Commentary on Parashat Vayeshev, Genesis 37:1-40:23
In Parashat Vayeshev, Joseph, while working as a slave to the Egyptian nobleman Potiphar, is propositioned by his master’s wife. “Lie with me,” she coos — repeatedly. He consistently refuses.
It is traditional to read this as a story of our hero rising above sexual temptation, an ethical exemplar who does not give in to his baser impulses. After a rocky youth, in this moment Joseph is becoming a model of moral backbone, no longer led by his desires, but by his knowledge of what is right.
But this view of the story leaves out something important. Joseph is a slave and therefore not only subject to punishment for sleeping with his master’s wife, but also liable for not listening to his mistress. He’s proverbially damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t. From the moment Potiphar’s wife invited him to bed, Joseph was doomed. Why not, he might have reasoned, simply accede to her request and try to earn protection from her that way? Looking at it this way, we see more than a simple story of temptation resisted. We see a character trying to make sense of their moral values in a dangerous situation.
There’s a midrash that heightens this reading. In Genesis 39:12, we read that Potiphar’s wife, frustrated by Joseph’s constant rejection, grabbed his tunic and demanded that he sleep with her. A volatile situation has now become truly dangerous, and her advances have become physical. A sexual assault is in progress. The Talmud (Sotah 36b) records that, at the very moment Potiphar’s wife grabbed Joseph’s tunic, “the image of his father appeared to him in the window.”
Help us keep Jewish knowledge accessible to millions of people around the world.
Your donation to My Jewish Learning fuels endless journeys of Jewish discovery. With your help, My Jewish Learning can continue to provide nonstop opportunities for learning, connection and growth.
If we read this as a simple story of temptation resisted, the midrash here suggests that the vision of his father strengthens Joseph to refuse the advances of Potiphar’s wife. Indeed, this is the direction the rest of the talmudic text takes. But we can also read this midrash differently, in a way that increases our empathy with Joseph.
Joseph’s father Jacob, who loved him, favored him and from whom he was violently torn, was a source of security and affirmation. Perhaps seeing his father was not simply a reminder of patriarchal authority and traditional moral values, but much-needed spiritual succor for a young man alienated, lonely and afraid. Jacob’s face in the window might have bolstered Joseph’s confidence. In two weeks’ time, in Parashat Vayigash, we will be reminded of what Jacob means to Joseph. When he is finally reunited with his brothers, Joseph poignantly asks: “Is my father still alive?” Even after decades apart, his father is an emotionally central person for him.
When we read the midrash this way, we see that morality does not have to depend on the imagined surveillance of a distant source of authority. It can be based instead on the presence of love, compassion and meaning. If we want people to behave well, we should help them to feel safe, connected and accountable to each other.
This applies theologically, as well. We lose something if we imagine God as simply the Great Surveiller. If we instead understand ourselves in a relationship — a covenant, or brit — with God, it can be that loving relationship that inspires our behavior. In a world where God is often hidden from us, those moments we sense God peering in at the window can be powerful.
