From TorahVort.com
Vayeshev
The reading starts as Yaakov moved in to the land of Canaan. His favorite son, Yosef, brought him false reports about his brothers, accusing his brothers of various misdeeds. This instituted Lashon Hara on his part and also Yosef failed to judge his brothers favorably. The Talmud teaches us that the way one judges an individual, Hashem will judge the other person in retribution. Giving the benefit of the doubt in an average case is always good as Hashem will in turn give that person the benefit of the doubt in effect. Yaakov made Yosef a multi-colored coat of woolen strips. This in turn triggered off further hatred and jealously by the other brothers. Yosef furthermore increased his brothers’ jealousy by relating prophetic dreams of sheaves of wheat bowing to his sheaf, and of the sun, moon and stars bowing to him, signifying that all his family will appoint him king. The brothers really believed that Yosef was following the footsteps of their wicked ancestors, Eisav and Ishmael and believed he was potentially a big problem in the family and resolved to execute him. When Yosef came to Shechem at a later date to find his brothers at work, the brothers saw him from a far and relented and decided to kill him. However Reuven pleaded with them, to throw him into a pit instead, thus saving his life. In fact Reuven was in a period of repenting after a major transgression he performed in previous years, and many people use him as the benchmark on how an individual should repent if transgressing, he was sincere and repented out of love of Hashem not fear. Yehuda then persuaded the brothers to take Yosef out of the pit and sell him to a caravan of passing Ishmaelites, selling him off as a slave. Reuven returned shortly after, to find the pit empty and then rended his clothes, believing Yosef was dead. The brothers soak Yosef’s multi colored tunic in goat’s blood and showed it to Yaakov, who assumed that Yosef has been killed by a wild beast. Yaakov was absolutely distraught. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Yosef had been sold to a man named Potiphar, Pharaoh’s Chamberlain of the Butchers. The Torah reading then extraordinarily changes its theme and concentrates on Yehuda’s journey as he moves away from his family; Yehuda married and had three sons. His eldest son, Er died as punishment for preventing his wife Tamar from becoming pregnant. Onan, Yehuda’s second son, then married Tamar by levirate marriage (yibum). He was also punished in similar circumstances. Then as Yehuda’s wife died, Tamar resolved to have children through Yehuda, as at this point she couldn’t marry anyone else as Yehudah still had a young son, whom he hadn’t given to Tamar to marry. The union between Yehudah and Tamar actually founded the Davidic line culminating in the Messiah. Tamar gave birth to a pair of twins, Peretz and Zerach. Meanwhile, Yosef rose to power in the house of his Egyptian master, Potiphar. His extreme beauty attracted the unwanted advances of his master’s wife. She continuously harassed Yosef, and he kept rejecting her. Enraged by his rejections, she accused Yosef of attempting to seduce her, and Potiphar in turn imprisoned him. Yosef then made a huge in impact in prison, changing many of the prisoners lives and became a popular figure there. In the tenth year of his stay, Yosef successfully predicted the outcome of the dream of Pharaoh’s Butler, who was reinstated to his position as Butler, giving a favorable interpretation. However, the dream of Pharaoh’s baker, Had a less favorable interpretation, resulting in the baker being executed. Due to his successful interpretation of the butler’s dream he requested him to inform his expertise of dream interpreting to Pharaoh, who in turn would release him from Prison, however due to his great trust in the butler, Hashem extended his prison tenure by another two years, totaling his prison sentence to 12 years, a year for each of his brothers he slandered and the two extra years for having a lack of faith in Hashem. The Haftorah for this weeks reading is taken from the book of Amos, chapters 2 and 3 respectively. I would like to dedicate this Dvar Torah to the Yahrzeit of my Uncle, ‘Dovid Ben Shalom Shlomo.’ Hope you all have a great Chanukah by Michael Zaroovabeli learning at Ohr Sameach yeshiva in Israel.
