between human beings,  bein Adam l’havero — and with how those relationships impact both the environment and other life in it.

In a sense, in the biblical story, these earthly relationships come to take precedence over the connection bein Adam la-Makom (between human beings and G-d) — if only because failed relationships within creation indicate a failed relationship with Transcendence.

The biblical story looks toward the creation of a just and compassionate society. To the extent that is not effected, rain will not fall, and crops will not grow. Ultimately the land will “vomit out” its inhabitants. Other life on the planet succeeds and fails as human beings succeed and fail, and success and failure is measured by the extent to which human societies establish justice and are compassionate toward their most vulnerable.

The Torah develops the theme of the intimate relationship between how human beings act in the world and with each other in society and how those relationships impact the environment and the animal world. It explores these relationships with a repeating motif of creation, destruction/rollbacks of creation, new creation.  Human beings, according to the biblical text, have always had the ability to create a fertile, beautiful world with enough for all — or to bring about a catastrophic destruction to the society filled with violence and corruption. The destruction drags all with it, the innocent, including the animals, and the righteous. The theme of creation, destruction/rollbacks of creation, new creation repeats throughout the biblical text.

This pair of Torah portions captures that motif in the Ten Plagues, which stretch across two portions, Vaera and Bo. I engaged in an initial probe into the structure and the meaning of these portions when I worked them through last year. I made progress but wasn’t fully satisfied. I made more progress this year but am still not fully satisfied. I did add some thoughts, though, after I tested out different structuring mechanisms and focused more closely on what I’m calling the “Animals’ Story.”

Because there are so many references to animals in the course of the 10 Plagues story, I won’t recount them here. I charted them for my own reference while I continue to consider the details of my chart. Here’s an abridged version below. In Part II of this post, “The Animals’ Story,” I’ll list any additional animal references in Bo that follow the 10 Plagues account.

PROLOGUE (Ex 7:1-13) – snake

PLAGUES

1. (Ex 7:14-24) – blood pollutes rivers, fish die
2. (Ex 7:25-8:11) – frogs pollute land until karet, cut off from the land
3. (Ex 8:12-15) – dust of earth turns to lice; affects “man and beast”
4. (Ex 8:16-28) – insect swarms ruin the land; affect people
5. (Ex 9:1-7) – pestilence kills domesticated animals
6. (Ex 9:8-12) – soot from kiln becomes dust, causes boils; affects “man and beast”
7. (Ex 9:13-35) – Hail destroys land, “man and beast” die, herbs  of field, trees killed
8. (Ex 10:1-20) – Locusts kill every remaining green thing, herbs, fruit of trees, trees; cannot see the land 
9. (Ex 10:21-29) – Darkness so deep it can be touched; one person can’t see another next to him for three days; when Pharaoh prevaricates, Moses says “not one hoof” will remain behind
10. (Ex 11:1-10, 12:29-42) – Death of firstborn of Egyptians, specifically includes their animals – even the Egyptian gods are destroyed. Blood on doorposts & lintel of Israelite homes protects and preserves life

EPILOGUE (Ex 12:1-28) – Eat unleavened bread for seven days (lest they are karet, cut off from their community)

Here are the things that seem suggestive to me so far:

• The 10 Plagues segment is filled with allusions to the creation story in Genesis, Chapter 1. Secondarily, it assumes the Flood story of Genesis, Chapters 6-9 with its motif of creation, destruction/rollbacks of creation, new creation from a saving remnant.
• The Prologue and Epilogue set the creation story backdrop with the reference to the snake at one end and to seven days at the other end.
• The first plague and the tenth plague bracket the story with references to blood, with the paradoxical dual valence it usually has in the biblical text: it pollutes (the Nile and kills the fish), and it protects and preserves life (when it is spread on the doorposts and lintel of Israelite homes).
• The 10 Plagues represent a sequential rollback of creation, beginning from the water, moving on to the land, from there to the vegetation and life on the land. The land is hidden from view by the locusts as it was hidden from view by the waters before G-d gathered them into seas. Then people are no longer visible to one another as a primordial darkness settles over them, a darkness so thick they could touch it. The story returns the world of the Egyptians to the tohu va-vohu (darkness and emptiness) of the second verse of Genesis. Finally, the Egyptian future is erased in the death of the firstborn. Even their gods are destroyed in the Epilogue (Ex 12:12).
• As one cosmos dissolves, one creation rolls back, another is created. As the plagues roll back the world of the Egyptians to a primordial darkness and emptiness, the Israelites emerge in a new creation passing through a seven-day event (parallel to creation), the feast of unleavened bread.

The 10 Plagues is a structured and allusive story, and the  dual-valenced blood framing of the prologue and epilogue points to the structure.

In my last analysis of these portions, I tried dividing the plagues into groups of three, capped with the 10th and final plague. This time the bracket suggested by the blood imagery persuaded me to look for a chiastic structure. I’m not sure that I can demonstrate that — yet. I’m also intrigued with pairs — #2 and #5, #3 and #6, #4 and #7, #5 and #8, #6 and #9. It was the “man and beast” of the third and sixth plagues that raised this possibility for me. The fourth and seventh plagues are also suggestive, with land destroyed in the fourth and everything on it (vegetation, and again, “man and beast”) in the seventh, similar to the creation story in which land is created then filled with vegetation.

Whatever details continue to reveal themselves as I study, the creation, destruction/rollbacks of creation, new creation motif is critical for my own understanding of the text and its application to our time.

The idea that one sphere impacts other spheres so catastrophically resonates with me, the idea that an absence of justice and compassion in human society creates deformities in the environment and ultimately brings destruction to all living creatures describes what I see today. This interpretation allows me to identify with another time and another culture, giving me a glimpse of the universality of human experience, of the interconnectedness of all being and of the imperative for justice in all our interconnected relationships.

THE ANIMALS’ STORY

In the course of the 10 Plagues, the human story is linked most closely to the land animals’ story. Whereas water creatures like fish and frogs pollute the land after their environment is disrupted, and insects and locusts and lice attack “both man and beast,” the livestock (behemah, beast) don’t turn on their human masters (ish, man), nor do the human masters do any damage to their livestock unless disbelief causes them (the Egyptians) not to protect their animals when they are warned. In fact, the land animals suffer with their humans (the Egyptians – Ex. 12:29) and are saved with their humans (the Israelites – Ex. 12:32, 38). While they may no longer have a “seat at the spiritual table,” they are, at least, in the room.

This special connection between human beings and other land animals is consistent with the rest of the biblical presentation. In Gen. 1:29, we read: “29 And God said: ‘Behold, I have given you every herb yielding seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed–to you it shall be for food…30 and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is a living soul, [I have given] every green herb for food.'” Beasts of the earth are second to humans in the list of those who receive the vegan dietary prescription. Fish are missing. Humans converse with the snake in the Garden, not with fowl of the air or creeping things. When the whale swallows Jonah, the fish and the human don’t have a conversation.

Humans and land animals intimately share a habitat and a spiritual destiny.

There are only three remaining animal references in the Vaera-Bo portions, in Ex 12:43-13:16. The first two relate to the Law of the Passover offering:

Ex. 13:1 – “The Lord spoke further to Moses, saying, ‘Consecrate to Me every first-born; man and beast, the first issue of every womb among the Israelites is Mine.'”

Ex. 13:12-13 “…you shall set apart for the Lord every first issue of the womb; every male firstling that your cattle drop shall be the Lord’s. But every firstling ass you shall redeem with a sheep; if you do not redeem it, you must break its neck. And you must redeem every first-born male among your children.”

Ex. 13:15 -“When, in time to come, your son asks you, saying, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘When Pharaoh stubbornly refused to let us go, the Lord slew every firstborn in the land of Egypt, the first-born of both man and beast. Therefore I sacrifice to the Lord every first male issue of the womb, but redeem every first-born among my sons.'”

We see two themes of relationship in these verses: the intimate connection between human beings and other land animals, the way they share both habitat and spiritual destiny, and the priority of human beings in the economy of creation that exacts a price for life. An animal forfeits its life for the sake of human beings. This, too, like the creation-destruction/rollback of creation/new creation motif is a universal experience with which we can all connect. Animals dying so humans can live returns me to the Starting Thought of my blog:

“This thought occurs to me about meals: as we gather raw ingredients, prepare food and eat, we embrace the central moral paradox of human existence, that it requires taking life to sustain life.  How we respond to that paradox defines us as human beings.

“As we journey through our lives, we both eat and nourish, destroy and enrich.  The great gift we have as human beings is that we can make conscious decisions about the balance of eating and nourishing, taking and giving, in our own lives.  The challenge is to remain fully aware, making conscious choices on each step of our journey.”

This week’s portion begins with a genealogy of sorts, the sons of Israel (Jacob) in Egypt — 11 who came to Egypt with Jacob from the land of Canaan and Joseph who was already there. The real purpose of this brief introduction, though, is to state the number of their tiny community at 70 persons. Then Joseph, all his brothers, and that whole generation died. Without further elaboration of that event, the text goes on to emphasize how prolific the Israelites were:

”But the Israelites were fertile and prolific; they multiplied and increased very greatly, so that the land was filled with them.” (Ex. 1:7).

This great population explosion among the Israelites, who began with 70 individuals, seems to be the theme in the first chapter of Exodus. From Pharaoh’s perspective, they swarm across the landscape, unstoppable and threatening:

”And he said to his people, ‘Look, the Israelite people are much too numerous for us. Let us deal shrewdly with them, so that they may not increase…’” (Ex. 1:9-10)

“But the more they were oppressed, the more they increased and spread out, so that the [Egyptians] came to dread the Israelites.” (Ex. 1:12)

“The midwives said to Pharaoh, ‘Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women: they are vigorous. Before the midwife can come to them, they have given birth.’ And G-d dealt well with the midwives; and the people multiplied and increased greatly.” (Ex. 19-20)

The language of this population explosion connects to the Flood story of Genesis: “And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; swarm in the earth, and multiply therein.” (Gen. 9:7) Chapter 2 of Exodus makes the connection more explicit when Moses’ mother builds a תֵּבָה (tevah – ark) for her baby to save him from Pharaoh’s death decree. This word used for the wicker basket she prepares occurs in only one other place in Hebrew scripture, and that is in the Flood story, the ark that saves Noah, his family and the animals from the flood waters that destroy every other living thing. As in the Flood story, the ark in the second chapter of Exodus signals not only a saving remnant but a new creation after water and darkness engulf the surrounding world.

If Ex. 1:1-2:7 signals one set of mythic themes through its connection to creation, destruction and recreation of Gen. 1-3 and 7-9, Ex. 2:11 begins to tell the story of a second set of themes that work in connection with the powerful imagery of the first set: justice and freedom.

When the adult Moses sees an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, he strikes him down, killing him (Ex. 2:11-12). Similarly he chastises his fellow Israelites in the following verse: “Why do you strike your fellow?” (Ex. 2:13) Despite the fact that he killed a man, Moses goes unpunished, escaping to the desert. We sense that the only reason there might have been any accountability is because the man Moses killed was Egyptian, and it is this that angered Pharaoh enough to seek to kill Moses. A fellow Hebrew abusing another Hebrew in the way the Hebrews are regularly abused by the Egyptians also escapes justice since Moses, the only person who might call him to account, is himself compromised. Still, both incidents point to the unjust conditions associated with Israelite bondage.

Outside of Egypt, Moses compassion for the vulnerable shows as he helps the daughters of Jethro water their flocks. (Ex. 2:16-19). Within Egypt, only G-d can respond: the Israelites groan under their bondage and cry out… “and their cry for help from the bondage rose up to G-d. G-d heard their moaning, and G-d remembered His covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. G-d looked upon the Israelites, and G-d took notice of them.” (Ex. 2:23-25). The repetitive references to G-d’s concern for the vulnerable, like the repetitive references to population growth among the Israelites, serve to underscore the theme. G-d hears, remembers, looks upon, and takes notice…then acts to set the people free.

In this way, the great themes of Exodus are set out for us: creation and fertility, rollback of creation in the face of injustice and bondage, new creation. These themes with variations repeat throughout Hebrew scripture with references to the archetypes and imagery of Genesis. In the beginning of Exodus, the Israelites already fulfill the commandment to multiply and fill the earth, are already on the path to a new creation. The Egyptian society around them is on its path toward being swallowed up into a pre-creation void because of its injustice.

One more theme enters the narrative in Exodus, the covenant relationship which is the foundation of the emerging new creation, the Israelite nation, bound together with a covenant agreement they will make at Mt. Sinai. Nahum Sarna explains (The JPS Torah Commentary: Exodus, p. 25) the literary structure that presents this theme as a chiasm linking circumcision and Passover. This theme is also present in the Book of Joshua:

• A1 – First-born (Ex 4:22-23)
• B1 – Circumcision (4:24-26)
• B2 – Circumcision (12:43-49)
• A2 – First-born (13:1, 11-15)

Sarna says, “…there is…a functional correspondence between the blood of circumcision and the visible sign of the blood on the paschal sacrifice. In both instances, evil is averted on account of it (Ex. 4:26; 12:7, 13, 22-23).”

Sarna also points to rabbinic exegesis of Ezekiel 16:6: “When I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you: ‘Live in spite of your blood.’ Yea, I said to you: ‘Live in spite of your blood.’” The rabbis understood this to mean “‘survive through your blood’; that is, the survival and redemption of Israel was assured because of two mitzvot—that of circumcision and that of paschal sacrifice.”

Having set the themes for the great drama to follow, we move on to the preliminaries for the 10 plagues, which unfold in the next two portions, Vaera and Bo.

THE ANIMALS’ STORY

The animals in this portion show up in an inverse relationship to the fecundity of the Israelites in Egypt.  The animals are virtually absent from the portion. In fact, they are absent in Egypt:

Ex. 2:16 – “Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters. They came to draw water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock; but shepherds came and drove them off. Moses rose to their defense, and he watered their flock.”

Ex. 2:19 – “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds; he even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

Ex. 3:1 – “Now Moses, tending the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian, drove the flock into the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of G-d.”

There is only one other reference to animals, an oblique one — actually a reference to sacrifice, presumably an animal sacrifice:

Ex. 3:18 – “The Lord, the G-d of the Hebrews, manifested Himself to us. Now therefore, let us go a distance of three days into the wilderness to sacrifice to the Lord our G-d.”

What is noteworthy in the animals’ story in this portion is that not only do they have no independent existence beyond human needs,  they are not even part of the Hebrews’ environment in Egypt. There are no domesticated animals — nor any (free) beasts of the field. All animal references are associated with Moses’ time in Midian and illustrate his characteristics and life there. Even the ruse of the sacrifice refers to the wilderness.

As my focus shifted in these past weeks to the sub-story of the animals in the Torah, I have been fascinated with the way their representation parallels the “main” story. The Hebrews, stripped of their great wealth, their flocks and herds, toil unnoticed (until they cry out and G-d notices them) as slaves to Pharaoh. Similarly, the hidden animals presumably toil on behalf of the crown. Isolated from each other in their slavery, Hebrews and animals can have no relationship. Only in freedom, in Midian, do animals reappear in the story generating the possibility of human/animal relationship.

This absence of the animals in the Egypt narrative suggests a couple of things to me: that only in freedom can there be relationship, and only in freedom can one be held accountable for the conduct of a relationship. The Hebrews, in bondage, can deal only with their own survival. They cannot relate to Transcendence (the sacrifice must be in the wilderness) or to the rest of creation including their environment or other animals. Moses, who killed a man in Egypt and chastises another, cares for seven vulnerable young women in Midian, serves as shepherd to his father-in-law’s flock and stops to gaze in wonder at a bush aflame beneath Horeb, the mountain of G-d.

Genesis ends with hints and an increasing sense of foreboding about the future of Joseph’s family in Egypt. The portion is sandwiched between two references to G-d as a shepherd, parallel to the role of the Israelites with their flocks.

The references to animals in this portion follow:

1. Gen. 48:15 – In the preamble to his blessing, Jacob speaks of “the G-d who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day…”
2. Gen. 49:6 – With reference to Simeon and Levi, “For when angry they slay men, And when pleased they maim oxen.”
3. Gen. 49:9 – “Judah is a lion’s whelp; On prey, my son, ave y ou grown. He crouches, lies down like a lion, Like the king of beasts – who dare rouse him?”
4. Gen. 49:11 – Still referring to Judah, “He tethers his ass to a vine, His ass’s foal to a choice vine…”
5. Gen. 49:14 – Issachar is a strong-bonded ass, Crouching among the sheepfolds…”
6. Gen. 49:17 – “Dan shall be a serpent by the road, A viper by the path, That bites the horse’s heels So that his rider is thrown backward.”
7. Gen. 49:21 – “Naphtali is a hind let loose, Which yields lovely fawns.”
8. Gen. 49:22 – “Joseph is a wild ass, A wild ass by a spring — Wild colts on a hillside. Archers bitterly assailted him; They shot at him and harried him…
9. Gen. 49:24 – “And his arms were made firm By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob — There, the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel.”
10. Gen. 49:27 – “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; In the morning he consumes the foe, And in the evening he divides the spoil.”
11. Gen. 50:8 – “So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the officials of Pharaoh, the senior members of his court, and all of Egypt’s dignitaries, together with all of Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household; only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the region of Goshen. Chariots, too, and horsemen went upo with him; it was a very large group.”

As Jacob approaches the end of his life, the last 17 years in Egypt, he summons Joseph and asks for Joseph’s promise to return his bones to the burial place of his fathers in the land of Canaan. Jacob continues with blessing Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Menashe, giving the primary blessing to the younger, Ephraim. In Gen. 48:15, Jacob speaks of “the G-d who has been my shepherd from my birth to this day…”

In the course of Jacob’s testament, as he blesses his sons in Gen. 49:23-24, Jacob speaks of Joseph saying, “Joseph is a wild ass, A wild ass by a spring — Wild colts on a hillside. Archers bitterly assailed him; They shot at him and harried him. Yet his bow stayed taut, And his arms were made firm By the hands of the Mighty One of Jacob — There, the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel.”

The caring, nurturing, constant, protective shepherd imagery is suggestive in two directions, describing G-d’s relationship with G-d’s people and the Israelites’ relationship with their animals. This is the constant care and protection that sustained Jacob through a turbulent life filled with loss, that sustained Joseph through a painful youth, and that will sustain the Israelites through their trials in Egypt. It is the care and protection a shepherd provides to flocks as they travel in search of pasture. The image of G-d’s relationship to G-d’s children parallels the shepherd’s relationship to a flock.

Eight of 12 brothers are described in terms of animals: Simeon and Levi (Gen. 49:6), Judah (Gen. 49:9), Issachar (Gen. 49:14), Dan (Gen. 49:17), Naphtali (Gen. 49:21), Joseph (Gen. 49:22-24) and Benjamin. Four brothers are not: Reuben, Zebulun, Gad and Asher.

Noteworthy among those described in terms of animals are Simeon and Levi. Like Reuben, Simeon and Levi are excoriated in Jacob’s blessing: “Simeon and Levi are a pair; Their weapons are tools of lawlessness. Let not my person be included in their council, Let not my being be counted in their assembly. For when angry they slay men, and when pleased they maim oxen.” They are probably paired because of their joint attack (as the brothers of Dinah) on the city of Shechem. They are singled out for their violence, ruthlessness and cruelty, and Jacob dissociates himself from them.  Now the three eldest sons, Reuben, Simeon and Levi, are disqualified from assuming Jacob’s leadership role.

What is powerful in this section of the testament, though, is the way cruelty and barbarism toward other people is parallel to cruelty and barbarism toward animals, whom Simeon and Levi, the brothers of needlessly “maim” as a sign of their victory. In the parallelism of the poetry, both targets of violence are equally inexcusable.

Finally, we become increasingly aware through the last chapter of Genesis of a deteriorating situation in Egypt. As important as Joseph as been to the Pharaoh, as high in the administrative hierarchy as he has been, when his father dies and Joseph wants permission to carry his bones to the burial site of Jacob’s fathers in Canaan, Joseph doesn’t go directly to Pharaoh but instead speaks to “Pharaoh’s court.”

Despite the fact that he assures Pharaoh he will return (was there a question?), Pharaoh sends all his officials with Joseph and his family, a “very larger troop” including horsemen. Did this signify that Pharaoh didn’t trust Joseph when he said he would return?

If there is any doubt about the answer to that question, the latter part of the verse seems to resolve it: “So Joseph went up to bury his father; and with him went up all the officials of Pharaoh, the senior members of his court, and all of Egypt’s dignitaries, together with all of Joseph’s household, his brothers, and his father’s household; only their children, their flocks, and their herds were left in the region of Goshen. Chariots, too, and horsemen went up with him; it was a very large group.”

Perhaps the children, flocks and herds were insurance. And once again, human life parallels animal life: even if the Israelites real intention was to escape, they will return for their flocks and herds as much as for their children.

And now on to Exodus and a “new king who did not know Joseph.”

The Joseph story is one of the most beautifully structured narratives in the Torah and is a perfect example of structure supporting and communicating meaning.

These two Torah portions, Miketz and Vayigash, are the second half of the narrative chiasm I presented in Vayishlach. The elements of the story in Miketz and Vayigash represent a reversal of the elements of the story in Vayishlach and fulfillment of G-d’s promise. In the course of the narrative chiasm, all the characters experience growth and change, Judah most of all (Thank you Rabbi Tom for pointing this out).

It remains to the last portion in Genesis, Vayehi, for Joseph to reunite and fully reconcile with his whole family, including his father — and it remains for Exodus to complete the process of redemption and return to the Land of Israel. Between the beginning and end of the story, tragedy comes to Jacob and Joseph and the entire family, offering opportunities for character growth on the path to family reunification.   A family drama riddled with deceptions and treachery resolves into honest, caring, mature relationships as individuals recognize their communal responsibility.

We see Judah’s growth up close and personal in the Judah and Tamar story as Tamar reveals to Judah how he chooses his own self-interest over what the law and humanity require him to do. In withholding his remaining son as levir, then judging Tamar negatively in her disguise as a prostitute whom he, Judah, solicits, Judah demonstrates a character flaw that is also in evidence when he says to his brothers after they cast Joseph into a pit,  “What profit is it if we slay our brother and conceal his blood?” In other words, he focuses on what benefits will come to him from his actions and in doing so, neglects important obligations.

So now, at this end of the narrative, Judah, still a pragmatist who complains he and his brothers would have been to Egypt and back had they just gone at the first, nonetheless takes responsibility for his brother Benjamin even at great risk to himself.

Joseph’s boyish arrogance gives way to a recognition that he is G-d’s instrument — yet he still heaps gifts on his younger brother, Benjamin, despite the way he, Joseph, suffered when his father did the same for him. Joseph’s gifts to Benjamin, though, provide an opportunity for the other brothers to demonstrate their own growth to maturity since they do not show the jealousy and enmity toward Benjamin that they once showed to Joseph despite the way Joseph favors Benjamin.

A couple of points worth noting which I won’t pursue just now:

1. Jacob changes little in the course of the story. He favors Joseph, setting him up for the jealousy and enmity his brothers direct toward him. And he foolishly (some say willfully) remains blind to the dangerous situation in which he puts his son when he sends him out into the fields to find his brothers.  Jacob’s blatant favoritism is not diminished when it comes to Benjamin, showing he has learned little from painful experience. Indeed, he takes no personal responsibility but blames his sons for his loss: “Me have you bereaved of my children: Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away. Upon me are all these things come.” (Gen. 42:36)
2. Benjamin never speaks in the course of the story. He registers neither alarm when pharaoh’s divining goblet is found in his sack nor appreciation when Joseph singles him out for special treatment. He reacts in only one moment, when Joseph “fell upon his brother Benjamin’s neck and wept.” In that moment, the narrator reports, “and Benjamin wept upon his neck.”  After the terrible day on which Joseph is thrown into a pit, Benjamin becomes the locus of family guilt and redemption. He is  his father’s new favorite in the absence of Joseph, and his brothers protect him with their lives.  Through it all, Joseph is silent except for one emotional moment when he and his brother embrace and weep together.
3. Clothes and money have an important role in the story. Joseph receives a multi-colored coat, inspiring envy among his brothers — who sell him for 20 pieces of silver. His coat, dipped in the blood of a kid, deceives his father Jacob just as Tamar’s clothing deceives Judah. Potiphar’s wife seizes Joseph’s garments and uses them to deceive her husband with regard to Joseph’s “guilt.” Pharaoh gives Joseph garments to announce his authority. Joseph showers his brother, Benjamin, with gifts of clothing — and 30 pieces of silver, pay back with interest for the 20 silver piece sale years before. And silver or money are mentioned 20 times in the course of the accounts of Joseph and his brothers in Egypt (chapters 42-45).

THE ANIMALS’ STORY

Following are the explicit references to animals in Gen. 41:1-47:27:

1. Gen. 41:2 -4 …when out of the Nile there came up seven cows, handsome and sturdy, and they grazed in the reed grass. But presently, seven other cows came up from the Nile close behind them, ugly and gaunt, and stood beside the cows on the bank of the Nile; and the ugly gaunt cows ate up the seven handsome sturdy cows…
2. Gen. 41:17 -21 …In my dream, I was standing on the bank of the Nile, when out of the Nile came up seven sturdy and well-formed cows and grazed in the reed grass. Presently there followed them seven other cows, scrawny, ill-formed, and emaciated — never had I seen their likes for ugliness in all the land of Egypt!  And the seven lean and ugly cows ate up the first seven cows, the sturdy ones; but when they had consumed them, one could not tell that they had consumed them, for they looked just as bad as before…
3. Gen. 41:26-27 … The seven healthy cows are seven years, and the seven healthy ears are seven years; it is the same dream. The seven lean and ugly cows that followed are seven years, as are also the seven empty ears scorched by the east wind; they are seven years of famine.
4. Gen. 43:16 … When Joseph saw Benjamin with them, he said to his house steward, “Take the men into the house; slaughter and prepare an animal, for the men will dine with me at noon.”
5. Gen. 43:18 … But the men were frightened at being brought into Joseph’s house. “It must be,” they thought, “because of the money replaced in our bags the first time that we have been brought inside, as a pretext to attack us and seize us as slaves, with our pack animals.”
6. Gen. 43:24 … Then the man brought the men into Joseph’s house; he gave them water to bathe their feet, and he provided feed for their asses.
7. Gen. 44:3 … With the first light of morning, the men were sent off with their pack animals.
8. Gen. 44:27 … (Judah says) Your servant my father said to us, “As you know, my wife bore me two sons. But one is gone from me, and I said: Alas he was torn by a beast! And I have not seen him since.”
9. Gen. 45:17-18 … And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “Say to your brothers, “Do as follows: load up your beasts and go at once to the land of Canaan. Take your father and your households and come to me; I will give you the best of the land of Egypt and you shall live off the fat of the land.
10. Gen. 45:23 … And to his father, he sent the following: ten he-asses laden with the best things of Egypt, and ten she-asses laden with the grain, bread, and provisions for his father on the journey.*
11. Gen. 46:6 … and they took along their livestock and the wealth that they had amassed in the land of Canaan.
12. Gen. 46:32-34 … The men are shepherds; they have always been breeders of livestock, and they have brought with them their flocks and herds and all that is theirs. So when Pharaoh summons you and asks, “What is your occupation?” you shall answer, “Your servants have been breeders of livestock from the start until now, both we and our fathers” — so that you may stay in the region of Goshen. For all shepherds are abhorrent to Egyptians.
13. Gen. 47:1 … Then Joseph came and reported to Pharaoh saying, “My father and my brothers, with their flocks and herds and all that is theirs, have come from the land of Canaan and are now in the region of Goshen.”
14. Gen. 47:3-4 … Pharaoh said to his brothers, “What is your occupation?” They answered Pharaoh, “We your servants are shepherds, as were also our fathers. “We have come,” they told Pharaoh, “to sojourn in this land, for there is no pasture for your servants’ flocks, the famine being severe in the land of Canaan. Pray, then, let your servants stay in the region of Goshen.”
15. Gen. 47:6 … the land of Egypt is open before you: settle your father and your brothers in the best part of the land; let them stay in the region of Goshen. And if you know any capable men among them, put them in charge of my livestock.”
16. Gen. 47:15-17 … And when the money gave out in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, “Give us bread…for the money is gone!” And Joseph said, “Bring your livestock, and I will sell to you against your livestock, if the money is gone.” So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, for the stocks of sheep and cattle, and the asses; thus he provided them with bread that year in exchange for all their livestock.
17. Gen. 47:18 … And when that year was ended, they came to him the next year and said to him, “We cannot hide from my lord that, with all the money and animal stocks consigned to my lord, nothing is left at my lord’s disposal save our persons and our farmland.,, Take us and our land in exchange for bread, and we with our land will be serfs to Pharaoh; provide the seed, that we may live and not die, and that the land may not become a waste.”

We have 17 passages in which animals are mentioned specifically. In 1-3 in the list above, they are symbolic representations, not living beings. In 4, killing an animal for a feast honors Joseph’s guests and celebrates a relationship, as it will honor G-d and celebrate a relationship in Israelite worship. In 5 and 6, humans and animals are once again on a level playing field with each other: in 5, the men fear they and their pack animals will be confiscated and enslaved; in 6, the men and their pack animals are honored and cared for.  In 7, the men are sent home with their pack animals, returning them to their role as beasts of burden. In 8, the blood of a kid continues a deception. In 9 and 10, the animals are beasts of burden and in 11, a sign of wealth. In 12-15, the animals represent the occupation of Joseph’s family and become the vehicle through which they are able to reside in the richest part of the land and become valuable to Pharaoh by tending livestock. In 16 and 17, the animals represent a step on the way to serfdom for the Egyptians under Joseph’s administration. As serfs, the Egyptians and the animals which were formerly theirs are once again on an equal basis.

Once again, the animals’ story mirrors the overall themes of the story. When Joseph and the Pharaoh honor and care for the visitors from Canaan, they honor and care for the animals. When the brothers fear enslavement, they anticipate it in terms of an affliction they will share with their animals, formerly a sign of their wealth and independence. When Joseph takes the Egyptians’ animals for Pharaoh, it foreshadows their own enslavement when Joseph takes their land and their labor for Pharaoh as well. Despite the Egyptians’ gratitude for this arrangement, the fact is that they, like their animals (now Pharaoh’s), lack independence. Having given up all their assets and consigned themselves to serfdom, they cannot even look forward to a time when they will be able to reestablish independence after the famine ends.

What we don’t know explicitly is the status of Joseph’s family and their animals. Formerly semi-nomadic, they are now settled on choice property in the land of Goshen. Perhaps they are overseers for Pharaoh with all the livestock he now owns (Gen. 47:6), Joseph having taken it from the Egyptians. Pharaoh tells them in Gen. 45:18 they will live off the “fat of the land,” but what fat is there when the famine has already raged in Egypt for two years? (Gen. 45:11). How can Joseph’s family provide for their own food and that of their many animals?

So we will assume Joseph’s family got special treatment as did Pharaoh and his household and the Egyptian priests — but this arrangement, then, explains the full significance of the statement in Exodus 1:8, “Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who did not know Joseph.” It would have been puzzling to someone without a personal debt to Joseph as the earlier Pharaoh had, to see a foreign people supported by the state while the home born Egyptians worked as serfs. The new Pharaoh merely completed a process begun by Joseph in the name of the former Pharaoh, confiscated their wealth (their animals — assuming the land still belonged to the crown) and subjected the Israelites to the same life as his other subjects.

Now the Pharaoh owns everything: all land, all animals, all people, home born and foreign-born. Everything living is enslaved to Pharaoh. The people, including the Israelites, are on a level with the animals, without hope for a future of responsibility or freedom. This is the true cost of giving up everything and letting someone else manage daily bread during the famine, a comment not only on the one who enslaves but also on the one who allows enslavement. Did the Egyptians not understand what they forfeited? Did Joseph not understand the mechanism he put in motion, which soon enough would engulf his own family?

Finally a few words about Gen. 46:32-34 (#12, above). What does it mean that shepherds and those who deal with livestock are תֹּועֵבָה (toevah) to the Egyptians? Our text translates the word as “abhorrent.” For an excellent discussion that offers a richer perspective on what the word might signify, see Religion Dispatches, which offers the following: “The term toevah (and its plural, toevot) occurs 103 times in the Hebrew Bible, and almost always has the connotation of a non-Israelite cultic practice. In the Torah, the primary toevah is avodah zara, foreign forms of worship, and most other toevot flow from it. The Israelites are instructed not to commit toevah because other nations do so.”

The author further emphasizes the point: “…in the overwhelming majority of cases, toevah has nothing to do with ethics, and everything to do with cultic behavior, idolatry, and foreign ritual…

“So, toevah is serious, but it is serious as a particular class of cultic offense: a transgression of national boundary. It is certainly not ‘abomination.’” Things that are toevah for other people are perfectly fine for the Israelites and vice versa.”

This means that one way to understand toevah in the context of Joseph’s sheepherding family in Egypt is that sheepherding is somehow foreign to the Egyptians and therefore abhorrent — yet we know from Pharaoh’s comment about capable men to oversee his own livestock that the Egyptians also have livestock. So what is the problem?

A commentary from bible.ort.org offers the following: “Some say that this was because sheep were sacred to Egyptians, and hence, those who raised them for food were considered an abomination (Rashi; see Genesis 43:32). Others say that the Egyptians were vegetarians (Ibn Ezra). If this was after the Hyksos were driven out, it might have been a reaction against the Hyksos, who were ‘shepherd kings’ (Josephus, Contra Apion 1:14). Others say that it was a social taboo (Rashbam).”

Another comment expands on the vegetarian theory: “Vegetarianism was pretty much common among ancient Egyptian cultures, with their diet largely consisting of wheat and barley – something discovered by a French research team who analysed the carbon atoms in mummies that had lived in Egypt between 3500 BC and 600 AD to find out what they ate, Inside Science News Service (ISNS) reported … which probably explains why the ancient Egyptians considered the farming/herding/shepherding of livestock for food an abomination.” This theory suggests Egyptians might have kept livestock for other purposes but didn’t kill them for meat, which rendered killing domesticated animals for meat an alien practice.

Now as it happens, although the Israelites operated according to a different, perhaps more moderate, standard with regard to eating meat, Hebrew scripture also expresses an issue with killing living creatures for food. When the practice is allowed in the aftermath of the flood, it is immediately ringed with a prohibition that applies to all humanity (not to consume blood with the meat) and as specifically Israelite practices unfold, many more prohibitions follow.

If, on the other hand, toevah is a word associated with cultic, not ethical, issues — then we must consider that eating meat is a practice associated with foreign (non-Egyptian) cultic practices more than an ethical statement against killing other living creatures for food.

Two themes emerge from these portions, highlighted by the animal subtext: a descent to slavery that puts human beings on a level with animals and varying ways of working out the relationship between human beings and other animals evidenced in cultic practices.

PART I: The Joseph Story, Exile & Return, Promise to Fulfillment

The rest of Genesis is the story of Joseph with the exception of one apparent interruption in the narrative with the story of Judah and Tamar.

Before I take a look at the continuation of the animals’ story in Vayeshev, I’d like to share some work I did many years ago when I explored “meals in Genesis.” This is a diagram of part of Joseph’s story. It forms a narrative chiasm with a feast at the center and two simple meals of bread balancing each other toward the beginning an toward the end (7a and 7b):

JOSEPH STORY: PROMISE TO FULFILLMENT
1a – Genealogy of Esau (Gn 36:1-43)
2a – Joseph brings bad news to his father Jacob of Joseph’s brothers in the field (Gn 37:2)
3a – Joseph’s father loves Joseph most and gives him a coat (Gn 37:3-4)
4a – Joseph dreams 2 dreams and foolishly and arrogantly reveals them to his brothers; his brothers interpret the dreams and hate him (Gn 37:5-11)
5a – Jacob sends Joseph to brothers in field (Gn 37:13-17)
6a – Joseph put in pit by brothers at Reuben’s suggestion; Judah suggests that they sell him (Gn 37:18-24)
7a – Brothers have meal of bread while Joseph has none; Joseph sold by Midianites to Ishmaelites; taken to Egypt (Gn 37:25-28)
8a – Joseph gone and Reuben assumes is dead; Reuben rends clothes; dips Joseph’s coat in blood of kid; tunic deceives (Gn 37:29-31)
9a – Jacob mourns Joseph’s death (Gn 37:33-35)
10a – Judah-Tamar story. Tamar’s garments deceive; Judah tricked into substituting for his son; signet ring, cord and staff reveal; Judah has 2 sons (line of Judah) – (Gn 38)
11a – Joseph serves Potiphar (Gn 39:1-6)
12a – Joseph is beautiful. Potiphar’s wife demeans Joseph and attempts to seduce him; garments taken from Joseph announce his “guilt” (Gn 39:7-19)
13a – Joseph put in prison (Gn 39:20-23)
14a – Baker and cupbearer dream 2 dreams; Joseph interprets (Gn 40:4-19)
*** Pharaoh’s Feast; baker’s and cupbearer’s dreams fulfilled; Joseph forgotten (Gn 40:20-23) (Vayeshev concludes)
14b – Pharaoh dreams 2 dreams; cupbearer remembers Joseph’s interpretations (Gn 41:1-13)
13b – Joseph brought out of prison (Gn 41:14-32)
12b – Joseph is discreet and wise; Pharaoh exalts Joseph and gives him a wife; garments given to Joseph announce his authority (Gn 41:33-45)
11b – Joseph serves Pharaoh (Gn 41:46-49)
10b – Joseph has 2 sons (line of Joseph) (Gn 41:50-52)
9b – Jacob attempts to avert death of family (Gn 42:1-2)
8b – Benjamin held back so harm will not come to him (Gn 42:3-5)
7b – Joseph has bread; brothers have none; brothers go to Egypt (Gn 42:6-13)
6b – Joseph’s brothers put in dungeon by Joseph for 3 days; Simeon held (Gn 42:14-24)
5b – Joseph sends brothers to Jacob in Canaan (Gn 42:25-26).
4b – Joseph’s 2 dreams are fulfilled; Joseph’s brothers twice take responsibility for their actions; Joseph twice restores their money (Gn 42:27-43:15)
3b – Joseph orders that bread/a meal be brought out but eats separately; Joseph loves Benjamin most and gives him more food, and goblet placed in Benjamin’s sack; Judah offers to substitute himself for his brother Benjamin; Joseph reveals himself to his brothers although not as an arrogant overlord (Gn 43:16-45:8)
2b – Brothers bring good news to father Jacob of Joseph in Egypt (Gn 45:9-28)
1b – Genealogy of Jacob (Gn 46:8-27)

What does this intricate symmetry of the story tell us? It is a structural representation of the major themes of the story, exile and return, promise and fulfillment — and in that, echoes the major themes of the Torah. Step-by-step, each element of the story reverses itself following Pharoah’s feast. What seems increasingly impossible in the first half becomes reality as the second half of the story unfolds. As Joseph moves further from his dreams in the first half, he sees progressive fulfillment of the dreams in the second half. Through the stages of the chiasm, we see growth in the characters of Joseph and his brothers, the brothers taking responsibility for their actions and Joseph growing past his boyish arrogance. This literary masterpiece, “set forth by a master storyteller who employs with consummate skill the novelistic techniques of character delineation, psychological manipulation, and dramatic suspense,” (Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis, p. 254) carries the Torah story forward.

Part II: Substitution and Atonement

Vayeshev contains nine references to animals, one of them oblique, when the brothers refer to Joseph as “our own flesh.” The Torah uses three descriptive words in speaking of human beings, two of them shared with animals: shared descriptive words are nefesh (flesh animated with the breath of G-d) and basar (meat or a carcass). Tzelem Elo(k)im, the “image of G-d,” whatever that means, is unique to human beings. In referring to Joseph as flesh, the brothers in some sense characterize their relationship with him.

Gen 37:2b – “At seventeen years of age, Joseph tended the flocks with his brothers, as a helper to the sons of his father’s wives, Bilhah and Zilpah.”

Gen 27:12 – “One time, when his brothers had gone to pasture their father’s flock at Shechem, Israel said to Joseph, ‘Your brothers are pasturing at Shechem. Come, I will send you to them’…” Joseph requests help and finds the brothers pasturing in Dothan.

Gen 37:20 – “We can say, ‘A savage beast devoured him.’”

Gen 37:25 – “Looking up, they saw a caravan of Ishmaelites coming from Gilead, their camels bearing gum, balm, and laudanum to be taken to Egypt.”

Gen 37:27b – “After all, he is our brother, our own flesh.”

Gen 37:31 – “Then they took Joseph’s tunic, slaughtered a kid, and dipped the tunic in the blood. They had the ornamented tunic taken to their father, and they said, ‘We found this. Please examine it; is it your son’s tunic or not?’ He recognized it, and said, ‘My son’s tunic! A savage beast devoured him! Joseph was torn by a beast!’”

Gen 38:12b – …”Judah went up to Timnah to his sheepshearers, together with his friend Hiram the Adullamite. And Tamar was told, “Your father-in-law is coming up to Timnah for the sheepshearing.”

Gen 38:16b – “‘What,’ she asked, ‘will you pay for sleeping with me?’ He replied, ‘I will send a kid from my flock.’”

Gen 38:20 – “Judah sent the kid by his friend the Adullamite, to redeem the pledge from the woman; but he could not find her…I did send her this kid, but you did not find her.”

Once again, we have a pastoral setting, a setting in which the lives and livelihoods of these people are enmeshed with their flocks and herds. Their animals are their daily work, their sustenance and the symbol of their wealth.

In this section, though, a more complicated relationship unfolds. We have two stories in which a kid becomes a symbol of deception: the brothers kill a kid for its blood so they can deceive their father with regard to Joseph’s “end,” and one of the brothers, Judah, kills a kid to pay Tamar who deceived him into thinking she was a harlot. The story of Judah and Tamar also picks up on the theme of failed responsibility, in this case Judah failing to honor his levirate obligation to Tamar, in the case of Joseph, as he fails to completely save his brother from harm, then participates in deception. Judah’s earlier failure with Joseph makes him especially uneasy when he cannot find “the harlot,” Tamar, to pay her with the kid.

Finally, we have the readiness to ascribe Joseph’s death to a “savage beast.” Reuben wasn’t present when Judah persuaded the other brothers to sell Joseph to passing Midianites, but he participated in the deception of dipping Joseph’s coat in the blood of a kid to persuade their father that he had been killed by a savage beast. All the brothers maintain the lie for years, concealing the truth from Jacob even after he and Joseph are reunited.

We know from the Noah story that the “crime” the animals committed that led to their utter destruction in the Flood is that they killed human beings. They too participated in the violence rampant in the earth. Following the Flood, G-d seems resigned to some basics of human and animal nature and promises never to destroy the earth again. “Savage” beasts did kill people on occasion, and it was not difficult to deceive Jacob with the bloody garment.

But there is another aspect to this action: the brothers not only fail to take responsibility for themselves, they blame their evil action on a made-up “savage” (non-domesticated) animal and kill a real (domesticated) animal, a kid, to carry out the subterfuge. In the Judah and Tamar story, a kid stands in for Judah’s responsibility with Tamar, and when the kid doesn’t reach Tamar, it represents Judah’s failed responsibility.

Now all this may be subconscious and accidental, but in such an artfully woven story, one wonders if the animal substitution motif might not be intentional? This theme is, after all, also major in the Torah, animals standing in for humanity’s sin, as atonement for transgression.

So once again, just as I wonder how human beings imagined that they were superior to animals and could kill them to eat them…I also wonder how human beings arrived at the idea that animals could substitute for them as payment for failed responsibility and wrongdoing?

Part I: Speciesism

I’ve spent most of the last year focused on the broader Torah story, its worldview as I understand it through my study. This worldview is expressed primarily through a human lens and involves the relationship of human beings with Transcendence, Creation, and Other Life, which further divides into Other Living Creatures and Other Human Beings. Recently I have come to focus more narrowly on the relationship between human beings and their fellow creatures. Although the move was intuitive, it was generated by my growing certainty that our complex relationship with our fellow creatures signifies our core moral problem: speciesism.

Speciesism requires two fundamental mental and spiritual dispositions: 1) the way in which we, personally, see the world is reality and is true, and 2) “the other,” any living being who is different from us, is inferior to us. In reality, neither disposition has any evidence to support it.

Our attitude toward other living creatures inspires — or infects — our attitude toward other human beings. Our vocabulary shows how we made that link subconsciously over centuries. Any group of humans we want to degrade we refer to as animals.

The act of minimizing “the other” occurs first with animals. As we subconsciously learned not to question the assumption that we are superior to the animals, it became easier to thoughtlessly apply that same assumption to our fellow human beings. Further if factory farms have taught us nothing, they have taught us that when things happen out of sight, it is much easier to escape any sense of moral responsibility that results from our unchallenged assumptions.

So for me, one of the practices I have tried to strengthen in myself as I study is to discover and set aside any assumptions I hold — about the Torah, about animals, about other people — and to set aside any conscious or unconscious judgments that one kind of life or one idea or one time in history is superior to any other. I have wanted to look at what is in front of me and simply try to understand what it says, what was the worldview or life experience that produced these ideas and stories and practices? How could the mind that gave us the creation story, a world of harmony in which no creature, including humans, killed another for food, in which there was no violence, also bring us the idea that we could kill and sacrifice an innocent animal for sins that we committed? What made us think that our lives were so much more valuable than theirs that they should pay for something we did? What made us think we were superior to other creatures and so could eat them?

It is our human tendency to judge ourselves superior that is at the root of any problem I can think of in the world today.  And that tendency was hinted at in the creation stories themselves, that beautiful vision of a world in harmony where animals were vegan and had moral responsibility and snakes talked and reasoned and planned. Right there in those creation stories, we have statements about human dominance over animals. Although there are other ways to understand these statements than as statements of superiority, for the most part, we have chosen to understand them exactly that way, and that has created a cultural blind spot.

One of the things I love about the Torah is that it presents revolutionary  ideas, that it often even seems to contradict itself — but it offers these amazing perspectives in such a nuanced, subtle way that we are drawn up short, and we start to pay attention: men  dominate women, or so some interpreters would say… but wait, in the original Hebrew it actually suggests something different. G-d has no body… but if you read carefully, it’s not so clear. The Land of Israel was given unequivocally and forever to Israel… but read that again, and you’ll discover that too isn’t so clear. We are supposed to dominate and can kill other creatures for food, no problem. Again, look more deeply, and the picture isn’t so sharply drawn. I am continually invited by these ancient texts to dig more deeply, and the more deeply I dig, the more I find that it’s not quite as black and white as it seemed.

Part II: The Ethical Path…Not Always Easy to Find

And so it is with this week’s portion which includes the Rape of Dinah, Jacob and Leah’s only daughter. It is a story that at first glance seems to present a series of actions that are clearly, undoubtedly morally repugnant. But then the details of the story draw us in to look more closely, to consider questions under the surface of the text.

Now I’m going to do something I don’t usually do because I had the opportunity to see this point demonstrated so beautifully on Shabbat. I’d like to share with you the highlights of our discussion, led by Rabbi Tom Samuels. The text is Gen. 34. The rabbi provided several texts to help us parse the text, and you will find them here. 

As we discovered, not one character in the story comes out with clean hands “ethically.” Each character is both good and bad, and there are many unanswered questions which, if answered, would change the nature of the story.

• Leah, Dinah’s mother: where was she when her daughter “went out to visit the daughters of the land?” It would have been something major for a young woman from a nomadic temporary settlement to leave her group and enter an alien town alone. But perhaps she didn’t know or was assisting her daughter in pursuing her dreams.
• And how about Dinah? What did she have in mind? Did she consider the consequences of her action for so many others in light of what she knew about her group’s codes and the possibilities of what might happen to her in an alien setting where in all likelihood those same codes were not in operation? Or should we admire her for her agency and boldness? Was she raped and terrified, or did she love Shechem?
• Jacob, the family patriarch, says and does virtually nothing except complain that his sons’ actions endangered his standing in the area and caused the group to have to flee to another location. Jacob doesn’t take steps to rescue his daughter, nor does he call into question the morality of his sons’ actions. Yet his job as patriarch is to keep his group safe and to provide sustenance, and he does this in abundance.
• Most of us would immediately judge the action of Jacob’s sons highly immoral — using the ruse of requiring circumcision as an opening to massacre all the men of Shechem and take their wives and children and livestock and household belongings as booty. But only they took action to retrieve their sister and require justice from the perpetrators of an alleged crime and the community that sheltered the alleged criminal.
• Like Jacob’s sons, Shechem was highly immoral in committing assault…but it’s not so certain that assault was what happened. The translation reads that he “took her and lay with her by force.” The Hebrew, however, reads “וַיִּקַּח אֹתָהּ וַיִּשְׁכַּב אֹתָהּ, וַיְעַנֶּהָ”. The word translated “by force” or in other translations “humbled her” is וַיְעַנֶּהָ (va-y’aneha) and means either defiled her or lay down with her. The second is far more neutral than the first, and neither necessarily means he forced her. And “took her” is the phrase commonly used for any sexual union between a man and a woman including marriage. Certainly many of those unions involved love. According to the story, Schechem loved Dinah: “Being strongly drawn to Dinah daughter of Jacob, and in love with the maiden, he spoke to the maiden tenderly.”
• Hamor seeks a peaceful relationship, but he evidences little concern for his son’s action and its questionable morality nor for Dinah’s situation or the profound offense caused to his neighbors. He never attempts to restore the young woman to her family nor to brings his son to justice. His wish is only to fulfill his son’s request. In joining his son and reporting to his people the agreement he thought he had reached with Jacob and his sons, this phrase creeps in: “Their cattle and substance and all their beasts will be ours, if we only agree to their terms…” Yet this was not part of the agreement the men made. What does this mean?

As we discussed, the text reflects the kind of moral complexity we often face in life, situations where there is no perfect or good or right answer, where no person is perfect, where each acts in ways that are good and bad and ambiguous, where the lines of responsibility are like shifting sands. Yet decisions are made. No decision is a decision. Life and death continue, and history moves forward.

Part III: The Animals’ Story

Now I want to take just a moment to explore the ongoing story of the animals, the subtext, in my opinion, of the biblical story. What happens with them in this section of the text?

There are eight references to animals in this portion:

Gen. 32:6 – As Jacob returns to Canaan, he instructs his messengers to go before him and say to Esau: “I have acquired cattle, asses, sheep, and male and female slaves; and I send this message to my lord in the hope of gaining your favor.”

Gen. 32:8 – As Jacob contemplates facing his brother, we learn, “Jacob was greatly frightened; in his anxiety, he divided the people with him, and the flocks and herds and camels, into two camps, thinking, ‘If Esau comes to the one camp and attacks it, the other camp may yet escape.’”

Gen. 32:14-22 – Jacob sends before him gifts for his brother, Esau, including “200 she-goats and 20 he-goats; 200 ewes and 20 rams; 30 mulch camels with their colts; 40 cows and 10 bulls; 20 she-asses and 20 he-asses. These he put in the charge of his servants, drove by drove, and he told his servants, “Go on ahead, and keep a distance between droves.” The servants are to present the gifts in droves, saying with each drove, Your servant Jacob himself is right behind us.”

Gen. 33:13 – After the brothers meet, Esau wishes to accompany Jacob to Seir with his family and flocks. Jacob ambiguously dissuades him saying: “My lord knows that the children are frail and that the flocks and herds, which are nursing, are a care to me; if they are driven hard a single day, all the flocks will die. Let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I travel slowly, at the pace of the cattle before me and at the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir.”

Gen. 33:17 – Instead of going to Seir, though, Jacob camps at Sukkot and “built a house for himself and made stalls for his cattle.”

Gen. 34:27 – After Simeon and Levi (Dinah’s full brothers) kill the men of Shechem, the other brothers “seized their flocks and herds and asses, all that was inside the town and outside; all their wealth, all their children, and their wives, all that was in the houses, they took as captives and booty.”

Gen. 36:6 – “Esau took his wives, his sons and daughters, and all the members of his household, his cattle and all his livestock, and all the property that he had acquired in the land of Canaan, and went to another land because of his brother Jacob. For their possessions were too many for them to dwell together, and the land where they sojourned could not support them because of their livestock.”

Gen. 36:24 – Esau’s Horite relation, Anah, “discovered the hot springs in the wilderness while pasturing the asses of his father Zibeon.”

So where does our story of the animals take us in this Torah portion? The steady presence of flocks in these narratives signals a semi-nomadic existence. Many flocks, like wives, children and servants are a sign of prosperity. Perhaps most characteristic in this portion, however, is the way the animals are negotiable “items” to preserve the lives of Jacob and his family — or they are booty in war. In either case, they are valuable commodities and the way Jacob uses them demonstrates his lifelong skill in negotiation, as I suggested in another post, his adaptive behavior.

We see a hint of Jacob’s grandmother, Rebekkah, in Gen. 33:13 when Jacob expresses his concern for the well-being of his animals, but this concern, too, is ambiguous. The concern seems “staged” during Jacob’s negotiation to travel unaccompanied through the land with a promise to join Esau in Seir, which he does not do, and we understand he never intended to do. Ultimately Jacob’s holdings allow him to dominate the land of Canaan, according to the promise, as Esau leaves with his flocks to find more room.

In Vayishlach, the animals serve to illustrate more fully Jacob’s character as a negotiator and bargainer, even a trickster. They are commodities … and they are booty — or stolen wealth. But what is stolen, and what is protection? As with so many other elements of the story, the ambiguities leave us wondering, who is right and who is wrong? Perhaps taking the cattle in Shechem was just payback for Hamor’s “real” plan and intention in his offer, a plan the brothers anticipated, to steal everything that was theirs. Hamor hints at this possibility when he tells his people, “Their cattle and substance and all their beasts will be ours, if we only agree to their terms…”

These are domesticated animals, living creatures who become commodities and props for the drama, magnifying Jacob’s persona.

In Toledot, we saw Jacob engaging in adaptive behaviors, the result of a “quiet man, dwelling in tents” growing up with a brother like Esau, favored by his father, strong, active, a hunter. Jacob’s tendency to strategize and plan, even resort to trickery to achieve his/G-d’s end, can be seen as the result of continually confronting forces stronger than he.  He has to figure out a work-a-round.

In Vayeitze, we learn more about Jacob through an almost intimate portrait. I picture Jacob as a man who is smaller in stature, perhaps likes poetry, cooks — and when left to choose what he wants, prefers vegan food. Jacob and Esau are two very different personality types, and Jacob’s brother, Esau, has a profound effect on him. Almost certainly Jacob also had a profound effect on Esau, but one suspects that Jacob’s more quiet demeanor, perhaps greater sensitivity, allows him to be more aware of the strengths of Esau’s character than Esau of Jacob’s.

In Vayeitze, we see him again overcome the relatively greater power of those with whom he comes into contact: “These twenty years I have spent in your service, your ewes and she-goats never miscarried, nor did I feast on rams from your flock. That which was torn by beasts I never brought to you; I myself made good the loss; you exacted it of me, whether snatched by day or snatched by night. Often, scorching heat ravaged me by day and frost by night; and sleep fled from my eyes. Of the twenty years that I spent in your household, I served you fourteen years for your two daughters, and six years for your flocks; and you changed my wages time and again…” (Gen. 31:38-42). And yet, through strategies and cunning, Jacob prevails.

We also learn that Jacob has a bit of a temper. When Rachel despairs because she doesn’t bear children and cries out to her husband, Jacob, “Give me children, or I shall die” (Gen. 301), Jacob was “incensed at Rachel, and said, “Can I take the place of G-d, who has denied you fruit of the womb?” (Gen. 30:2) When Laban’s men search for the household idols Rachel stole, Jacob “became incensed and took up his grievance with Laban.” (Gen. 31:36).

Yet Rachel was the woman Jacob first loved, the woman he worked to win for 14 years when Laban substituted her sister, Leah, after the agreed upon 7 years. One can only imagine the pain Rachel felt not only from her infertility but from watching her sister bear children to the man she, Rachel, loved. Instead of responding with empathy and compassion, though, Jacob responds with impatience and anger.

His similar response to Laban looking for his lost household idols, reported with the same word, “incensed,” shows that even Jacob, the planner and strategizer, can become imprudent when angered. Not knowing that his beloved wife, Rachel, had taken them, he says, “But anyone with whom you find your gods shall not remain alive!” (Gen. 31:32). What if the idols has been found in Rachel’s possession? Of course, we learn that Rachel, like Jacob, also has the ability to be cunning, engaging in trickery for her own survival.

But perhaps the most telling scenes defining Jacob’s character are the two that involve animals: the first, at the well when Jacob meets Rebecca, and the second as Jacob evolves a plan to prevail over the trickery he anticipates from Laban with regard to dividing the flocks.

In the first scene, Jacob comes upon a well and after speaking to the shepherds whose sheep were gathered in the vicinity, he learns he has arrived at Haran, the home of his uncle, Laban. Although a newcomer to the area and therefore not familiar with local custom, when he hears that Rachel is coming, he suggests that the shepherds leave since it is still too early to round up the animal. They should water them and take them to pasture. The shepherds respond that they cannot roll the stone off the well until all flocks are rounded up. As Rachel arrives, Jacob leaps to roll the heavy stone off by himself, then kisses her and breaks into tears as he tells her he is her father’s kinsman, Rebekah’s son.

What do we make of this? It depends on how we understand the details. Jacob suggests to the shepherds that they leave — just after they point out to him that Rachel is arriving. Does he want them gone as he introduces himself to Rachel? They, too, seem to be waiting for her, planning to roll the stone off the well for their sheep and hers. And then when she does arrive, Jacob leaps to do it single-handedly. Further, when Jacob kisses Rachel, it is the only report in the entire Bible “of a man kissing a woman who is neither his mother nor his wife.” (Nahum Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary, Genesis, p. 203).

Sarna interprets the kiss innocently because Jacob already knew her to be his cousin, and I tend to share that interpretation, although it is somewhat startling in the context, especially since Jacob ultimately marries Rachel. I chose the Featured Picture that I did for this story because it communicates to me more of the idea of a humble man, a man who takes a more quiet path through the world — not a predator. In contrast to Isaac’s servant, Eliezer, who waits while Rebekah draws water for all of his camels, Jacob leaps to help Rachel. But others interpret it differently, as in this sculpture. Look at the body structure and positions. Jacob is a larger man with good muscle tone, lunging forward, suggesting that he seizes Rachel. Her position suggests that she pulls away as she turns from him and pushes him back, defending herself.

Similarly we have an ambiguous possibility in Laban’s conversation with Jacob. As Sarna suggests, when the text tells us “He told Laban all that had happened,” (Gen. 29:13), Jacob could hardly have told him that he cheated his own brother and father. On the other hand, perhaps there is a slight note of sarcasm or at least foreshadowing when Laban says, “You are truly my bone and flesh,” for they are both tricksters. But then it could just be a commitment to the bonds of kinship and all that represents.

Sarna also suggests multiple possibilities involved in the story of Jacob creating speckled and streaked goats to his advantage, including sympathetic magic or folklore and selective breeding with a smokescreen to hide his activity. Either possibility, though, communicates a central feature of Jacob’s personality and a central theme of the story: Jacob is a strategizer who even resorts to trickery to achieve G-d’s/his end; and G-d’s plan for history prevails regardless of the obstacles and the apparent relative weakness or unsuitability of the man G-d chooses to move history forward.

One more thing we learn in this parshah: the animals are incidental to the story. They are manipulated by their human stewards. There are no more snakes with minds of their own who talk back to their fellow inhabitants of the planet. It is unusual for a woman to be a shepherdess in Israel (Sarna, p. 202), a sign of Rachel’s strength and independence — or of the idea that “even a woman” rules over animals?