Commentary for Genesis 38:1

ויהי בעת ההוא AND IT CAME TO PASS AT THAT TIME — Why is this section placed here thus interrupting the section dealing with the history of Joseph? To teach that his brothers degraded him from his high position. When they saw their father’s grief they said, “You told us to sell him: if you had told us to send him back to his father we would also have obeyed you” (Genesis Rabbah 85:2).

ויהי בעת ההיא, והמדנים מכרו אותו, [the Torah contrasts the facts with the perception of the facts, i.e. Joseph was alive but the Midianites had sold him. I believe that this is why the author quotes the beginning of this verse without elaborating on it at all. He leaves it to our imagination to fill in this next item in the tragic chain of errors beginning with the fact that Yitzchok had shown more love for Esau. Ed.] at about the same time when Joseph was sold to Egypt at the suggestion of Yehudah who had proposed this instead of bringing him back to his father and had thereby bereaved his father, Yehudah reaped some of the fruit of his ill advised plans, in that the way was paved for him to be bereaved of two of his own sons in due course.

38.1. וירד יהודה מאת אחיו, Yehudah descended and turned from his brothers, etc. Our sages in Sotah 13 say that the brothers demoted him. Ibn Ezra says that anyone who comes from the northern part of the world to the South is considered as "descending." What he said is correct; it does not apply here, however, because then the Torah need not have added: "from his brothers." This clearly indicates that Yehudah's descent, i.e. demotion, was caused by his brothers. It also says: ויט עד איש, "he turned to a certain person, etc." Our sages are quite correct when they interpret the word וירד as a moral descent and the words ויט, etc., are integral to the verse.

ויהי בעת ההיא וירד יהודה, after Joseph had been sold. The fact that the Torah speaks of וירד, “he descended,” seems to imply that Dotan was situated at a much higher elevation than Adulam. According to a Midrash quoted by Rashi, the word וירד does not refer to a physical descent but to the brothers having demoted Yehudah from his role of their leader as they held him responsible for the debacle with Joseph. They had repented their part in the whole episode, and they accused Yehudah of not having been firm enough. Just as they had listened to him when he told them not to kill Joseph, they claimed that they would have listened to him if he had suggested that they should bring him back to their father. In Bereshit Rabbah 85,2 the whole paragraph commencing with וירד יהודה until the beginning of chapter 39 is considered as not relevant to the story, at least not at this point. Why then did the Torah insert this episode here thereby spoiling our concentration on what would happen to Joseph? According to Rabbi Eliezer the Torah wanted to create a conceptual link between one “descent,” and another “descent.” Rabbi Yochanan justifies the “interruption,” by linking one הכר נא “please identify!” to another הכר נא. Yehudah had deceived his father with these words, whereas Tamar reminded Yehudah that he had been deceived by her and that his assumption that she was a harlot who had become pregnant by her customer was totally unfounded.(compare 37,2 and 38,25 respectively)

ויהי בעת ההיא,,”It was at that time,” according to Rashi the reason why the Torah introduces this paragraph with these words is to tell us that Yehudah’s demotion from his position of leadership of the brothers and his moving away from them was because he had proposed the sale of Joseph to Egypt. Many commentators challenge Rashi’s commentary saying that 22 years elapsed from the sale of Joseph to Egypt to the eventual reunion of the family, seeing that Joseph was 17 when he was sold and 39 when the brothers and his father moved to Egypt. Seeing that only so few years had elapsed, how could Yehudah have married, sired 3 sons, married off two of them, and have married Tamar and become the father of Zerach and Peretz, and Peretz siring Chetzron and Chamul, all within such a short space of time? [seeing the last two grandsons of Yehudah are numbered among the seventy members of Yaakov’s familty who left Canaan for Egypt (46,12)? Ed] Ibn Ezra writes that what is related here occurred before the sale of Joseph, and that the story was interrupted in order to contrast the story of Yehudah and Tamar with that of Joseph and the wife of Potiphar. [how Joseph could control his libido, whereas Yehudah could not.]

In dieser Entfernung Judas von seinen Brüdern dürfen wir das Symptom einer Spannung oder Spaltung erkennen, die denn doch in Folge der an Josef verübten Tat unter den Brüdern entstanden, und sich am entschiedensten gegen Juda richtete, unter dessen, als des, wie es scheint, Einflußreichsten, Vorschlag und Leitung sich der traurige Vorgang vollzogen hatte. Schwer übrigens sehen wir das Unrecht in Judas eigenem Familienkreise gebüßt. Frau und Söhne starben, und was noch herber ist, die Söhne starben, weil sie vor Gottes Augen schlecht gewesen.

וירד יהודה, “Yehudah descended;” our sages explained that this choice of words by the Torah means that Yehudah’s brothers, who up until then had considered him as their leader and spokesman, demoted him on account of the sale of their brother Joseph and the anguish this had caused their father. (B’reshit Rabbah, 85,1) Ibn Ezra questioned this, seeing that only twenty two years elapsed between the sale of Joseph and the reunification of the brothers with him and the family’s moving to Egypt. We know that Joseph had been seventeen years old when he had been sold; we also know that he was thirty years old when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream; we further know that the family descended to Egypt in the second year of the famine, i.e. nine years after Joseph had been appointed viceroy of Egypt. If you count the years from the time Yehudah got married to the daughter of the man described earlier until the descent of the whole family with Yehudah at their head more than twenty two years must have passed. If we count a year each for the time Yehudah’s wife was pregnant with each of her three sons, and add the years after Onan’s death during which Shelah grew to maturity, i.e. was old enough to get married, you already have accounted for 16 years. Add a year till Peretz could have been born and you have accounted for already 17 years. Even if you were to assume that Peretz was no more than 7 years old when he became the father of Chetzron and another year for the birth of his brother Chamul, all of whom are listed in Genesis chapter 46 as having come to Egypt with Yaakov and Yehudah, you already have accounted for 25 years not 22. One would have to say that when Shelah was described as having “grown” up, the Torah refers to his having become 9 years old, at which age it is possible to produce semen fit to sire a child. We can find support for this from the Talmud, tractate Niddah, folio 45, where the Mishnah discusses a nine year old who performed the levirate marriage ceremony on his sister-in-law whose husband had died without having had any children, that he cannot give such a sister-in-law a decree of divorce until he reaches the age of 13, as a minor cannot divorce his wife. Moreover, the original marriage of his deceased brother had been a marriage in the full sense of the word, and what he did was only to substitute for his deceased brother, so that any divorce cannot be less complete than that. According to an opinion quoted in the Talmud tractate Sanhedrin, folio 69, there were periods in former eras when seven year old males were able to impregnate females with their semen.

וירד יהודה מאת אחיו, “Yehudah separated from his brothers;” he could not bear watching the anguish of his father. Rashi here writes that the word וירד, which means: “he descended,” means that he had been deposed from his position of being the brothers’ spokesman and leader by the other brothers. He derives this from the expression: מאת, understanding the meaning of that word as being: על ידי, “through the action of;”You could well ask that seeing that it took only 22 years until the brothers under the leadership of Yehudah went down to Egypt in order to buy grain, how was it possible that during these few years not only did Bat Shua, Yehudah’s wife bear him three sons, Er, Onan, and Shelah, but that two of them had already become married? And a few years after the death of Onan, Yehudah sired twins from his daughterinlaw Tamar, all before the descent of the brothers to Egypt for the first time? The answer to such questions is that in those times girls and boys were able to both sire and conceive and give birth already at the age of seven. According to a historical text accepted by our sages as accurate and reliable, called seder olam, Er, Yehudah’s oldest was born approximately a year after the sale of Joseph. Bat Shua bore Yehudah two more sons in short order, before she died (verse 12). When Er was seven years old he married Tamar. When he died and married Onan, and Onan died, Shelah was still too young to marry. Tamar remained a widow in the house of Yehudah for a year before returning to her mother’s home. When two or three more years had passed and she was not allowed to marry Shelah, she took matters into her own hands and contrived to become pregnant from a member of Yaakov’s family, her dearest desire, i.e. she became pregnant by her fatherinlaw, Yehudah. All of this had only taken about 19 years after Yehudah had been deposed and moved away from his brothers. In the meantime, Peretz, one of the twins Tamar had born to Yehudah had married at the age of seven and had himself become a father of Chetzron and Chamul, (Genesis 46,12) all before Yaakov and his family moved down to Egypt after the brothers’ second trip there. By the time Chetzron and Chamul came to Egypt, only twenty two years had elapsed since the sale of Joseph.[While this is interesting, this Editor cannot reconcile it with G-d having punished both Er and Onan at the tender age of 7 or eight years, for having deliberately failed to produce children (38,7 and 10) Where is the source for the culpability of such young children anywhere? Ed.]

ויט AND HE TURNED away from his brothers.

ויט עד איש עדולמי, he pitched his tent and let his flock graze in the proximity of this town Adulam; eventually he struck up a friendship with the man חירם described in our verse.

Wenn übrigens Judas Vergehen mit Thamar einerseits auch hier ein Moment offenbart, welches dem sittigenden Einfluss des künftigen Gottesgesetzes vorbehalten blieb, so sehen wir doch eben gleichzeitig auch ihn nur in einer Monogamie leben, sehen ihn zu dieser Abirrung nur nach dem Tode seiner Frau kommen, und sehen endlich bereits vor der Gesetzgebung eine Institution durch die Sitte in Jakobs Hause geheiligt, die durch und durch auf dem sittlichsten Begriffe der Ehe und des Familienlebens zu beruhen scheint.

עד איש עדלמי UNTO A CERTAIN ADULLAMITE — he entered into a business-partnership with him.

Dass die Ehe ihren sittlichen Charakter nur in ihrem Endziel, der Erzeugung und Heranziehung der Kinder (פרו ורב) findet; dass eine Ehe, die dieses Ziel nicht erreicht, wesentlich in ihrem sittlichen Charakter getrübt erscheint; dass ferner der Begriff eines Familienkreises, d. i, eines Vaterhauses mit den ihm entstammenden Zweigen zusammen eine spezifische Individualität am Baume der Menschheit, eine charakteristisch einheitliche moralische Person dergestalt bilde, das alle in ihm und aus ihm entstehenden Häuser an dem Ausbau eines bestimmten Grundtypus menschlicher Geistigkeit und Gesittung gemeinschaftlich arbeiten, also, dass, wenn eine Ehe in eben diesem ihrem höchsten sittlichen Endzweck, dem Fortbau des Menschengeschlechtes in einer bestimmten durch die Familieneigentümlichkeit gegebenen Richtung, mit dem kinderlosen Tode eines Gliedes mangelhaft geblieben, dieser sittliche Charaktermangel der Ehe durch Fortsetzung derselben mit der hinterbliebenen Wittwe von einem der nächsten Familienglieder nachträglich ergänzt werden kann und soll: diese, den höchsten sittlichen Charakter der Ehe und die höchste sittliche Dignität der Familie aussprechenden Gedanken scheinen der großen Institution des Jibbum zu Grunde zu liegen, der wir schon hier, in dieser frühesten Zeit des Jakobshauses, in vollster Geltung begegnen. Obgleich Witwe des Verstorbenen, erscheint Thamar als die noch Angetraute des überlebenden Hauses (זיקה) und zwar in solcher Schärfe, dass ihr vermeintliches Vergehen (Raw Hirsch on Genesis 38: 24) als Ehebruch geahndet werden soll, in Beziehung zu einem nächsten Familiengliede aber so sehr das ursprünglich durch den Verstorbenen geknüpfte Eheband fortdauert, dass es zur Fortsetzung derselben keiner besonderen Anehelichung bedarf, sondern dieselbe sich einfach vollzieht: הבא על יבמתו בין בשוגג וכו׳ קנה Jebamoth 43 b.; ein Verhältnis, das zur gerechten Würdigung Thamars nicht unberücksichtigt bleiben dürfte. — Ob übrigens die Wurzel יבם ihre Grundbedeutung in der Lautverwandtschaft mit קום (vergl. z. B. קול יבל — יין יון גפן, —) findet, und demgemäß יַבֵם der Grundbedeutung nach so viel als קַיֵם, aufrecht halten, aufrichten, wäre — הקם זרע לאחיו — wollen wir nur als eine Möglichkeit berühren.