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Why Didn't He Call?

Why Didn't He Call?

Postby JRosemary » January 10th, 2008, 11:20 pm

In the Jewish liturgical year, December is usually the time for the 'Joseph' Torah portions. These four portions begin with Genesis 37:1 and go to the end of that book. So this question pops up every December in the Torah study at my synagogue:

Why didn't Joseph ever let his father know that he was alive and ok? Didn't he know what Jacob must have suffered, believing him dead or missing?

(I'm not worried about whether Joseph is an historical figure or a mythical figure--although that's an interesting question in its own right. But either way this question doesn't change.)

Joseph had plenty of opportunities to send word to Jacob. For a while he was the chief slave in Potiphar's household. He held considerable power there--Potiphar let him run everything--so he could have sent a messenger back to Canaan. Later Joseph ends up, essentially, as the Minister of Agriculture for Pharoh. Once again--plenty of opportunity to contact the old man back in Canaan.

Torah commentators have put forth a number of possibilities, but only one sounds right to me. It's not a pleasant possibility, though:

Joseph feared that his father had been 'in' on his brothers' plan. He believed that his father had sent him to check up on his brothers knowing that they meant to do away with him.

How could Joseph have thought such a thing? Well, after he told his father his second dream, Jacob rebuked him--and we can assume that Joseph, the favorite, wasn't used to being scolded by Jacob. Jacob was troubled by the dream and angry that Joseph dared to suggest that his parents would end up bowing before him.

On the other hand, Jacob hadn't plotted against his oldest boy Reuben--even after he found out that Reuben was sleeping with his step-mother Bilhah. (That must have been an awkward family moment--regardless of whether Reuben was in love, in lust or merely making a political move with his father's concubine to seal his heirship, according to the rules of his day.) I'd think that if Jacob was going to plot against a son, that would have been the time. But perhaps Joseph thought that his dream was even more of a challenge to Jacob.

Here's another possibility: Joseph couldn't imagine explaining what happened to his father. Some commentators speculate that Joseph spent as little time as possible with Jacob after the family was reunited for that very reason. Joseph avoided Jacob because he didn't want to tell Jacob how he ended up in Egypt to begin with. (Apparently Joseph's brothers never got around to telling Jacob themselves...)

But if that were the case, I'd think Joseph would have checked up on Jacob. He could have sent people to make inquiries in Hebron, after all--especially once the famine started. But the narrative leaves you with the impression that he never did so. Maybe that's why he plagued his brothers with questions when they turned up in Egypt. (Before he revealed his identity to them, I mean.)

Or here's another possibility: Was Joseph just too shell-shocked to deal with the whole issue of his family? Maybe he couldn't even bear to think about them after the whole 'throw him in a pit and sell him into slavery' bit.

Here are a few other questions that pop up in the Joseph narratives:

What's this about Joseph's mother being in the second dream (symbolically), bowing down before Joseph along with Jacob? Rachel was already dead. Is the text referring to Bilhah, Joseph's stepmother and his mother's former maidservant? (After Rachel's death, she's called Jacob's wife.)

Are Potiphar and Potiphera the same person? The Talmud says yes: these are just variations on the same name. So Potiphar begins as Joseph's master and ends up as Joseph's father-in-law.

Did Potiphar believe his wife's accussations against Joseph? He put Joseph in prison for more than two years, so the answer would seem obvious. But if he believed that Joseph tried to rape his wife, why didn't he execute Joseph? Instead he put Joseph in a high-end prison on his own property that seemed to be reserved for political prisoners. Psalm 105 says Joseph had to wear chains--but the narrative doesn't suggest that. (I think the Psalmist might have taken some creative license.) So perhaps some part of Potiphar suspected that his wife was lying...and that explains why Joseph had a relatively easy time of it in prison.

Oh...and who is crying on whose neck after Jacob and Joseph are reunited? (See Genesis 46:29.) It could be either Jacob or Joseph in tears--the Hebrew is ambiguous. And commentators are split down the middle.

So...what do you think?
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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby Tuke » January 11th, 2008, 3:56 am

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby JRosemary » January 11th, 2008, 4:26 am

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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby Tuke » January 11th, 2008, 6:09 am

Last edited by Tuke on January 11th, 2008, 7:36 am, edited 3 times in total.
"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby Tuke » January 11th, 2008, 6:19 am

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby JRosemary » January 11th, 2008, 6:32 am

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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby Tuke » January 11th, 2008, 7:07 am

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby girlfreddy » January 11th, 2008, 7:17 am

How would telling people to be nice to one another get a man crucified? What government would execute Mister Rogers or Captain Kangaroo?
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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby JRosemary » January 11th, 2008, 12:54 pm

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Re: Why Didn't He Call?

Postby JRosemary » January 11th, 2008, 12:59 pm

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Postby JRosemary » January 11th, 2008, 9:11 pm

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Postby Stanley Anderson » January 11th, 2008, 9:27 pm

…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.
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Postby girlfreddy » January 11th, 2008, 9:52 pm

How would telling people to be nice to one another get a man crucified? What government would execute Mister Rogers or Captain Kangaroo?
Philip Yancey

http://girlfreddy.wordpress.com/
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Postby Tuke » January 12th, 2008, 7:13 pm

Last edited by Tuke on January 13th, 2008, 9:35 am, edited 2 times in total.
"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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Postby Tuke » January 12th, 2008, 7:29 pm

"The 'great golden chain of Concord' has united the whole of Edmund Spenser's world.... Nothing is repressed; nothing is insubordinate. To read him is to grow in mental health." The Allegory Of Love (Faerie Queene)

2 Corinthians IV.17 The Weight of Glory
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